This is an English translation of an article published in Nikkan San on Aug 6th, 2020, as a part of my column, âThe Way of the Pianist.
The phrase âhistory is written by the victorsâ rang in my ears during a recent conversation with a friend. He asserted that history, as a narrative, needed simplicity; and that its need for simplicity prohibited it from embracing all perspectives and that there will always be the voiceless. In reaction, I thought that may be one of the powers of culture, art and creativity was to give voice to the voiceless.
             After the atomic bombs, rumors circulated that Hiroshima and Nagasaki will not see any plants grow for the next seventy-five years. That 75th year will come this August 6th for Hiroshima, and August 9th for Nagasaki. While the post-WWII recoveries in these cities have been remarkable, there are some that argue that the traumas of the war and the post-war experience still has a firm grip on Japan, even to this day. I only learned recently of the post-war censorship and propaganda enforced by MacArthur. For example, the US wanted the power of the blast to be known to the world but not the human sufferings it had caused. The Time Magazine published John Hersey’s Hiroshima – the tales of six survivors in Hiroshima – all at once, because it feared censorship after the first installment had it stuck to its initial plan of six-episode series. Survivors themselves relayed their own experience through graphic novels, like Barefoot Gen, picture books, paintings, short stories, etc. The voiceless persisted in their faith that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Beethoven’s Vienna was also under censorship. Instrumental music, like sonatas and symphonies, blossomed during this time period, partially because textless music remained outside of the censorship for the most part.
             Whether there is a systematic censorship by the authority or not, our brain tends to simplify the world around us so that it fits our biased expectations. However, our creativity, culture and the arts intrigue us to what is outside of our expectations, and alert us to the subtlest of our sensory experience and intuitions. I have faith in the power of music to serve as a gateway for us to venture out of our comfort zones with curiosity and wonder, to live and be better.