Jul 8, 2008

Arther Binard


Last Sunday, I took part in a lecture event hold by left-wing group. The main lecturer was Arther Binard. I am not Communist, but I only wanted to listen to his thought. Because I read his short essay on newspaper a few times and was interested in his idea.

He in an American poet, but write a poem in Japanese. He talked about many interesting things in good Japanese. They included a Japanese famous poet "Yanagihara Byakuren"(柳原白蓮),differences between Japanese and English, the problem on Japanese Army's defense system. And they also included many problems on his native country like its heath care system, "war" on terrorism, and its invasion into other countries.

I could really enjoy his speech. But I could not know whether his offensive attitude to his country came from his real thought or his "lip-service"(リップサービス(和製英語?)) to the event holder.

I wondered if he could come back to his native country safely because he strongly criticized the USA government's policy.

After his speech, I bought his book named "出世ミミズ"(syussee mimizu) out of the hole and received his sign on it, and shook hands with him.

2 comments:

ジョン said...

Sounds like it was a fairly interesting discourse.

And actually, "lip service" is used in English too, apparently in the same way.

BK.Mitchell said...

"I wondered if he could come back to his native country safely because he strongly criticized the USA government's policy."

In the USA freedom of speech is protected by law. Also, criticizing the government policy or a person's ideas/words is not the same as attacting a person or a government. It just means that one would like the government/or a person to change. Laws can and have been changed because people lobbied against the government or protested.

So, of course I believe he can and did travel back to the states in peace. In Japan this is also possible although maybe a little more difficult.