Rally for Palestine Support in Tokyo

I attended a rally in support of Palestine at the east exit of Shinjuku station. I felt relieved because I wondered if it was enough to just donate money or to appeal on social networking sites about the miserable situation in Palestine.

As a retired person who has entered the realm of old age, I am losing my desire to seek new social changes, but I would like to speak out as one of the 12 billion people against such unreasonable injustice. I wish Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yoshiko Yamaguchi were still alive. I also wonder what Yukio Mishima, Kenji Nakagami, and Kenzaburo Oe would have thought, said, and written had they been alive.

Why did the chorus of "Free Gaza" seem to overlap with the voice of "Free Japan" that seemed to be seething in my heart? Palestinians have been subjected to violence for more than seventy-five years, deprived of their land, homes, homeland, and even their lives. I will never forget the words of a Palestinian woman at the rally. They echoed on the cold night, saying that Gaza is called a prison without a ceiling, but it is not like that, it is a prison camp where innocent people are held captive. Palestinian men say that Israel tried to erase all of Palestinian culture and history, but it cannot take the souls of Palestinians. And today, innocent children are still being killed there. Free Palestine!