VOX POPULI: A bleak future is not someone else's problem

When we imagine the unhappy faces of our loved ones, we sometimes find ourselves seized with vague anxiety for the future.

"When you become an adolescent/ I hope Japan will be a little better country/ After all, Japan these days is filled with blockheads and cars."

This is part of the poem "Mori no Wakaba" (Young leaves of the forest) that poet Mitsuharu Kaneko (1895-1975) dedicated to his granddaughter.

He penned it in 1967 when "traffic war" was a household term to refer to the number of horrendous traffic accidents taking place.

Cars back then were the bad guys. But if we replace "blockheads and cars" with other things, the poem's sentiment works just as well today.

Grandfathers now might choose amakudari (the practice of retired bureaucrats landing cushy jobs at entities under their jurisdiction) and wasteful budget spending or lavish handouts and debates about a tax hike.

Breaking election promises and short-lived prime ministers, or hereditary politicians and celebrity candidates may also make good choices. What is sad is that I can come up with so many.

Instead of sneering at or turning their backs on politics, it is time for voters to show their mettle to make Japan "a little better country." Campaigning for the Upper House election officially kicked off Thursday.

Many people are starting to think it is a bad idea to continue to over-issue government bonds that will have to be paid back by future generations.

Reading the public's psychology, the Democratic Party of Japan jumped on a bandwagon driven by the Liberal Democratic Party that proposed raising the consumption tax rate to 10 percent. The idea behind it is to dispel future anxieties with stronger public finances, thus encouraging personal consumption to bolster the economy.

It has been 10 months since we learned, albeit belatedly, the ABCs of democracy that a change of government is possible with our votes.

This time, voters have to decide whether to give the administration a majority in the Upper House, like we did for the Lower House last year. If we don't want to do so, to which party should we address our dissatisfaction and anxieties?

The path toward regeneration starts only when we realize that a bleak future is not someone else's problem. We must carefully examine the visions and policies presented by each party and make a wise decision after seriously thinking of them as our own problems.

After all, we Japanese turned our once war-torn country into what it is today. No way are we blockheads.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 24

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.