A First Step Toward Peace
(Original in Japanese)

Yurika Sakamoto
(Age 13, Japan)
Akada Junior High School, Higashi-Osaka

I think the act of "knowing" is very important. This is true in all situations. Consider global environmental issues arising from global warming, for example. These issues have arisen because we humans produce large quantities of greenhouse gases, but many people don't realize that they are part of the cause. However, if they could learn the real cause through the media, they could gradually try to make amends by starting with the things around them, and one day, the currently rising global temperature might just go down again.

I don't think many people know what is going on in the world today. I don't know that much myself. So I must find out what is going on where at this point in time, and what I can do to help. But I don't have enough information.

According to my observation, television programs these days deal crudely with food and try to get a laugh from mundane things. Seeing this makes me think "Couldn't they make better use of the time?" Consider the speed-eating and eating competitions popular of late, for example. They both involve a lot of food. Contestants eat up their platefuls of food, devouring them as if they were wild animals and spilling food sloppily from their mouths.

Food is readily available in Japan and easy to come by, but the same cannot be said of all countries. Right now, at this very moment, hundreds and thousands of children are dying of starvation worldwide. What would people in these poor countries think if they saw such a spectacle? If it were me, I wouldn't be able to accept the reality before my eyes.

In Japan, many people have become so affluent they have lost sight of the world around them. Most children tend to hate studying, and although there are places where children are unable to study even if they want to, there are people at my school that tear their textbooks or throw them in the dust bin. Also, it makes me really sad to see stepped-on tomato and other food squashed beyond recognition on the classroom floor after lunch. But there is nothing unusual about that. Most of these things, I believe, are influenced by the television we watch so much of.

Rather than providing difficult explanations, television programs should devise ways of attracting everyone's interest. Conveying things in a way that is easy to understand and touches people's hearts is both the role and the responsibility of the media. I would like them to give us the facts without hiding anything, good or bad. Everyone favors something that advantages them over something that disadvantages them. But if we can get beyond that and address things earnestly, things that we have been unable to see before will become visible, and we should be able to move forward. That is why media should convey what is happening in the world right now clearly, and show us everything we can possibly do.

However, no matter how hard they try to inform us, unless we are open to "learning and knowing," we will be unable to acquire enough knowledge. So perhaps they should approach the public by emphasizing the benefits to be gained by engaging in a particular kind of activity.

In this age of the Internet, a call urging people to take action may reach all corners of the world at once. If people throughout the world knew what they needed to do now and concentrated their efforts on it, things would rapidly progress in the right direction. What we must not forget under any circumstances is the will to learn the truth. Simply taking an interest can be a first step toward peace.