Akira Kawasaki, Part 1

Peace Boat, a bridge to the world

Akira Kawasaki (left) speaks with the mayor of Dikili, Turkey, during the round-the-world voyage with A-bomb survivors.

Akira Kawasaki

Born in 1968 in Tokyo, he is the youngest of three children. He played water polo in high school. When he was a university student, he traveled through China, the Middle East and the Caucasus region on his own. In 1991, he founded a group that opposed the Gulf War. In 1998, he became a staff member of Peace Depot and was its bureau chief from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, he became a Peace Boat Executive Committee member. He lives in Kawasaki City with his wife and 7-year-old son.

I belong to a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Peace Boat. The main work of Peace Boat is traveling the world by ship and interacting with people and NGOs in local areas where the ship docks in order to learn about issues involving peace, human rights and the environment. The chartered passenger ship sails around the world three times a year and each voyage carries more than 500 participants.

A round-the-world trip takes about 100 days; in other words, three and a half months. I'm sometimes in charge of the ship's educational program, called "Global College." Last year, 103 A-bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki took part in a voyage and they spoke about their experiences of the bombings at several ports of call.

I often travel to the ports in advance, by airplane, to help organize events before the ship arrives. This past July, we held an international conference on the peace constitution of Costa Rica when the ship stopped in Central America. Japan's constitution also renounces war and Costa Rica is well-known for its peace constitution and for the fact that it disbanded its armed forces. Alongside experts from a number of countries, we compared the peace constitutions of both Costa Rica and Japan and talked about how these constitutions might exert a wider influence in the world.

This kind of international conference requires many forms of preparation, such as deciding on the topics of discussion with our partners in the local area, inviting guests, and producing documents. Other details are important, too, like booking chartered buses, making reservations at restaurants, and ensuring that there are ample restroom facilities. It doesn't always go smoothly, either, because misunderstandings can result due to differences in language and culture. The unexpected often happens. Still, when the event is realized, I always feel fresh excitement for our work.

Some of our activities take place apart from the ship, with the aim of communicating the voice of the world's citizens to governments and the United Nations. Since Peace Boat has general consultative status with the UN, we actively take part in UN conferences. We compile documents with recommendations concerning peace and human rights, deliver presentations at the UN, and speak directly with UN ambassadors from the world's nations.

Peace Boat is involved in a wide range of issues, but I, personally, place emphasis on nuclear issues. Before I began working at Peace Boat, I researched nuclear disarmament at Peace Depot, another NGO.

About my job, people often say to me such things as: "That's important work"; "You must be good at English"; "You're lucky you can travel the world"; "Why are you in that line of work?"; and "Can you really make a living doing that?"

In fact, I'm really grateful for the fact that my work enables me to travel all over the world. I taught myself to speak English. I learned the language through experience. My first international activity was back when I was a university student. I took part in a discussion with many Asian students from peace groups. I couldn't speak English very well at the time, though, and I took them out to some bars for interaction. But I got really drunk and a student from Hong Kong kindly took care of me. Later I apologized to him for my bad behavior and expressed my appreciation for his kindness. In this way, I gradually learned to communicate in English.

I first became interested in peace issues because my father was a university professor and he was keenly involved in antinuclear activities. I heard about his activities when I was a child.

In the 1980s, when the United Nations General Assembly on Disarmament was held and the antinuclear movement rose in the world, I was in junior high. Around that time, my father took me to Hiroshima and I felt the passion of thousands of people on this issue.

I'm sure my father influenced me, but in high school, I just devoted myself to club activities and school festivals. I didn't take part in any peace activities.