The era of Akihito, the peaceful emperor who gives the throne for the first time in 200 years – 26/04/2019

By María Roldán, Tokyo

The city of Japan you will see for the first time in over 200 years as an emperor is replaced in life. It is that Akihito will abdicate on April 30 after three decades on the throne marked by his pacifism and his attempt to connect with his people.

An era of peace culminates marked by the discretion of the emperor and the modernization of the country, but also by the stigmatization of natural disasters.

The 85-year-old Japanese ruler will abdicate in his firstborn, the Crown Prince Naruhito, 59 years old two years and nine months after expressing an unusual television message on August 8, 2016 your desire to abdicateworried about his advanced age and his health.

Aspect fragile and smiling, Akihito underwent coronary bypbad surgery in 2012 and 2003 Prostate cancer

In 2008 he suffered hemorrhage in the stomach the same disease that in 1989 cost the life of Hirohito, father of 87, who after the defeat of Japan during the Second World War in 1945 he renounced the divine character this characterized his position.

Born on December 23, 1933 and educated by strict imperial preceptors, Akihito takes refuge in the conflict. a child in the mountains of Nikko and when, in 1952, he was proclaimed crown prince of Japan as the only son of the emperor, he already knew that his role would be limited to representation tasks.

The Japanese Constitution, in force since 1947, in full occupation of the country by the United States, states that the emperor it's a "symbol of the state and the unity of the people ", and he has a role to play purely ceremonial, but despite the formal and legal limitations, Akihito has always shown his desire to connect with his people.

"Akihito is a revolutionary compared to other emperors … He turned this symbol into a human being," Nikkei Makoto Inoue, a journalist who has been covering information about the imperial family from a press conference, said at a press conference. 14 years old. .

During his reign, Akihito "printed a stamp other than the role of the emperor. He did not want to be treated as a superior, but to be close to people. This human contact was a wonderful surprise for the Japanese people, "said Inoue.

Since he was appointed emperor after the death of his father on January 7, 1989, Akihito attempted, in his interventions, to honor the name of his era. "Heisei"and ask for peacekeeping.

His pronounced pacifist tone was particularly evident in 2015, when the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and showed his remorse for the aggressions of the Japanese Imperial Army during the competition.

The emperor then embarked on a "peace tour" to honor victims in Japan-occupied territories such as Saipan, Palau and the Philippines, clearly distancing himself from the revisionist attitude of the government. current Conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Akihito was the first emperor to ascend the throne without the divine halo historically characteristic of his predecessors. It's a transgressive character the oldest ruling dynasty in the world.

He started breaking mold when, in 1959, he became the first Japanese heir marry a plebeian, The Empress Michiko, whom he met play tennis, one of his great pbadions.

In addition, he decided to personally educate his three children, to travel on a commercial plane, to visit China (a country also invaded by his father) or to meet a Pope, John Paul II.

Expert known in the scientific study of the goby, Akihito is also a cello interpreter and author of poems waka (Japanese poetry) inspired by the name of the new era that will begin May 1 st "Reiwa" (beautiful harmony).

Akihito, who will be "emperor emeritus" after having abdicated, is the first ruler of the country to surrender the throne since Kokaku in 1817.

Despite more than two centuries since, abdication is a common practice in the history of Japan, where almost half of the 125 occupants of the Chrysanthemum Trill have been successful in life.

Natural disasters

At the very beginning, when Akihito left to see his vanguard position, there was the first big disaster during his reign: the Great Hanshin Earthquake, January 17, 1995 he shook the city of Kobe and its surroundings, killing more than 6,400 people, 40,000 injured and more than 300,000 evacuees.

This earthquake would be followed more calamities, both natural and human, including the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by the Supreme Truth sect in March 1995, in which 6,300 poisoned people results, 13 died and dozens remained in an almost vegetative state, upsetting the whole country.

In July of the year 2000 the eruption of a volcano on the island of Miyake, south of Tokyo, forced to evacuate its inhabitants for more than four years. In 2015, they would leave it temporarily for another.

Characterized by his utmost discretion, Akihito starred in an unusual message addressed to the nation as a result of one of Japan's worst tragedies, the great Tohoku earthquake (Northeast) and the tsunami of March 11, 2011, which left more than 18,000 dead and missing and triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident.

A few days later, Akihito visited his wife, an evacuation center in the Tokyo area, as he did with the survivors of the Kobe earthquake in 1995.

This "human touch" that Akihito has always tried to make "It was a wonderful surprise for the Japanese people," The reporter Makoto Inoue said at a recent press conference on the figure of the emperor.

Disasters continued in parallel with the modernization of Japan.

In September 2014, more than fifty people died from the Ontake volcano eruption, the worst volcanic catastrophe of the last seven decades in the country. The earthquakes of Kumamoto in 2016 and Hokkaido in 2018 are the most recent.

This is perhaps why most Japanese have chosen the Japanese concept of "catastrophe, disaster" as the one that best summarizes the three decades of the "Heisei" era.

"I can not forget the natural disasters that have struck more frequently than in previous years," he said in December: torrential rains, earthquakes and typhoons have caused the death of many people and the loss of many people. other. Sovereign in his last birthday message before abdicating.

The only message that had hitherto led the nation was in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and deadly tsunami.

Akihito was the 125th Emperor of Japan. During his 30 years on the throne, he lived with 17 prime ministers and 25 governments.

EFE

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