Chapter 210
With Shigeru Ishiba winning the presidential election, I have a feeling that politics will change from what they have been until now. He was my senior at university, so I want to support him. As you all know, Keio University was founded by Mr. Yukichi Fukuzawa with the idea that "heaven does not create one person above another, nor one person below another," and is an integrated educational institution that offers everything from elementary school to university and even a business school for working adults. Since it does not have a faculty of physical education, it is at a disadvantage in team sports such as baseball and rugby compared to Waseda University. However, in individual sports, the fencing club, as seen at last month's Paris Olympics 2024, and the gymnastics club, which I belong to, have produced senior Ono Takashi, who won a gold medal in the horizontal bar at the Tokyo Olympics 1964, and recently an Olympian in the trampoline event at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016. Many of the athletes who are active in the university's athletic association are students who have been devoted to sports since kindergarten (elementary school), but there are also those who pass external exams from outside and are active as athletes, so it can be said that the school has a unique academic culture. Generally, there is a strong image that it is a school attended by the sons & daughters of wealthy families, but apart from a handful of students, it is not much different from other private and national universities. Many of the students are active in business, and Mr. Takeshi Niinami, the former president of LAWSON and current president of SUNTORY, was a senior in the gymnastics club. Having such great seniors close by motivates me to work hard. The university is also known for its strong bond among its alumni, and even though it has been 40 years since I graduated, I rushed to cheer at the All Japan Student Gymnastics Championships held in Kagoshima in the scorching heat at the end of August. It is a privilege to sing the cheer song "Wakaki-chi" (Young Blood) with current students, arm around their shoulders, and feel like I am back in my youth. Since the university has little connection to the political world, the birth of President Ishiba was an incredibly pleasant surprise. I want him to completely overturn the politics that are hereditary, where the Prime Minister himself cannot make any decisions and is simply a puppet of the heavyweights. Opinions from those around him are important, but he should carry out reforms that he believes are right. Today, there was suddenly hit with a big drop in stock prices, but in the first place, stock prices have risen too much beyond the real economy. It is right for them to fall. If rising stock prices lead to the revival of the Japanese economy and the happiness of the people, Japan would have been better a long time ago. Rather, it only creates problems such as high prices and the gap between rich and poor. We need to change politics that focuses on stock prices and create politics that improve the real economy. What politics has lacked up until now is the ability to learn. Isn't the reason for the parade of meaningless policies because verification work was neglected and responsibility was unclear? From now on, it will be important for the person who suggested it to take responsibility to the end. It will be important to clarify who proposed it and who will take responsibility for it. Everyone makes mistakes. So why did they make mistakes? Then, verification work on how to improve in the future will be important. To do this, we need an independent institution that specializes in verifying policies. The number of kindergartens and nursery schools increased with the money distributed to combat the declining birthrate, but the number of children decreased and they went bankrupt. If we do not eliminate this inconsistency, the national debt balance will only increase and the interest rate gap with overseas countries will widen further. What we need is a strong Japanese economy and a strong yen, not high stock prices. At the very least, I want them to stop the handout policies seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a junior who studied law at the same school, Keio University, I would like to support President Ishiba and return Japan to the position it should be in.
"All Japan Student Gymnastics Championships 40 years ago" from the Keio University Athletic Association‘s 1985 graduation album
September 30, 2024
On the birth of President Ishiba
