TOKYO - JAPANESE Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Monday stressed the need for a gentler, kinder society in his first policy speech in Parliament that was long on political beliefs, but short on specifics.
Introducing his pet philosophy of 'fraternity', he said: 'Politics should reflect the views of the weak and those in the minority.'
He vowed to create a society in which people support one another and work for mutual benefit, and even suggested that all politics could do was to get rid of excessive rules that hinder the activities of citizens and non-profit organisations.
To illustrate his 'fraternity' concept, which few Japanese reportedly understood, Mr Hatoyama on Monday recounted a conversation he had with a voter during campaigning for the August general election, which his Democratic Party of Japan won by a landslide to end more than 50 years of conservative rule.
Stumping in northern Aomori prefecture, Mr Hatoyama had met an old woman whose son committed suicide because he could not find work. 'I cannot forget the feel of that old woman's hand and the sadness in her eyes,' he said.
He also quoted celebrated physicist Albert Einstein, who once wrote: 'But without deeper reflection, one knows from daily life that one exists for other people - first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.'
wengkin@sph.com.sg
Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.
