What I feel this year is the confirmation that even if you pray for peace, wars still happen. Thinking that this gives no solace to those who died in war, besides praying, we really need to update our very "way of thinking about things."
Politicians start wars, not citizens. Politicians use every trick in the book, sweet talk, and cunning logic and concepts to justify their military actions.
So... well, there are various values, but what surprised me this year is that I felt there are quite a few people who blindly worship 'politicians'. Isn't excessive 'worship of the powerful' itself a democratic cult? These people would easily support politicians who start wars. They might not even realize it if their own children go to the battlefield and they see piles of corpses and their homes burned down. At worst, I sincerely wish these citizens and politicians would just fight wars amongst themselves, but it seems that's not how it works...
And about nuclear bombs. For a long time, there's been the idea of maintaining peace by having nuclear weapons if a country has them, but isn't that idea already outdated? I think so. If we gathered intelligent people from around the world, couldn't they come up with a solution or a new ideology? Couldn't we gather people with funds and create a new concept of peace, or a think tank for peacebuilding?
That's why I feel a sense of incongruity with the common debates in the streets about whether or not to have nuclear weapons, or about fiercely protecting Article 9 of the Constitution. I want to believe that there isn't just one way to create peace, right? Let's think about that! Can't we do it with some new thinking that transcends past concepts... probably. Am I wrong...?
(Even if I concede and understand the balance of nuclear powers) What if these politicians don't know how to use nuclear weapons and are just idiots? We need to think about that. They can't even properly handle disasters or epidemics in their own country, and they're bad at negotiations and diplomacy with foreign countries using just their 'mouths'. Weapons? Nuclear weapons? It's 1000 years too early. It's just dangerous.
Anyway, with self-reflection in mind, I think we shouldn't hold on to various "old" things. People who clutch onto old things saying, "Because that's how it's always been!" will just plow ahead with notions like "efforts for the country" or "to protect democracy and freedom," without even knowing what those words actually mean. It's dangerous—this kind of approach.
Since the "present" is what matters, we need to update various things in a context suited to the "present." We need policies where, if you ask WHY?, there is an answer there. In any case, citizens should not be naive or insensitive, especially toward current politicians and the government. It's all about questioning things.
PS. When I was little, I often read Keiji Nakazawa's manga at the library. I read Barefoot Gen over and over until it fell apart—read it enough to understand the Hiroshima dialect. "Ho-jakee." From the bottom of my heart, I truly believe war must never happen.