Speech Text

Congratulations to all of you who are celebrating your graduation here today. My warm wishes go to all your family members as well. Many of you graduating today entered Keio at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020. Since then, you have faced many difficulties, forgoing an entrance ceremony and making the shift to online classes which were delayed from the original schedule. However, after you entered your second year, vaccines became available, and we were able to improve our situation and even hold a special gathering here at Hiyoshi Memorial Hall for students admitted in the 2020 academic year. Today, we celebrate your commencement ceremony at this hall again, and while the number of attendees may be limited, we are happy that your families are also able to join us today on the hilltop of Hiyoshi Campus. I would like to express my appreciation for your patience and hard work, your families’ understanding through these challenges, and, as someone who understands first-hand how hard my fellow faculty and staff members have worked to get to this point, I am overflowing with gratitude.

For this commencement ceremony, I would like to review "The Mission of Keio University" with you all. It reads as follows:

"Keio Gijuku is more than a mere place for academic pursuit. Its mission is to be a constant source of honorable character and a paragon of intellect and morals for the entire nation; and for each member to apply this spirit to elucidate the essence of family, society, and nation. They will not only articulate this essence in words, but also demonstrate it in their actions, and by doing so make Keio a leader of society."

These words express the reason every one of you has persevered in your studies, poured your heart into extracurricular activities, and developed lifelong friends at Keio University—namely, you aspire to become "leaders of all society." The word "gijuku" of Keio Gijuku is a translation of the British model of a "public school." This school is precisely that, a gathering place for students with high aspirations to improve the public sphere. Maintaining these ambitions and continuing to pursue your ideals is no easy matter. Every human being, no matter who they are, has value. This is precisely why the dreams and dignity of the individuals here are the most precious things in human society. This is the Keio spirit of independence and self-respect. Constructing a foundation based on the individual's existential value is the very definition of pursuing the values of democracy. When you hear the word "leader," you may imagine an individual in a special position of power. However, that is not how we think about things at Keio. Rather, the true leaders are groups of people in various contexts—family, work, society at large—who strive together as a team to move us in the right direction. Today I hope that all of you who are graduating today, no matter what job or role you will take up in the future, will fulfill your role in building a better society as leaders of independence and self-respect in your respective positions.

For most of you here today, two years ago in April you were transitioning into your third year. At that time, I participated in a project run by the Hiyoshi Media Center (Hiyoshi Library) that introduces books recommended by Keio faculty members. One of the ten books I chose to introduce was From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and reporter for the New York Times. It has also been translated and published in Japanese. The book gives a compassionate account of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the resulting large number of Palestinian refugees, as well as the turmoil in the region following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I was struck by the complexity of racial and religious relations in Israel and the surrounding areas, as well as the social upheaval brought about by the involvement of the United States, Europe, and Middle Eastern countries. I came across this book more than thirty years ago, when I was a fresh college graduate like the rest of you. Since then, it was my dream to one day meet and talk with Thomas Friedman in person. That dream finally came true this past January at the World Economic Forum in Davos. To digress for a moment, I know that you all have your own dreams right now. It may take thirty years or more, but I encourage you to look forward to seeing more and more of them come to fruition over time.

Now back to my conversation with Friedman at Davos. Friedman shared both the happiest and the most disappointing events that have happened in the world during his career as a reporter.

The happiest moment for him was the creation of the European Union. The EU was founded in November 1993 in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty. The treaty allowed for economic and monetary integration among member states, established a common foreign and security policy, introduced European citizenship, and developed close cooperation in justice and home affairs. To exaggerate a bit, it was like the creation of another United States. It was incredible. It is hard to imagine Japan forming a common currency or economic zone with South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, or other countries in the region. The EU was created shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Around that time in the early 1990s, there was growing anticipation that democracy and economic freedom would triumph in the international community and that social development and stability would continue indefinitely, as foretold in the bestseller by Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man. Amidst such optimism, the ambition and can-do spirit of those involved in accomplishing the seemingly impossible task of forming the EU was indescribable. They were true leaders. That level of solidarity is what we need now, in this time of division.

However, Friedman went on to describe his biggest disappointment. It was the destruction of mangroves. Mangroves are groups of plants that grow along coastlines, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions, where seawater and freshwater come together. The abundant supply of organic matter and nutrients from these waters allows for a diverse range of organisms to live among them. Mangroves also act as large sinks for carbon dioxide, filter seawater, and protect the land from oil leaks and tsunamis. They are buffers between the land and sea. However, mangroves are rapidly disappearing due to human economic activities. Friedman’s words were filled with his desire to leave behind a healthy global environment for the next generation, but his talk did not end there. Just as mangroves are a buffer between the land and sea, so is the media meant to serve as a filter and buffer zone between the political and public spheres, extracting facts and relaying them in an accurate and timely manner. With the advent of social media, however, politics and the public have formed a direct dialogue with one another, and because there is no filter in between, misinformation and disinformation get passed along in an instant. The general public has consequently become increasingly agitated and divided, having lost a reliable source of factual and accurate information. This loss of buffer zones and their filtering function does not pertain only to media. Buffer zones are disappearing in all aspects of society. In academia, as different fields become more specialized and segmented, collaborations between them tend to decrease. Accordingly, less research is able to give a broader perspective connecting different disciplines together. It is the elite of industry that get to decide rules and regulations, all the while doing so in the name of "global standards." As their influence grows, the gap between the weak and the strong only continues to widen. Around the world, wars and military conflicts are breaking out one after another because the presence of mediators and intermediary states that would have prevented hostilities through diplomacy—the buffer zones—has diminished. Indeed, the roles of literal and figurative mangroves have never been more critical than now, both for the conservation of the environment and for the healthy development of society.

You may think that this way of seeing things is only important at the global level, far beyond your control, but in fact, it is precisely the perspective that Japan needs. In Japan, people have traditionally valued their immediate surroundings when it comes to their conceptualization of "society." Thus, they would place importance on socializing with and helping others in their own neighborhoods and circles. For our purpose here today, I will call this type of inner-circle dynamic "ningen no kosai," or "personal interactions." Under this framework, Japanese people would tend to place little importance on associating with those outside their groups. It would not matter if someone was rude to those they don’t know because the relationship ends outside of the interaction. On the other hand, Fukuzawa observed how in Western society, strangers from different circles, companies, and communities were well connected by the same laws and ethical standards. Ultimately this brought them all together to form Western civilized society, and he called this jinkan kosai, referring to the interactions in greater society. Thus, for Fukuzawa, ningen no kosai was the interactions taking place within the immediate spheres of people who were already close with each other. In contrast, jinkan kosai was the interactions among people who didn't know each other but could nevertheless connect with each other naturally and form a healthy society. Fukuzawa went a step further, going beyond making changes within his immediate surroundings and his inner circle, and instead forming connections among villages and towns he did not know to create a civilized society and, by extension, a civilized Japan. To this end, Fukuzawa founded Keio Gijuku, the Jiji Shinpo newspaper, and the Kojunsha social club. Fukuzawa also observed how Western countries would always compete to rise to the top. The more he studied the West, the more he was able to sort out what Japan should model and what it should not model. From his observations he asked, "Is it possible for Japan to develop in its own way?" An even broader question he posed was, "Is it possible for non-Western countries to modernize?" The main purpose for this line of inquiry was to find Japanese society’s unique path of development. In the midst of globalization driven by Western countries, he sought out modernized nations from other regions to bring about true diversity in the world. In other words, you could say that Fukuzawa valued the mangroves that naturally connected various social spheres and institutions to develop society at large.

Today, we have with us alumni from the 1999 Mita-kai, who graduated twenty-five years ago. Here in the Hiyoshi Commemorative Hall they stand together with all of us to celebrate the next chapter of your lives. These alumni embody the purpose of Keio University and serve as role models for all of you graduates today. The year they graduated, in 1999, was indeed a historic one also for the creation of the Euro currency in the EU. To those of you graduating today, I hope that when you return twenty-five years from now for your homecoming, you will look back at your time here and say to yourselves, "I am truly glad that I studied at Keio University." And so, I close this speech with a request to you all, that you will join us in celebrating with our future graduates, proud that you have made Japan and the world a better place through your own efforts and your solidarity with one another over the next quarter century. Once again, congratulations on your graduation!