Feature: Illtyd Harrington in Japan at Kiyosumi mountain where he paid tribute to Fuji Guruji

Published: 20 January, 2011
by ILLTYD HARRINGTON

As a new dawn breaks in the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan and the events that lead to the erection of London’s peace pagoda

MARCO Polo took two years following his father and uncle as they retraced their steps to Peking and the wonders of the court of Kubla Khan. It was the 13th century. I made my 17th trip to Tokyo in 11 hours and 52 minutes. All that is required is to keep flying north, turn right at the North Pole and right again east of Vladivostok and the modern empire of Japan opens up.

Tokyo is a concrete Legoland. Not a church spire or dome or a mosque on the skyline.

From the 30th floor I looked down at the anthills which people rush to in the morning, having abandoned ancient calligraphy for the developing computer world. Great oblong boxes with hidden windows keep the workforce in place.

No sign of Madam Butterfly here although Love hotels and erotic rooms are here to be hired by the hour for the weary traveller seeking sexual relief.

I was in Japan to mark the 27th anniversary of the death of the Venerable Fuji Guruji. In Japan they number the year from the day of your death, so it was the year 27 – significant in the Buddhist calendar.

In 1978 two eminent but diverse Japanese figures came to Camden. One – Takito Fuhkuda – had taken the day off from the G7 Summit. He wanted to go and see his old bedsit in Fitzjohn’s Avenue which he shared with another poor young diplomat in the 1930s.

On the other side of the borough a frail elderly monk, eminent in the Buddhist calendar, took his wheelchair into a squat in Kentish Town. Fuji had had a 10-year relationship in Gandhi’s ashram and the great man labelled him Guruji – the teacher. His life’s work was to build peace pagodas across the world. One was almost completed in Milton Keynes. There are now 200 worldwide. 

And this is how our three paths crossed. One hot August day I was minding the shop in County Hall when I was asked to meet a lively deputation of saffron-clad monks and nuns. Fuji told me that I was going to help him build a pagoda in central London. 

His confidence and self-assurance staggered me. Within a month I flew to meet him in Tokyo and Mr Fuhkuda – no longer prime minister but leader of an effective conservative group in the Diet. He was the kingmaker of the ruling party. For a week I sat in on his daily caucus meeting. He was a wonderful man to exert pressure on behalf of the great monk. This led to me dressing up very formally and meeting eight stern and senior Japanese power brokers. 

My Welsh charm and Fuhkuda’s rapid diplomacy gave the seal of approval to the funding of the pagoda.

A few days after my arrival this time I went to the holy mountain, Kiyosumi, and read messages from, among others, Vincent Nichols, the Catholic primate of England and Wales, and Mayor Boris Johnson.

I was captivated, not scalped, by a native American chief who festooned me with badges saying “Give San Francisco back to the Indians”. But it was the young left-wing ambassador from Nepal who excited my attention in spite of his being penned in by men from the Indian and Sri Lankan embassies. The royalists are trying to oust the Maoists in Nepal.

He was no Carlton-Browne of the FO but in his Nepalese cap he radiated honesty. 

Change is afoot in Japan. And as the BBC motto says: “Nation Shall Speak Peace unto Nation.” I don’t think General MacArthur, who tried to act as a second Lieutenant Pinkerton – that one who did the dirty on Madam Butterfly – would get away with it these days. 

Madam Twitterfly is  at work, informing and enlightening, and the Japanese are now recon­ciling themselves to the horrors of the Second World War. They are certainly no war fodder anymore.

• Illtyd Harrington is a former deputy leader of the GLC