Yukio Hatoyama's "Yu-Ai" -- Message from the Prime Minister
(Provisional Translation)

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Japanese

"Creating a new nation"

The new Diet session has begun under the new government.

The 173rd session of the Diet, which began on October 26, is the first Diet session since the change of government. In delivering the policy speech at the beginning of this extraordinary session of the Diet and answering subsequent questions from representatives of political parties, I strove to ensure that the message and answers are prepared by us, politicians, and are conveyed to the people in as clear language as possible.

This is because in thinking how to give an answer that would reach out to the people, each minister and, of course I myself, thought it important that our wishes become one with those of the people.

If it were just a matter of reading off a script prepared by excellent bureaucrats, as was the tradition with former governments, it would be possible to go through a plenary session no matter who the prime minister or ministers were. To be honest, as my diplomatic schedule continued, there were times when I felt physically drained in writing from scratch the first and most important policy speech after the inauguration of the new government.

Then, whenever I felt so, I recalled the images of the people who have great expectations of us and entrusted the hope for the future of Japan to us by voting for us. This strengthened my belief that I must express my determination in my own words no matter what; what I want to do in this new government and what kind of nation I want to create. I am sure that each minister felt the same way. I believe that our Cabinet pushing Diet affairs forward in this manner is one representation of politics of political leadership.

In terms of nation building, the nation that I aim for is a society of "yu-ai," or fraternity, a society of self-support and co-existence in which each individual exerts their capabilities and mutually supports one another. This applies to the relationships between politics and the people, the public and private sectors, and national and local governments. In order for each individual, each company, and each community to fully exert their capabilities, we must reform laws, regulations, and bad customs that hamper this.

It was only natural for the people and communities, having lost their strengths in the devastation following the defeat in the war, to first look for a government-led rebuilding of the nation. However, more than 60 years have passed since then and Japan has changed greatly. I want the people to break away from their dependency on others to do something, to think instead what they can do for themselves, and to show their strengths to their full extent.

To this end, I want to value the origin of my politics of fraternity -- to ensure that the perspectives of the disadvantaged in society and minorities are respected. Society must extend a helping hand to the people and places that sincerely need it. The role of politics, I believe, is to create a framework for this.

For the new government, everything is a challenge at this Diet session. The entire Cabinet and all the Diet members will do our utmost to always face the people and conduct Diet affairs for the people, so that the people can feel that politics have changed and anticipate the change that Japan is about to undergo. I invite you all to actively participate in politics. Let us create our new Japan together!