Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons
July 2007
Banner photo: Jozef Szentpeteri/Getty Images
José María Figueres Olsen--Preparing for Peace
José María Figueres Olsen, President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, is a remarkably humble man. His entire being emanates the desire to learn from others. Not the least bit arrogant or affected, he is the very picture of earnestness and sincerity
I visited Costa Rica in June 1996 for the opening of the SGI's "Nuclear Arms: Threat to Humanity" exhibition. I was astonished when I arrived at the airport to find that President Figueres, First Lady Josette Altmann de Figueres and the president's mother, Mrs. Karen Olsen, were all there to greet me. I was very moved by his kindness and consideration, and I felt as if I had caught a glimpse of the fine upbringing his parents had given him.
His father was José Figueres Ferrer (1906-90), the father of modern democracy in Costa Rica and a great humanist known affectionately by the people as Don Pepe. Following World War II, he helped bring down the corrupt regime and establish a new democratic government.
There is a famous story about the former president. At a ceremony at the Bellavista Military Barracks in December 1948, not long after his inauguration, Don Pepe came up to the microphone at the podium and said: "From today, the Republic of Costa Rica has eliminated its standing army." After that brief statement, he walked to the wall behind the podium, picked up a sledgehammer, and swung it with full force against the wall.
Don Pepe knocks down the wall at the Bellavista Military Barracks
The audience was astonished. The stones of the wall creaked and a part of the wall fell away. Everyone gasped. With a crash, the stones tumbled into the empty lot beyond.
Don Pepe returned to the podium and declared that the army barracks would now be turned over to the Ministry of Education and funds allocated to convert it into a museum. Let us throw away our weapons and redirect those resources to the education of our children, he urged. This dramatic display is indicative of Don Pepe's character--his humanism, his boldness, his eloquence, his wit, his ability to touch the hearts of others. Not to mention his meticulous attention to detail--for, in fact, he had worked on the wall the previous day so as to ensure that it would crumble in one go when he struck it.
He then denounced the way dictators throughout history had used the military to crush anyone who opposed their rule and to threaten and oppress their fellow citizens. But he and his administration, he declared, did not fear the people; therefore, they had no need for weapons to preserve their rule.
The money saved by the elimination of the military was redirected to education. Don Pepe laid down the basic guidelines for Costa Rica's development as a nation of peace, culture and education.
Violence begets violence. Hate breeds hate. War makes for more war. Don Pepe was determined to break this destructive cycle that has existed for as long as humankind has walked this Earth. When he struck down the wall of the military barracks, a new world of peace and culture was revealed.
The "Nuclear Arms: Threat to Humanity" exhibition was held at the Costa Rican Center for Science and Culture, atop a hill in the capital San José. The building used to be a prison, but it was closed and turned into an educational center which incorporates a children's museum. The dark steel bars at the windows still testify to the structure's past. It immediately called to mind Victor Hugo's assertion that one who opens the doors to schools closes the doors of prisons.
In his speech at the opening ceremony of the exhibition, President Figueres said: "I believe in the power of the human spirit to vanquish evil....Peace cannot be based on the power of guns; it will grow from the serenity of the hoe that cultivates a field. Peace cannot be sustained by the arrogance of the military or the powerful; it can only be sustained by the friendliness of the farmer. The people of Costa Rica firmly believe that the greatest defenses are reason, equality and solidarity."
In other words, the only way to create peace is to prepare for peace. The only way to establish the garden of peace is to plant the seeds of peace. To prepare for war in order to realize peace is a fundamental contradiction.
Based on that conviction, since Don Pepe's time, Costa Rica has spent 30 percent of its national budget on education and created as many teachers as it once had soldiers: One in every ten Costa Ricans is a teacher. The sight of students in their neat uniforms on the streets of San José is striking.
President Figueres's mother, Mrs. Karen Olsen, told me that her husband, Don Pepe, used to say that what our abilities or talents are is not as important as how we make use of them.
"Around 1973 [during his third term as president]," Mrs. Olsen continued, "my husband often said to me that he had two worries concerning our nation. One was poverty. The other was wealth. He feared that, if in the future Costa Rica became a wealthy country, it might come to rely on its wealth alone and become corrupt and lacking in spirit."
That is precisely the problem. Can a nation that, though wealthy, allows those with power to violate the human rights of people, be considered a truly peaceful nation?
The Voices of Children
Outside the former prison in San José that houses the Children's Museum, and the venue for the nuclear arms exhibition
A friend of mine once related the following story. Right after the end of World War II, he was working at a repatriation center for returning Japanese soldiers. Every day, he was forced to tell the soldiers' families and relatives who visited him, "Your husband died in the war," "Your son died in the war." It was very painful for him.
One day, a girl of about 10 came to the center, leading her little brother by the hand. "My mother is sick and can't get out of bed, so I've come in her place. Please tell me where my father is." He asked her father's name and looked for it on the list. The little girl's father was dead, killed in Southeast Asia. He couldn't bear to look up from the papers in front of him. But the little girl was gazing expectantly at him.
"Your father . . ." he began, but the words caught in his throat and he couldn't go on.
"I still think about that girl and her family even now," he told me.
Daisaku Ikeda and José Figueres (front left, first and second) at the opening of the "Nuclear Arms: Threat to Humanity" exhibition
The exhibition opening ceremony was held adjacent to the Children's Museum. Through the partition, we could hear the happy voices of children playing. Laughter. Children calling their friends. The excited shouts of some fresh discovery. The delightful, innocent clamor of children running joyfully about swept in waves into where we were gathered.
At the podium, I declared, "The sight and sound of these youngsters, boisterous and full of vitality, is the very image of peace. It is here that we can find the power to stem the tide of atomic bombs. It is here we can find hope." These happy, carefree children are surely the future that Don Pepe envisioned.
The Soka Gakkai's founding president, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, predicted that humanity, having evolved from military competition to political competition and then to economic competition, would eventually start to engage in moral or humanitarian competition. I feel that Costa Rica, a truly advanced nation in terms of its commitment to humanism, is setting an example for the rest of the world--an example of what we should strive toward in the 21st century.
