A Letter from UID-DER Women’s Committee to Akiko Hoshino
Dear Akiko-san
We had the very sad news that your beloved husband and comrade Fumiaki Hoshino passed away into eternity. In our land it is believed that a real bond of fraternity can be established only between those who share one another’s grief in their hearts. Despite the thousands of miles between us we feel your sorrow deep in our hearts and share it with a real feeling of fraternity. As UID-DER Women’s Committee we extend our condolences to you and all fighting brothers/sisters in arms.
Fumiaki-san was kept behind bars for 44 years for he dedicated his life to struggle in his very young ages. They intended to intimidate those who are set to fight for a world without classes and borders. But Fumiaki’s resisting spirit and intransigence which flows out of the bars and walls of prisons wrecked the intentions of cruel Japanese ruling class. He was incarcerated but never bowed down.
Your hands and his loved ones’ hands were prevented to touch his hands just because he wished a humane society in which human beings live in peace and dignity. Though his hands were denied of this bliss, they painted the richness of the soul and the joy of living. There is the signature “Fumiakiko” under those paintings. Since you were his companion/comrade during those years of hardship. You gave strength and hope to him.
Great communist poet Nazim Hikmet sent poems to his wife from prison just like Fumiaki-san sent you paintings. In one of these poems he said:
They are the enemies of hope, my beloved,
the enemies of the streaming water
of the fruit-laden tree,
of a flowering life.
For death has put its stamp upon their foreheads
– decaying teeth, rotten flesh –
They will tumble down and go away
never to come back again.
And surely, my beloved, surely,
in this beautiful country, Liberty
will walk around freely
will walk around in its most glorious outfit
in worker’s overalls.
Dear Akiko-san,
Sufferings are never for nothing. The enemies of hope will definitely be washed away one day. But Fumiaki-san will be alive in the struggle of the working class. Workers, women and men, will be taking inspiration in their fight for a world without classes and borders from his life and the lives of other revolutionaries we lost. His memory will live on in the beauty of a flowering life, in the sparkle of hope for a world free of classes and exploitation, in the rightfulness of our struggle.
UID-DER Women’s Committee
