BELGRADE, May 31, 1999 -- You've come to this place wishing to hear of the current war; instead, I'd like to give you a 400-year-old story from Japan. Be patient, hopefully it will be worth it.
I am certainly no expert on Japanese history, and all of this had its setting in 16th century Japan, but I would assume that time and collective memory have, as always, chosen carefully what to remember and what to forget, what to enhance and what to tone down. One could open the history books, and read about the battles, the details of who did what to whom, but that really isn't what I want to write about. The thing that interests me is a simple story that I heard a long time ago from my father, a story that was told him during a visit of his to Japan. The story has to do with three conquerors -- with Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Tokugawa.
I distinctly remember listening to the story, and seeing the characters before me. To help me in this visualization my father had bought three little ivory carvings, one for each of the men in the story. Today the three little statues stand on my bookshelf, in front of an elegant feather-light Japanese vase. To the right of the three are the video and stereo components -- representatives of the promise of what technology can bring. To their left (the sinister side) is a large luxuriously bound red book with golden embossed letters, the collected works of George Orwell -- a warning issued to Man of what tomorrow may bring, if we are not extremely careful.
The three conquerors had the same dream -- each wanted to unify all the lands of Japan and rule them as one. They were fierce warriors all three of them, yet there was much more to them. Only one was successful, but in time all three came to be regarded as icons, as personifications of certain world-views.
In the story I was told, the story that I wish to recount to you, the three would-be unifiers are almost allegories to the biblical wise men -- Nobunaga, known far and wide for his cruelty and severe temperament; Hideyoshi, renowned for his cunning; Tokugawa, the patient one.
The story's setting is a beautiful Japanese garden. Each rock is in its place. Each tree, each blossom, is where it is for a purpose. The whole garden is one living creation. Through the garden winds a path, and strolling along the path are three old men. As they stroll, they reverently strike a bell at the center of a Shinto shrine. They each clap their hands three times and state to the gods "I am here." Having made this personal contact with the gods and ancestors, they continue their stroll and talk amongst themselves. Who knows what they are talking about -- we are still too far away to hear them.
We can see, however, the ultimate aim of their stroll. The path they follow converges on a clearing, in the center of which stands a pedestal, and on it a finely crafted cage. In the cage, sitting on its perch, is a nightingale. The three stand by the cage, waiting for the bird to sing. The bird's colorful feathers, the priceless cage, its central location in the garden -- all of these things raise high expectations in our three listeners. However, they wait in vain -- the bird does not sing. We have come close enough to them to hear their voices now. Luckily, a cherry blossom hides us from their eyes.
Nobunaga, the eldest, is the first to talk: "Kill it! What use is a nightingale that doesn't sing?" At first we are shocked at the fierceness of these words, yet we soon see that Nobunaga is surely correct. Everything in the garden is perfection personified. Everything has a role, and the nightingale's role is to sing. The fact that it is not singing is making a mockery of the whole garden, and of the momentous work put into it in order to build an oasis of perfection. Our indignation mounts, but it is interrupted by the sound of another voice.
Hideyoshi is the next to speak. He says: "The bird doesn't sing -- let us forget it, it is not important." As with a magic wand, Hideyoshi's words wipe away the hatred that we have started to feel towards the nightingale. The nightingale is inconsequential, it is meaningless, only a dumb bird. Isn't it amazing how we reacted so violently just a second before? Hideyoshi is certainly right -- we are best to forget the bird. Its disability doesn't impinge on the beauty of the garden, it doesn't have the power to do that. We wait for Tokugawa to speak -- it is his turn. Yet what can he say that hasn't been said already? Still, we will listen.
Tokugawa speaks: "The bird doesn't sing -- let us wait a while, let us give it a chance, maybe it will sing." The force of his words becomes immediately apparent. Dumbfounded we see that the solution to the problem, Tokugawa's solution, is the simplest one of all. We join the three waiting by the cage. We all wait for the bird to sing. The anticipation mounts, and finally, when the song comes, it is more beautiful than any one of us could imagine.
Was it the anticipation or our feeling of shame at the cold-blooded, brutal nature that lies dormant in all of us, that made the nightingale's song unforgettable?
We leave the garden, and the three men. Of the three, Nobunaga and Hideyoshi will have great success, but ultimately they will fail to unify Japan. Tokugawa, on the other hand, will be the one destined to become Shogun, the unifier of Japan. The unification he brought was hardly bloodless, but the collective memory of Japan has chosen to put another of his qualities in the forefront -- his patience.
We have a lot to learn from Tokugawa, for like the Japan of his time, our world today is on the brink of unification. The global civilization is before us, just as surely as is the new millennium. What will be the character of that unification? Whose voices will we listen to? Will we listen to Nobunaga and his intellectual followers and impose a unification regardless of price? Will we choose to kill any nightingale that doesn't sing?
Or, like Hideyoshi, will we turn a blind eye to such a bird, will we regard it as inconsequential? Will we turn from the nightingale, sure of our superiority? Or maybe, just maybe, a Tokugawa will come and show us the true way? When it is time to unify, there is no stopping it. We may like it, or we may despise the very idea, but we can't stop it. What we can do is choose the character of the new unity. We all want our garden to be perfect. To achieve perfection all we will have to do is be patient.
The path chosen today by the world looks to be the path of Nobunaga. We should not lose faith though. Nobunaga is always the first to speak, but that doesn't mean that he will be the only one to be heard. Already we have started to hear the mounting voices of Hideyoshi's followers, telling us that the present war is causing so much trouble, and all of this over an inconsequential little European country. In time, these voices will become louder, and their message will make much more sense than the ominous sword-rattling that we now hear. Yet, as our little story tells us, Hideyoshi's view is just as wrong as Nobunaga's. Yugoslavia is the nightingale, and our global village will not be made perfect by either destroying it or ignoring it. Let us be patient. The nightingale will sing. 
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