The Book of Life

the troubles of the world. They cannot solve them in any meaningful way. THE ONLY PATH I n a travelogue published in Al-Risala (March 1988), I mentioned a Japanese engineer named Shogo Katakura, whom I met in the Maldives. In response to one of my questions, he said that Japan’s geography has shaped a mindset among the Japanese to always search for new ideas. The frequent changes of season, along with earthquakes and storms, constantly create new conditions there. As a result, the Japanese are repeatedly compelled to think about how to deal with these changes. This situation made the search for new ideas a permanent trait of the Japanese. That same quality helped them after the devastation of the Second World War. They re-examined their affairs in light of the new circumstances and, by making fresh plans suited to those conditions, achieved even greater success. Ezra Feivel Vogel (1930–2020), an American sociologist and writer, described this Japanese quality in these words: “They became the masters of change rather than the victims.” (Japan As Number One, London 1979, p. 256)