Statement on Ukraine

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan Statement on Ukraine

March 2, 2022

The Board of Directors and likeminded members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan would like to declare our opposition to all acts of war and aggression. We hope that the current use of military force in Ukraine will be promptly brought to an end and that the day when the people of Ukraine can once again rest safely will arrive soon.

Moreover, we strongly condemn and oppose threats and intimidation with nuclear weapons, and any attempt to use such threats as an excuse to deploy nuclear weapons or to retaliate through further threats with nuclear weapons, as such actions expose humankind to existential risk. Nuclear weaponry must never be used again.

SF authors have repeatedly made this last point through the power of storytelling. In numerous works that depict disasters arising from tit-for-tat threats with nuclear weapons, the chain reaction of harms triggered by nuclear testing, and the apocalyptic destruction—sometimes human extinction—caused by nuclear war, SF has brought wide attention to the horrors of nuclear weaponry and has played a role in discouraging its proliferation.

We believe that using nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidation has the potential to annul humankind’s progress in promoting disarmament and brings us closer to catastrophic nuclear war. We sincerely hope that such profoundly irresponsible threats will not be put into action.

SFWJ Board of Directors
(Haruna Ikezawa, Youko Enoki, Hirotaka Osawa, Tadashi Ohta, Kei Shimojima, Shinobu Suga, Satoshi Hase, Taiyo Fujii, Mitsuhiro Monden) and Likeminded Members