Novelist Joy Kogawa offers a surprising, controversial response to the priest sex abuse scandal sweeping the U.S. "The answer isn't to be found in money. That just leads to a kind of impoverishment of the spirit," said the 67-year old nisei, and community activist.

        Interviewed by The Daily Yomiuri during her recent visit to Japan, Kogawa argued that only through attempting to understand the victimizers, and acknowledging that even victims in turn may have hurt others, can one break the cycle of hatred and retribution. "In my own case as a Christian, I had to look into the heart of Christianity. I found the roots of anti-semitism."

        Sexual abuse among the clergy is the subject of her recent novel The Rain Ascends to be re-released in a Penguin edition in January of next year. At issue is the co-existence of good and evil in the world, sometimes in the same person. The central character, and the book's narrator, Millicent Shelby discovers that her father, a beloved Anglican minister is a pedophile who has even abused Millicent's son.

        The novel is a taut, emotionally-charged narrative where darkness and fog serve as metaphors for her father's lies and the ensuing cover-up. As she struggles to confront her father, possibly to forgive him, Millicent turns from the notion of redemption through Christ. Instead, she recognizes that "mercy visits us poor, naked beasts most often in the faces of our mothers, imperfect as they too are" and she invokes Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of Mercy.

        Kannon, in fact, was Kogawa's inspiration for the novel. While on a previous visit to Japan, she stayed overnight in a Buddhist temple, pondering whether or not the worst sorts of crimes could ever be forgiven. Literally, she dreamed the answer. "Mercy and abundance are the same. You cannot be merciful unless you have an abundant heart."

        For Kogawa, an "abundant heart" comes through reaching out to others and showing compassion. Among the many contemporary situations where this should be done, she cites the 9-11 attacks. "The U.S. felt victimized and they rallied. But Americans need the capacity to look beyond that to see how others are being victimized by the great differences in the world between the rich and the poor.

        A community activist for the poor, Kogawa is particularly sensitive to these concerns. But her provocative views also stem from her experience as a Canadian nisei, one of the 23,000 Japanese-Canadians who were interned in Western Canada in W.W.II. Unlike the better known case of the Japanese community in America, Japanese-Canadians were even more harshly treated. They had their property confiscated and sold. In the years immediately after the war, the government forbade them from returning to the West Coast, and thousands were deported to Japan.

        "The Canada I grew up in was very different from the Canada of today. The watch word was assimilate," said Kogawa. "It was believed the Japanese in Canada could never assimilate and that was part of the decision made to intern them."

        Ironically, the internment, then dispersal across Canada almost extinguished the Japanese-Canadian community. "The will to disappear was so great," noted Kogawa. "When I was a child, I only grew up with the shame of being Japanese." The Japanese-Canadian struggle for recognition forms the basis of Kogawa's first two novels, Obasan, and Itsuka. Her prize-winning first novel published in 1981, deals with a child's loss of trust and love when Megumi Naomi Nakane's world is torn asunder by her mother's repatriation to Japan, and the subsequent internment of the Japanese-Canadians. At the climax of the novel, Naomi learns that far from abandoning her, her mother died trying to protect her.

        Itsuka, 1992, takes up the concern of social justice as Naomi becomes involved in the Japanese-Canadian redress movement. She and the leaders of the movement grapple with conservative elements in the community and a general reluctance to demonstrate in public.

        Paralleling developments in real life, the climax of the novel describes the community's historic 1988 agreement with the Canadian government. The act of Parliament provided an official government apology, and a $350 million settlement with $21,000 compensation for each individual interned and the remaining funds for community projects.

        "I'll never forget the excitement of that day," recalled Kogawa. "It was the day of exoneration of the Japanese-Canadians."

        Since then, the National Association of Japanese-Canadians has pledged to prevent anything like the internment happening to other Canadian groups. "After September 11, we issued a statement that what happened to Japanese-Canadians must not happen to Arab-Canadians."

        There has also been a cultural resurgence among Japanese-Canadians. A number of films and novels have dealt with their experience. However, Kogawa is not hopeful about the longterm prospects of the community which numbers about 50,000 today.

        "I think as far as the identifiable existence of the Japanese-Canadian community is concerned, the inter-marriage rate being what is, something like 80-90%, its sense of self as an ethnic identity may not endure."

        Kogawa's journey as a writer began comparatively late in life at the age of 34 though she maintains that she always loved words. "The hunger to use language was there from early childhood," she said. A spiritual crisis propelled her into literature which she used to explore the meaning of life.

        She began writing poetry, then tackled her first novel in the late 1970s. Obasan, published in 1981, has been translated into Japanese twice. A bestseller, it remains in print in Canada and the U.S. where it has become staple reading in high school and university courses.

        On her current visit to Japan, Kogawa traveled to Nagasaki to research the story of Dr. Nagai, a radiologist, and a Christian who treated victims of the atomic bomb. The selfless Nagai, commemorated in a small museum, died of leukemia several years after the bombing, but not before writing a series of books promoting world peace. Kogawa finds his life illustrative of her theme of victimization.

        "Who has caused this devastation?" she said, paraphrasing him. "We have done it ourselves. We are responsible for going to war." She added, "If some world leaders could hear that, they might have a greater sense of responsiblity."

        Her Japanese cultural roots continue to inspire Kogawa. However, when asked whether she felt more Japanese than Canadian, she explained that she never felt completely accepted by either group. "Maybe that's why it's easier for me to identify with people who don't belong. I feel what they feel."

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