nalienable right to live.
Toda was a consistent opponent of the death penalty, as he had made clear on other occasions. His call for the death penalty in condemning nuclear weapons was an expression of his outrage at those who would utterly violate the supreme value of life's inherent dignity and deny people their fundamental right to existence. Through his choice of language, he expressed his determination to challenge and to pass a "death sentence" on the demonically destructive tendencies within human life.
The military journalist and critic Tetsuo Maeda comments:
"Inside second Soka Gakkai President Toda's heart, the authoritarian power of the militarist clique before the war and the power of the superpowers' nuclear arsenals overlapped with each other. He must have seen the nuclear weapon as the same unreasonable, devilish authority as the military clique that had trampled the desire for peace and freedom of religion, and brought oppression and hardship in prison upon Toda himself. This therefore led to his straightforward confrontation against 'absolute evil' and the fundamentally uncompromising battle against those who threaten people's right to live. And here lies the discernment of a man of religion for a new era."
The "Nuclear Arms: Threat to our World" exhibition
at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, 1982
Toda's statement initiated an uncompromising struggle against the demonic aspect of life, the unseen enemy that gave birth to nuclear weapons. His appeal to young people to take up this challenge stands today as the starting point for global peace activities of the Soka Gakkai International.