20.12.2014

 

Poklosie

 

Recently, I had a chance to watch a Polish film called Poklosie (Aftermath in English, dir. Władysław Pasikowski, 2012）. The film is a fiction based on a massacre of Jews in Jedwabne in 1941, a town in northeastern Poland. More than three million Jews lived in Poland before the Second World War. Most of them perished in the Holocaust. Non-Jewish Poles also suffered heavy losses under Hitler’s occupation. The Polish deaths amounted to two to three million (1).

 

In Jedwabne, it was the Poles who slaughtered the Jews. The massacre had long been attributed to the Nazis. Many Poles were shocked, even outraged when Polish-American historian Jan Gross published its account (Neighbours, Penguin Books, 2002 ). An official investigation led the Polish President to offer an apology. The Jews were slaughtered with clubs and machetes. Those who escaped were burned to death inside a barn which was torched from the outside.

 

Set in a fictional location, the film focuses on the tension between the protagonists, two brothers who are determined to find the truth of the matter, and the villagers who would rather assign the whole incident to oblivion. In the process, the protagonists learn that the farmland they work on today were expropriated from the murdered Jews, and that their own father was one of the ringleaders of the massacre.

 

It does not seem right to compare Poland, victimized by the Nazi Germany, with Japan, which victimized the rest of Asia. But the subject of the film, the selective erasure of the past in the construction of a nationalist narrative, has particular resonance in Japan today. Intentional forgetting of Orwellian type may be commonplace world over. It must not be tolerated, however, precisely because there are so many instances of it.

 

Benign efforts to remember the past, too, sometimes produce adverse effects. In August this year, Japan’s largest daily, the Asahi Shimbun, admitted that the paper knowingly published articles about the Japanese military sex slaves euphemistically called “comfort women”, based on a false testimony. The report that the army rounded up girls on Cheju Island in Korea turned out to be a lie told by a megalomaniac.

 

There is no way that the Asahi Shimbun can evade moral responsibilities. But the accusations aimed at the paper seem somehow gotten out of hand. The worrying trend is that people here want to believe that the Japanese army committed no wrongdoings, that there were no women who were forced into sex slavery. It begins to sound like that the Japanese army was righteous, that there were no massacres anywhere, not even in Nanjing, and there were no medical experimentations carried out on the living bodies of the Chinese POWs. This is to deny Japan’s criminality in toto.

 

Another worrisome trend is the glorification of the suicide mission. It is easy to sympathize with young innocent men who sacrificed their lives to defend the nation. Such glorification, however, does not call into question the process in which innocence had been forged by the state ideological apparatus. Forgotten are tens of millions of “others” whose lives were deprived of.

 

Many of the so-called “peace museums” founded and run by local prefectures and municipalities in Japan foreground victimization of civilians, such as those who died in indiscriminate carpet bombing of the Americans. Showa-kan museum, built by the state government in the capital, Tokyo, purports to display only the “hardships” endured by the Japanese nationals, such as food shortage and conscripted labour in arms factories. Such displays are misleading in the construction of an ethnocentric history. Obliterated are the suffering and the loss of the others, as if to tell that their suffering is irrelevant to public museums.

 

The Japanese living today, are not, like the protagonists of the film Poklosie, were not, perpetrators. They did not commit criminal acts at first hand. It must, however, be noted and remembered, that the erasure of criminal acts from social memory, also constitutes a criminal act.

 

(Note) Auschwitz Peace Museum in Fukushima, Japan, not too far from the nuclear power plant severely damaged by the tsunami in 2011, displays watercolours painted by Polish children right after the Second World War (wojina w oczach dziecka). They convey to the visitors a sense of deep psychological wounds that Nazi atrocities inflicted on them. Despite the enormity of their suffering, under Hitler’s and Stalin’s regime, Poles are sometimes portrayed as cynical bystanders, as in Claude Lanzmann’s film Shore (1985).

 

 

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収容

あなたは他の市民と同じように仕事をしている。悪事に手を染めたこともなく、納税者としての義務もきちんと果たしている。ところがある日、あなたは街で警官に呼び止められ、捕まってしまう。あなたは言葉も習慣も異なる10人ほどと、狭い部屋で共同生活を送ることになる。食事は配給されるが、外に出ることは許されない。こんな不条理な話が現実に起きている。それが「収容」である。収容はいつ終わるのかも分からない。「あなた」とは日本の有効な在留資格（ヴィザ）を持たないか、あるいは、その有効期限が切れてしまった外国籍市民である。

「収容」という言葉から何が連想されるだろうか。ユダヤ人や、ロマ、同性愛者などを絶滅収容所に移送したナチスの「最終解決」か。あるいは同じ頃、合衆国西海岸で「敵性外国人」のラベルを貼られた日系人の収容だろうか。全ての人間性を否定され、多くが生還することのなかった前者と後者の間には明らかな違いがある。しかし、「その人が何をしたか」ではなく、「その人が誰であるか」が争点となっていることが、この二例と、現在、世界各地でイシューになっている移民や非正規滞在者の取扱いを繋いでいる。移動、居住、労働の自由を国内で、あるいはEUのような域内では保障するが、国境の向こうから来た外国人には保障しないという政策は、全ての人間が同じ権利を有するという「人権」の理念に反しないか。

　さらに日本では、ヴィザを持たない難民申請者が、仮滞在などの救済制度が適用されないまま、収容されてしまうことがある。そもそも日本では、難民の認定率が極めて低い。国や年度、また比較の方法によっても幅がでるが、他の先進国では20％から50％ぐらいの認定率が、日本では1％にも満たない。日本も加盟している国連の難民条約では、難民を「迫害を受けるかあるいは迫害を受ける恐れがあるために他国に逃れた」人と定義している。迫害を恐れて難民申請する人が、日本のヴィザを持っていないことは十分に考え得る。

　私は、面会支援をおこなっている人権団体の活動に参加して、ゼミの学生と共に、法務省入国管理局の収容施設を訪れる機会を得た。そこで出会ったのは、日本人の配偶者がいても偽装結婚を疑われてヴィザをもらえないフィリピン人から、民族の弾圧が出国の主要動機となったクルド人までさまざまであったが、日本で暮らすこと＝犯罪として、その人たちに社会生活を認めず、家族からも切り離して「収容」することには強い疑問を持った。入国制限を緩めれば移民が急増して社会が混乱に陥る、という主張も理解できる。しかし、自由を奪って閉じ込めることが、人の精神をどれほど傷つけるかを想像して欲しい。入国管理の対象である前に、その人たちは人間であるのだから。

 

Incarceration

Incarceration

 

Your daily routine is nothing extraordinary. You go to work, come home, and spend the weekend with your family. You pay your taxes. You are a law-abiding citizen. The way you speak Japanese, however, betrays that you are “foreign”. One day, you are hailed by a police officer at a street corner. You are arrested and confined in a small room with about ten other inmates who speak languages different from yours. You are fed so that you will not starve. But you are not allowed to go out. Kafkaesque? No. It is real. You are in Japan without a proper visa, or your visa has expired.

 

Incarceration, an ominous word. It evokes images. An image of Nazi “final solution” by which millions perished: Jews, Romanies, homosexuals, among others. An image of “Enemy Aliens” who spent the war-time years in desert concentration camps in the American West, may also be conjured up. An image of Guantánamo, perhaps. The circumstances under which people were confined differ. Nazi final solution, some argue, was beyond comparison. Today, the images of incarceration are linked with the issue of border control. Illegal aliens are sought out, detained and deported all over the world. People are incarcerated, not because of what they did, but because of who they are. Freedom of movement and freedom of work are guaranteed within the borders of one state, or within the borders of a group of countries, as in the EU. The same freedom is not accorded to others who have come across the borders.

 

What makes the situation in Japan more annoying is that asylum seekers without a visa are also subject to incarceration when their requests for provisional stay are denied. To begin with, Japan has an extremely poor track record when it comes to refugees. Whereas some 20 to 50 percent are granted refugee status in other “advanced democracies”, the rate here remains less than one percent. A refugee, the UN convention defines, is a person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted, is unable to return to the country of his/her nationality”. It is possible that those who fled persecutions arrive in Japan without a proper visa.

　

Last year, I had a chance to visit a detention centre run by the Ministry of Justice with my students. We went with people from a human rights NGO as part of their programme to support detainees. Among the detainees we met was a Philippino who had married a Japanese. His request for a spouse visa had been denied as the authorities suspected that his marriage was not genuine. Another detainee was a Kurd who fled persecutions in Turkey. I wonder if the state is not exercising excessive power by depriving these people of a life of an ordinary citizen and by putting them through a traumatizing experience of incarceration.

 

あなたは他の市民と同じように仕事をしている。悪事に手を染めたこともなく、納税者としての義務もきちんと果たしている。ところがある日、あなたは街で警官に呼び止められ、捕まってしまう。あなたは言葉も習慣も異なる10人ほどと、狭い部屋で共同生活を送ることになる。食事は配給されるが、外に出ることは許されない。こんな不条理な話が現実に起きている。それが「収容」である。収容はいつ終わるのかも分からない。「あなた」とは日本の有効な在留資格（ヴィザ）を持たないか、あるいは、その有効期限が切れてしまった外国籍市民である。

「収容」という言葉から何が連想されるだろうか。ユダヤ人や、ロマ、同性愛者などを絶滅収容所に移送したナチスの「最終解決」か。あるいは同じ頃、合衆国西海岸で「敵性外国人」のラベルを貼られた日系人の収容だろうか。全ての人間性を否定され、多くが生還することのなかった前者と後者の間には明らかな違いがある。しかし、「その人が何をしたか」ではなく、「その人が誰であるか」が争点となっていることが、この二例と、現在、世界各地でイシューになっている移民や非正規滞在者の取扱いを繋いでいる。移動、居住、労働の自由を国内で、あるいはEUのような域内では保障するが、国境の向こうから来た外国人には保障しないという政策は、全ての人間が同じ権利を有するという「人権」の理念に反しないか。

　さらに日本では、ヴィザを持たない難民申請者が、仮滞在などの救済制度が適用されないまま、収容されてしまうことがある。そもそも日本では、難民の認定率が極めて低い。国や年度、また比較の方法によっても幅がでるが、他の先進国では20％から50％ぐらいの認定率が、日本では1％にも満たない。日本も加盟している国連の難民条約では、難民を「迫害を受けるかあるいは迫害を受ける恐れがあるために他国に逃れた」人と定義している。迫害を恐れて難民申請する人が、日本のヴィザを持っていないことは十分に考え得る。

　私は、面会支援をおこなっている人権団体の活動に参加して、ゼミの学生と共に、法務省入国管理局の収容施設を訪れる機会を得た。そこで出会ったのは、日本人の配偶者がいても偽装結婚を疑われてヴィザをもらえないフィリピン人から、民族の弾圧が出国の主要動機となったクルド人までさまざまであったが、日本で暮らすこと＝犯罪として、その人たちに社会生活を認めず、家族からも切り離して「収容」することには強い疑問を持った。入国制限を緩めれば移民が急増して社会が混乱に陥る、という主張も理解できる。しかし、自由を奪って閉じ込めることが、人の精神をどれほど傷つけるかを想像して欲しい。入国管理の対象である前に、その人たちは人間であるのだから。

 

On Diversity (2)

On Diversity (2)

 

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 

In July, when the course I teach on transnational culture, required subject for the 2nd year students of my department, was coming to its close, I asked the students to write a short response in two consecutive weeks. I was appalled by the extent to which they had taken the myth of the homogeneous Japanese nation for granted.

 

The first response I asked them to write was about the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States. Contrary to my expectations, most of the students reacted positively to the pledge performance. Some even suggested such a ceremony should be introduced to Japan.

 

The pledge, written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, was designed to unify the American nation, the citizenry of which was composed of immigrants of different cultural backgrounds who spoke a variety of languages. Eighteen ninety-two was the year the Americans celebrated the 400^th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the new continent. At the Colombian Exposition held in Chicago the following year the U.S. was lavishly displayed as an emerging power. It was also in Chicago in 1893 when Frederick Jackson Turner spoke about the significance of the frontier as the embodiment of individualism and democracy in the creation of the great nation. The census bureau, however, had announced the dissolution of the frontier three years earlier. Industrial cities on the eastern seaboard were swarmed with labourers originated from the poorer regions of central and southern Europe. It was in 1892 when Ellis Island began its operation. There is no doubt that the pledge functioned as a part of the mechanism that assimilated non-WASP immigrants.

 

(BTW, I recently had a chance to visit Stanford for the first time to attend a conference.

The university was founded in 1891 by Leland Stanford who accumulated his fortune by the trans-continental railroad business. Casual visitors to Stanford’s immaculate campus are not necessarily aware of the facts that the Chinese employed in the railroad construction were “excluded” from the U.S. citizenry after the railroad’s completion in 1882, nor the westward movement propelled by the railroad deprived the land and livelihood of the indigenous peoples.)

 

What I would like to emphasize is that the idea of assimilation (or integration or inclusion, euphemistically used) is no other than exclusion of others who are not a part of what is taken for an undiluted culture. The number of foreign residents in Japan (according to the Ministry of Justice, therefore not including sans papiers) has now exceeded two million. And besides, the Japanese nationals include large sectors of non-Yamato extracts, including those whose roots are in Korea, Ryukyu, or Ainu-moshiri. Yamato is self-referentially used to indicate the mainstream Japanese, whose sense of cultural superiority may be compared to that of the WASPs. Along with those ethnic minorities, there are also people who maintain strong bonds outside Japan, such as those who married internationally, or those who have lived abroad over extensive periods of time. I am one of the Japanese passport holders who feel somewhat uncomfortable being included in a sweeping category of the Japanese nation.

 

I would like pose a few questions to the students who wish to introduce the allegiance performance to Japan. Will non-Yamato people be also required to say the pledge? Will the pledge be addressed to the flag of the rising sun? My opposition to such proposal is clear. The flag of the rising sun has long been used as an ensign, but its history as the national symbol is short. It was invented by the Meiji government in the process of establishing a modern state. Think of those who, especially in the years running up to 1945, were deprived of freedom of thought and speech, were raped, were used as forced labourers, were assaulted, and were murdered under the flag. I prefer a community that cherishes plurality of ideas, languages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc., to a mono-cultural nation that forges singularity through performative apparatuses such as “the pledge”（E Pluribus Unum）.

 

The following week, I asked my students to comment on the statement made by performance studies scholar Richard Schechner; “Cultural purity is a dangerous fiction because it leads to a kind of policing that results in apparent monoculture and actual racism, jingoism, and xenophobia”.

 

Many of the students did not regard culture as fiction and had difficulties accepting the author’s proposition that cultural purity is dangerous. In their response, they seemed to disregard the parts they didn’t like and went on to paraphrase like; Cultural purity is dangerous because it may lead to racism, jingoism, and xenophobia. Placing their comments in a familiar context, some answered that it is important to maintain Japanese tradition but the over-emphasis of purity can be dangerous. I think the students have taken for granted the idea of singular and homogeneous national culture. The prevalent usage of culture with a name of a country attached (such as French culture, Chinese culture and Japanese culture) probably makes it difficult for the students to think otherwise. I regret that I didn’t spend more time during the course explaining concepts such as “imagined communities” and “invented traditions”.

 

Many of the students also disregarded the part about “a kind of policing that results in apparent monoculture”. They don’t seem to care about ubiquitous CCTV cameras that surround their daily lives. They do not think about the policing and the censoring function of the school, the family, the workplace, and of the neighbourhood association (chō-nai-kai), the association of volunteer fire-fighters (shō-bō-dan), and the association of the lay people affiliated with a Shinto shrine (ujiko), although the last three are not as restrictive as they once were. They don’t seem to be concerned about the new state’s management system of foreign nationals introduced in 2012.

 

Such regimes of surveillance have been depicted in the novels of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and more recently in the film The Truman Show by the director Peter Weir. The last has a greater resemblance to the contemporary society in that the protagonist is unaware of his being watched. There were students who made a connexion between “cultural purity” the Nazi eugenics policy, but their number was small.

 

The point I would like to reiterate is that cultural purity, implying a culture that is not diverse and undiluted, exists nowhere, and that the maintenance of the myth of monoculture (one nation, one language) requires the violence of ostracism. With the increase in encounters with people of different ethnicities who speak different mother tongues, it is now impossible to contain “our culture” within partition walls, both physically and figuratively. Besides, borders, whatever the form they may take, can only be porous and permeable.

 

 

多様性について（続）

多様性について（続）

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 

2年生の必修科目「トランスナショナル文化論」が終わりに近づいた7月上旬、2週連続して授業後に簡単なコメントを書いてもらったのだが、日本単一民族神話の刷り込みの深さに驚き、恐ろしさを感じた。

 

一回目はアメリカ合衆国の「国旗への忠誠の誓い」をどう捉えるか尋ねたのだが、学生諸氏の多くは、これを国民統合のパフォーマンスとして肯定的に評価していて、「日本にもこのような儀式を導入すべき」と提案した学生も少なからずあった。

 

「誓い」は、出自を異にする移民の混合である合衆国市民の思想と言語を統一する「国民創生」の装置として、1892年にフランシス・ベラミーによって「発明」されたものだ。1892年といえば、コロンブスのアメリカ「発見」400周年にあたり、翌1893年にはコロンブスの名を冠した万博がシカゴで開催され、「大国」としての合衆国の位置が強調された。歴史家フレデリック・ジャクソン・ターナーが「アメリカ史におけるフロンティアの意義」を発表したのもシカゴ万博においてである。しかしターナーが独立精神や民主政治の源泉と主張したフロンティアは事実上消滅しており、東部の工業都市には、東欧や南欧からの移住労働者たちがイナゴの群れのように押し寄せていた。移民たちの上陸審査地点としてエリス島がフル稼働を始めた時期でもある。「誓い」がこうした非WASP住民の「同化」に果たした役割は少なくない。

 

（余談だが、先日、学会でスタンフォード大学を訪れる機会を得た。シリコン・バレー中心に位置するこの全米屈指の有名私立大学は、大陸横断鉄道建設事業で財をなしたリーランド・スタンフォードが1891年に創設している。鉄道建設に安価な労働力として利用された中国からの移民が鉄道完成後の1882年に「中国人排斥法」によって断たれたことや、フロンティアの西漸（鉄道建設はその中核にあった）が先住民の土地や生活を奪っていったことを、美しく広大なキャンパスを訪れる者の脳裏を掠めることは稀であろう。）

 

考えたいのは、同化（統合や包摂という言葉でトーン・ダウンされている場合を含め）という発想が、文化の純粋性の外部に存在する他者の排除に他ならない、ということだ。日本に暮らす外国籍住民は（法務省がカウントする正規在留資格を持つ人たちだけでも）既に200万人を超えている。さらに国籍は日本でも、朝鮮、琉球、アイヌモシリなど、（日本版WASPを形成してきた）ヤマト以外の民族的出自を持つ人々は多い。また、国際結婚で結ばれた家族や、海外での在住期間が長い人など、ルーツやさまざまな絆を日本の外側にも持つ人も増加している。また私のように、日本のパスポートを持っていても「日本人」というカテゴリーで一様に括られることに、どこかしら居心地の悪さを感じてしまう人間もいる。

 

「国旗へ忠誠の誓い」の日本版を日本の学校で実施しようと提案した学生諸氏に尋ねたいのだが、「誓い」はヤマト民族以外の、つまり日本版非WASPの人たちにも強制されてしまうのだろうか。「誓い」のパフォーマンス性による「多数の統一（E Pluribus Unum）」ではなく、複数の民族、宗教、言語、思想、性的指向などの差異を尊重し合う、多様性を軸とする共同体を目指すべきだ、というのが私の主張である。

 

合衆国を真似て国旗への誓いを始めるとすれば、誓いの対象は「日の丸」になるのだろうか。日の丸は意匠としては古いかもしれないが、国旗として使われたのは、日本という国家が樹立された後のことであり、明治政府による「発明」である。一方、日の丸の下に思想や発言の自由を奪われ、強姦され、強制労働に駆られ、暴行、強奪、そして殺害された人は数知れない。あの旗への「誓い」を繰り返すことで、純粋で美しい、モノカルチュラルな日本を「発明」しよう、という提案には同意できない。

 

さて、学生諸氏に翌週尋ねたのは、「文化の純粋性」について、パフォーマンス研究者のリチャード・シェクナーが書いている以下の文章についてである。

 

Cultural purity is a dangerous fiction because it leads to a kind of policing that results in apparent monoculture and actual racism, jingoism, and xenophobia.

 

まず、学生諸氏の多くが文化はフィクション（虚構、作り事）である、という点を見落としていた。さらに「文化の純粋性は危険だ」という著者の断定を受け入れることに抵抗を感じている。パターンとして一番多かった解答は、「文化の純粋性は、人種差別、盲目的愛国主義、外国人嫌悪に結びつく可能性があるがゆえに危険である」としたパラフレーズで、自分の意見に合わないところはカットしている。日本の状況に当てはめて、「日本文化の伝統を守ることは大切だが、純粋性を強調しすぎると異文化理解を阻害する」とした解答も多かった。これは一般的な「文化」という単語の用法が、「日本文化」「フランス文化」のように国名と抱き合わされているので、国民文化、民族文化の単一性や同質性を「当たり前」と受け止めてきた結果であろう。「想像の共同体」や「伝統の創造」といった概念について、授業中により多くの時間を割いて説明しておかなかった点が悔やまれる。

 

学生諸氏は、「見かけ上の単一文化を形成する監視の役割」という箇所も飛ばしてしまう。文化純粋性の維持に不可欠な監視・検閲装置としての、学校、職場、家庭、（そして昔ほどは強固ではなくなったといえ、町内会、消防団、氏子などの社会組織）、ユビキタスに存在する監視カメラをはじめ、入国時の指紋登録と在留カードがセットになった外国人管理や、着々と導入の進む国家による個人情報の一元管理制度などは気にかからないのだろうか。

 

こうした監視機構により作りだされるのは、ジョージ・オーウェルの『1984年（1949）』やオルダス・ハクスレーの『素晴らしき新世界』などの近未来小説に描かれた監視社会である。ピーター・ウィア監督の映画『トゥルーマン・ショー』も同じ類の監視社会を描いているが、本人が管理の対象であることに気づいていないところがより現代社会に近い。「文化の純粋性」という表現にナチスの優生思想を見出した学生もいたが、残念ながら少数派であった。

 

私が繰り返したい点は、純粋文化、つまり多様性を伴わない文化など、どこにもありはしないこと、また同一民族、同一言語という単一文化の神話を維持するには、他者の排斥という暴力を発動させなければならないことである。民族や母語を異にする人びとの出会いの場が増え、地球のさまざまな場所を巡りつつ人生行路を歩むことが珍しくなくなっている今、分離壁を建設して全ての国境線を防護したところで、自分たちの文化だけを壁の内側に閉じ込め、外部とのやり取りを遮断することは不可能である。境界とはどのような形のものであれ、相互に浸透性を持つメッシュのようなものだ。

 

「単一文化の神話」は「見かけの同質性がもたらす安心感の神話」と言い換えてもよい。「以心伝心」というが、どれだけ長い年月連れ添ったパートナー同士でも、相手を完全に理解することはできないと思う。たしかに、異質な価値観を受け入れるには努力と忍耐が必要で、時には摩擦や衝突も起きるだろう。しかし、他者との邂逅による傷つきやすさを恐れないことだ。「見かけの同質性」よりも「多様性」を希求することで、創造的で刺激的な、マイノリティを捨象することのない文化が生みだせるのではないか。

 

 

 

On Diversity ／多様性について (1)

On Diversity (1)

 

While participating in the Rainbow Pride events with my students last month in Tokyo, I was accosted twice by reporters, once during the parade and another time when I was alone resting. In the first incident, a female reporter from a satellite TV station asked us what we thought about the support the parade received from outside the LGBT community. One of my students (stating that she was a hetero) gave a model answer; the issue of minority rights should be of everyone’s concern because it is diversity, not homogeneity that is sought after.

 

The second incident was more bizarre. The cardboard　sign　on　which　I　wrote　“Let's be gay" perhaps prompted a shabbily dressed male free-lance reporter to ask me, pointing at his “press” badge, during what developmental stage in my life, did I realise that I was different.

 

On both occasions we were made an object of an (if not unfriendly) gaze full of curiosity, a gaze representing the majority, the normal. What irritates me is that seemingly innocent curiosity is used to confirm a divide that separates “them” from “us”. While “good fences make good neighbours” sounds like a common-sense idea, fences always wall some people in and others out. Under the banner of liberté, égalité, and fraternité, security is provided for those inside the walls. But fraternity is rarely extended to those outside them. Outsiders are made the object of curiosity, derision, and hostility.

 

I wonder if we can realise how vulnerable that we all are: not just them outside the walls, but us inside. This awareness makes it possible for us to approach people with a difference with respect. To construct a society that is diverse, we need to be humble. This may be something that I have said before; but as another poet put it, humility is endless.

 

多様性について（１）

 

先月東京で催されたレインボウ・プライドのイベントに学生たちと参加したら、二度取材された。一度は学生たちとマーチをしている時、二度目は一人で休んでいる時だった。衛星テレビの女性レポーターが、LGBTでない人たちのイベントへの参加について尋ねたのには、一人の学生が（自分はヘテロであると断った上で）模範解答をしてくれた：同質性ではなく多様性が求められる社会において、マイノリティの権利はみんなの問題であると。

 

二度目の取材はより奇妙で（多分、 “Let's be gay"と書かれた手製のプラカードが目を引いたのだろう）、風采の上がらないフリーの男性レポーターが、成長段階のいかなる時期に私は人と違っていると気づいたのか、と尋ねたのである。

 

どちらの機会でも、多数派で正常な人たちから、（敵意からではないにせよ）好奇の眼差しを向けられたことに、私は苛立っていた。無邪気にみえる好奇心も「自分たち」を「他者」から隔てる壁になり得るのだ。「良い隣人の間にはしっかりした塀が必要だ」というのも一理あるように聞こえるが、壁は一部の人を中に囲い込み、他を外に排除する。「自由、平等、友愛」の掛け声は壁の内部の人間に安全を保障しても、友愛が壁の外に差し伸べられることは稀だ。部外者は好奇心の、そして時には侮蔑や敵意の対象となる。

 

壁の外側にあっても内側にあっても、人間は皆、傷つきやすい存在であることに気づけば、自分たちとは異なる人たちに敬意を持って接することができるだろう。以前にも書いたような気がするが、多様性のある社会の建設には謙虚さが必要である。別の詩人が言ったように、謙譲さには限りがない。

Islands in dispute

 

 

Despite the inauguration of a hawkish PM, I am glad that things seem to have somewhat quieted down. To me, the outbursts of nationalist sentiments that the media loved to air were farcical rather than ominously intimidating. To see people shouting over the ownership of a number of islets hardly larger than rocks was like watching children fighting over a toy.

 

Although the claims that the both governments make sound like that the islands have been theirs since the time immemorial, I must point out the notion of territorial sovereignty is not universal. I would like to think it as an invention of the modern times and associate it with a series of events from Christopher Columbus taking possession of San Salvador to Neil Armstrong planting an American flag on the moon. The notion is historically recent. The way it is used today has clearly been linked with the emergence and establishment of nation states.

 

Japanese Foreign Ministry states that “from 1885, surveys of the Senkaku Islands had been thoroughly conducted by the Government of Japan. Through these surveys, it was confirmed that the Senkaku Islands showed no trace of having been under the control of China. Based on this confirmation, the Government of Japan made a Cabinet Decision in January 1895 to formally incorporate the Senkaku Islands into the territory of Japan…. These measures were carried out in accordance with the ways of duly acquiring territorial sovereignty under international law.”

(http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/senkaku/index.html, accessed on 31/12/12)

 

The principle used was that “if nobody else makes a claim, the land is yours.” From 1492 on, this presumption was used to legitimize “discoveries” that allowed colonial powers to curve up the globe and expand their empires. Intriguing is the date of incorporation. 1895 was the year when Japan took Taiwan as booty for winning the war with China. In that event, the sovereignty of the islands should have returned to China when Taiwan ceased to be Japanese colony in 1945. And if, as Tokyo claims, that the islands originally belonged to the Kingdom of Ryukyu, which was taken over by Japan by force only two decades before the Sino-Japanese war, does it prove that the islands have inherently been Japan’s?

 

For ages, people migrated from islands to islands. If there were people who tried their luck in inhabiting on those inhospitable islands, they could probably have come either from other southern Ryukyu Islands, or from Taiwan, because of their geographical proximity. Large ships from other nations may have found a haven there during a typhoon season. As far as I know, however, there is no record of human settlements prior to 1895 when Japan’s Government sent workers to build a factory to make dried fish.

 

The point I wish to make is that not every piece of land (with or without underground natural resources) on earth is meant to be possessed by somebody. Greed, whether personal, national, or corporate, is not omnipotent. Practices of “commons” were not uncommon and can still be utilized.