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□片思いの日米関係 [池田信夫 blog]
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/ikedanobuo/e/a4c42095ebba579bb303b6687b0cc887
片思いの日米関係
2007-04-07 / Law/Politics
きのうの記事のコメント欄で指摘された英文読売の記事を読んで、私も同じ感想をもった。
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米国との友好関係を築こうと努力してきた日本の知識人は、今回の米国メディアの報道に深く傷ついている。彼らの事実誤認だけでなく、性的な問題で日本に説教しようとする無神経さを日本の知識人が不愉快に思うのは当然だ。
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海外メディアの一連の記事でいちばん驚いたのは、3/6のNYT（電子版）の記事の安倍首相の写真が、別人のものになっていたことだ。私がEメールで指摘したら、さすがにすぐ削除されたが、NYTの編集者でさえ日本の首相の顔を知らないわけだ。イラク戦争に反対する人々を「恥辱の殿堂」と呼んだ古森義久氏も、困惑している：
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日本側では対米同盟の堅固な支持層というのは、自国の国益や国家意識、さらには民主主義、人道主義という普遍的な価値観を強く信奉してきた国民層だといえよう。 米国が慰安婦問題で日本側をたたけばたたくほど、まさにこの層が最も屈辱や怒りを感じ、同盟相手の米国への不信を強くするのだ、ということは米側に向かっても強調したい。
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古森氏には気の毒だが、彼のような「親米保守」がアメリカを崇拝するほどには、アメリカ人は日本を重視していない。彼らにとっては、いまだに日本人は世界を侵略する気味の悪い黄色人種であり、その差別意識と警戒心は、戦後60年たっても変わっていないのだ。
おかしなことに、そういう日本たたきをあおる朝日新聞や吉見義明氏のような左翼文化人も、みずからを国際的と自認している。彼らは「戦争犯罪を否定する日本人」というステレオタイプを作り出し、それを指弾するマッチポンプによって「国際世論」に迎合し、「国際的な学界」の評価を得ているのだ。今回の事件についての「知日派」学者のコメントを見て唖然としたのは、彼らがまだ10年前の朝日新聞のレベルの事実認識で議論していることだ。彼らは121決議案を「慎重な表現」で日本に警告するものと評価し、日本の「勇気ある知識人」をたたえる：
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日本には、政府が戦争犯罪に責任をとるよう求めて闘ってきた多くの勇気ある学者、ジャーナリスト、法律家、そして一般市民がいる。彼らの努力は特に賞賛に値する。というのは、そういう努力は、困難でしばしば意気阻喪させる状況で続けられてきたからだ。歴史への責任を問う公的な知識人は、いつも侮辱的な言葉を投げつけられ、暴力で脅迫されてきたが、警察はそれを止めようともしない。(Tessa Morris-Suzuki)
http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2373
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彼らにとっては、「醜い日本人」という先入観を裏書きしてくれる朝日新聞だけが正しいメディアなのだ。この程度の研究者が「専門家」として通用するのは、日本語という参入障壁のおかげだろう。彼らのような「リベラル知識人」は、競争の激しい経済学などではとっくに絶滅しているが、「日本研究」のような周辺的な分野では辛うじて生き残っているわけだ。
現代の世界を混乱させている元凶は、こうした欧米諸国の自民族中心主義である。日本の右翼も左翼も、別の形でそれに媚びを売ってきたが、今回の慰安婦騒ぎではしなくも明らかになったのは、彼らの愛は片思いだったということだ。それはたとえてみれば、こんな光景だろうか：結婚して60年以上、ひたすら夫に仕えてきた妻が、あるとき夫の日記を読むと、初恋の人への断ち切れぬ思いがつづられ、「どうしても妻が好きになれない」と書かれていた・・・
▽記事内に出てくる該当のコメント
読売 (zzz)
2007-04-07 04:17:33
読売がまた英語記事を書いてます。読売の頑張りには頭が下がりますが、左翼リベラル・サイドがはっきりした態度を示さない限り、日本の立場は誤解され続けるでしょうね。
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070405TDY04002.htm
沖縄戦ネタでまた英語メディアが騒いでいます。今回の検定には違和感をもちますが、だいたいアメリカのメディアが沖縄を盾に日本政府を攻撃するってなんという偽善的な構図なんでしょう。殺した当事者ではないですか。少なくともベトナム戦を想起しないほうがおかしいと思うのですが。
英語メディアの問題ですが、これはある外国人も指摘してましたが、他のアジア諸国の報道に比べても日本報道だけなにか異質です。日本報道の異質さは一般的なオリエンタリズムだけでなく、なにか別の要素が加わっているように見えます。これは神話づくりに手を貸してきた共犯者の存在が大きいということなんでしょうか。この点では左派も右派も同罪のような気がします。ともかく戦後の思想的な言説はことごとく不毛で、政治的現実主義者とサイレントマジョリティーだけが偉かったと極論したくなります。
日本国内で言えば新旧あわせて左翼勢力にもう未来がないことは誰の目にもはっきりしているので長期的には楽観的ですが、世代交代が完了するまでの間にどれだけのダメージを残すかという点だけが気がかりです。もはや祟り神です。はやくリベラル対左翼、保守対右翼の構図ができあがるといいのですが・・・。あるいはこうした構図じたいが古くさくなるのかもしれません。
▽関連記事
□POLITICAL PULSE / Politics and the comfort women issue
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070405TDY04002.htm
POLITICAL PULSE / Politics and the comfort women issue
Takashi Oda
The so-called comfort women problem has again been brought to the fore, this time to the point of becoming a diplomatic issue between Japan and the United States, even threatening to foment mutual distrust between officials on both sides who have been working to strengthen the bilateral alliance.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the United States in late April for the first time since taking office as prime minister.
This problem could be taken up at the joint press conference that Abe and U.S. President George W. Bush will hold after their summit talks.
How should we consider the issue over accusations that women from Korea, China and elsewhere were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military before and during World War II? And how should the government deal with the problem?
The man who rekindled the controversy this time is U.S. Rep. Michael Honda, D-Calif., who has presented a resolution denouncing Japan over the comfort women issue.
The draft resolution says in part that Japan should formally acknowledge and apologize for "its Imperial Army Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery."
Although the draft is riddled with factual misunderstandings, what lies behind it may be a feeling that those women who were forced to serve as prostitutes for Japanese troops should be considered objects of extreme pity.
A large number of resolutions are introduced to the U.S. Congress, and even if a resolution is approved by the legislature, it has little political impact.
Before the introduction of the draft resolution, the comfort women problem drew scant attention in Congress.
The U.S. media roundly condemned the prime minnister after he rejected the accusations in the draft resolution on March 1, saying, "There was no coercion in a narrow sense of the term" in the recruitment of the women.
Abe's statement was simply meant to explain the fact that no official documents have been found to substantiate the allegations of coercion by the Japanese military in recruiting the women--the crux of the comfort women issue.
In the United States, however, the problem has been perceived not as a historical issue regarding the extent to which the Imperial Japanese Army was involved in military prostitution, but as an issue involving the human rights of those women, who were forced to engage in prostitution for Japanese soldiers.
The number of U.S. congressional members who have thrown their support behind Honda's draft resolution has been increasing in the wake of Abe's statement.
As many in the government have noted, Hiroshige Seko, an adviser to the prime minister, sowed the seeds of the controversy when he visited the United States in February. During the visit, he met a number of U.S. lawmakers, pointedly criticizing the draft resolution, and a problem that otherwise would have been left unheeded was exacerbated.
The comfort women issue as it stands now has even alarmed pro-Japanese Americans, as exemplified by a remark made by Michael Green, former senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council. Green said that unlike the issue of the prime minister's paying homage at Yasukuni Shrine, the problem can never be settled in a way that serves the interest of Japan. In Japan, meanwhile, Foreign Minister Taro Aso is eager to persuade Abe to take steps to quell the uproar that has arisen over the issue.
Appearing in an NHK program on March 11, Abe said, "I would like to sincerely apologize for Japan's causing a large number of people [abroad] to suffer great mental anguish in the wartime past," in an apparent attempt to dampen the controversy over the comfort women issue.
The problem has raised its head again and again, at intervals of about 10 years.
Successive prime ministers have apologized in connection with the issue. The repeated apologies were made because the public, as well as Diet members--many of whom are replaced after serving for a few years--tend to be ignorant of the details of the historical background and facts regarding the problem.
Political leaders, however, should leave the task of finally settling the problem to historians and other intellectuals, while doing their best to calm the outcry over the issue.
Some government officials, including Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura, however, have helped rekindle and aggravate the problem as they have brought into question the reactions in the United States to this problem, maneuvering to have the 1993 "Kono statement"--the statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono that contained an apology and admitted that the "comfort women" were recruited against their will--replaced by a new one.
The chances of Japan securing a political win in its foreign policy in connection with this problem are very slim.
Even if the fact that the Japanese military was not directly involved in the recruitment of the women becomes widely recognized, the ignominies that Japanese soldiers committed at the brothels set up for them can never be erased.
It may be advisable to review the Kono statement in light of facts relevant to the problem, but of more importance for the government is to give detailed explanations by disclosing related documents whenever the problem recurs.
But another issue has arisen, since major U.S. newspapers have begun bashing Japan over the problem, without confirming the facts behind it.
The New York Times, for instance, criticized Japan in its March 6 editorial, saying, "Mr. Abe seems less concerned with repairing Japan's sullied international reputation than with appealing to a large right-wing faction within his Liberal Democratic Party."
Japanese intellectuals who have worked to boost Japan's amicable bilateral ties with the United States have been discouraged and offended by the way the U.S. media cover the problem. They are understandably displeased not only with factual mistakes the U.S. media have made over the issue, but with their nerve in nagging this country over a sex-related matter.
Ikuhiko Hata, a former professor at Nihon University and an expert in modern history, has pointed out that after the war ended, the U.S. Occupation forces in Japan asked the Japanese government to set up "comfort stations" for U.S. servicemen.
"Only-san," a term coined in Japan in those days, signified women who served as prostitutes exclusively for high-ranking officers of the Occupation forces.
The government complied with the U.S. demand to protect ordinary families' daughters from sexual assaults by U.S. troops. Nevertheless, there were many cases in which U.S. servicemen raped Japanese women, but the incidents were concealed under the news censorship by the Occupation forces. It also is a fact that U.S. forces set up a number of "comfort stations" during the Vietnam War.
Given the circumstances, it is utterly pointless to have the comfort women problem highlighted in the Japan-U.S. relations.
The U.S. side should be aware that this highly sensitive problem has so far not taken on the appearance of a mudslinging match due mainly to the rational attitude Japan has taken to avoid such a development.
Oda is political news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
(Apr. 5, 2007)
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