政治目的を達成させる手段としての歴史
『主戦場』というドキュメンタリーを視聴された方々の反応を見ていると、右派の人々と左派の人々の反応に驚く程の共通点があるとわかる。多くの人は、一国の歴史という、違う考えを持つ多くの人々の関わった記録の連鎖を、まるで一貫性のある、しかも自らの延長線上にある、単純な物語のように受け捉えている事だ。
ある人々にとって日本の歴史は美しく、誇りを持てる物語であり、また別の人々にとっては、恥ずべき、それを否定する事よってのみ存在が許される悪事の連鎖である。どちらの側にせよ、自分の望まないの歴史観を主張されると、まるでそれが自らのアイデンティティーへの脅威となるかのように反応する。個々の出来事を、別の出来事と分けて判断する事が出来ないのだ。
具体的に述べるならば、「南京の大虐殺を認めれば、当然、慰安婦も性奴隷としたのだろうと誤解される」といった恐怖感が右派にあるのに対し、その通り左派は「南京を行なった日本軍なのだから、当然、慰安婦も性奴隷としたのだろう」と考え、右派の心配がただの疑心暗鬼ではない事を証明してみせる。「いや、南京は南京で、偏見を持たず史実に沿って検証しよう。慰安婦という制度は慰安婦という制度で、偏見を持たずに史実に沿って検証しよう」と考える人は、実はごく僅かだ。私が秦郁彦氏の歴史検証にとって感服している理由は、個々の事件を、膨大で多岐に渡る資料検査と共に丁寧に検証し、あらゆる可能性を考えた上で、こじつけや無理な論理なく、しかも含みを持たせて結論付けられるからだ。この秦氏の徹底的な研究姿勢は、秦氏と意見を異にする海外の研究者からであっても評価が高い。秦氏には、導き出したい研究結果が無い。秦氏にとって歴史検証は、「真実」を知る為の手段である。歴史検証を、自分の導き出したい政治主張を補足する為の道具とする「歴史家」が多い中、秦氏は異例の存在だ。
「歴史検証を自分の導き出したい政治主張を補足する為の道具とする」というと、左派はすぐに右派を思い浮かべるだろう。確かに、日本は中韓以外のアジア諸国からは解放者として感謝されている『アジア解放者史観』など考えれば、それも頷ける。しかしながら、こと慰安婦問題に関して言えば、「慰安婦たちは性奴隷であった」とする左派とて同じなのだ。
実際に、吉見義明氏が発見したとされる資料は、『支那事変の地における慰安所設置のため、内地においてこの従業婦等を募集するにあたり、ことさらに軍部了解等の名儀を利用し、そのため軍の威信を傷つけ、かつ一般民の誤解を招くおそれあるもの、あるいは従軍記者・慰問者等を介して不統制に募集し、社会問題を引き起こすおそれあるもの、あるいは募集に任ずる者の人選に適切を欠いたために募集の方法が誘拐に類し、警察当局に検挙取調を受けるものがある等、注意を要するものが少なくないことについては、将来これらの募集等にあたっては派遣軍において統制し、これに任ずる人物の選定を周到適切にし、その実施に当たっては関係地方の憲兵及び警察当局との連係を密にすることにより、軍の威信保持上並びに社会問題上手落ちのないよう配慮していただきたく命令に依り通知する。』というもので、常識的な読解力を以て読めば、誘拐や人身売買による慰安婦調達が無いように注意を通達する文書である。外国語ならばともかく、この程度の日本語文書の読み方など、わざわざ歴史家に不自然に注釈して頂かなくとも、大人であったら理解できる筈だ。
そもそも、吉見氏がこの文書を以て、「軍が関与していた証拠」とし、「謝罪と補償を」と要求しても、それまで歴史家や政治家らが、慰安所の設置や運営に「軍の関与は無し」としていた訳ではない。軍の関与があった事は、吉見氏の発見に依らなくても、当時はみな知っていた事だ。吉見氏の主張を読むと、軍の関与は日本やドイツだけに見られた、いかにも非道で特有の事に感じられるが、実は兵士の使用する売春施設に軍が関与する事は、多くの国にも普通に行なわれていた慣習である。兵士という戦力を性病によって失わない為には、私設の売春宿であっても、軍が関与をしていた方が安全だったのだ。米軍が使用していた、ハワイ、ホノルルの売春施設に於いても、米軍や、軍施政下にある現地政府、警察らの介入が多岐に渡ってある。これらの関与によって性病の発生率が、一般の売春宿のそれと比較して少ない事が好意的に記されている。
吉見氏は、慰安婦たちには、他には見られない人権侵害があり、軍が直接奴隷狩りのように韓国人女性らを強制連行した証拠が無い事を認めながらも、『広義の強制』などという定義を持ち出して「謝罪を、補償を」と主張するが、『広義の強制』等と言えば、先に挙げたハワイのホテル・ストリートにおける売春婦らも、同様の、或いはそれ以上の強制を味わっていた。彼女らの半数はサンフランシスコの私設売春宿からリクルートされてホノルルまでやってきた白人女性たちで、残りの女性らは現地の女性たちである。サンフランシスコという遠地からの売春婦らが望まれたのは、自力で海を渡ってサンフランシスコに帰る事が不可能であった為、彼女らには、施設のルールに従うより選択肢が無かったからである。彼女たち売春婦たちには、ホノルル到着すぐに『10のルール』が伝えられ、これに署名、指紋押捺した後、売春許可が与えられた。このルールは厳しく、「慰安婦たちに移動、居住、行動の自由らの選択が無かった」どころではない。
【彼女(売春婦)は、ホノルルから山を越えたカイルア・ビーチ以外の、ワイキキ・ビーチを含むビーチを訪れてはならない。
彼女は、バーや上級のカフェなどの顧客となってはならない。
彼女は土地や自動車を所有してはならない。
彼女は特定の恋人を作ったり、外で男性と一緒にいるところを見られてはいけない。
彼女は兵士、軍関係者と結婚をしてはならない。
彼女はダンスに参加したり、ゴルフコースを訪れてはならない。
彼女はタクシーの前方座席に座ったり、男性と一緒に後部座席に座ってはならない。
彼女はマダム(売春宿の女性経営者)の許可なく、本土に送金してはならない。
彼女はマダムの許可なく本土に電話してはならない。
彼女は働く売春宿を変えてはならない。午後10時半を過ぎて外出してはならない。】
しかもご丁寧な事に、これらのルールを破った場合には、警察によって打ち叩かれるという罰則までがついていた。彼女たちは一日100人の男性の相手をする事が求められていたようだが、私には、この数は多すぎるように思われる。一人につき3分間という決まり事があり、そのためのテクニックも考え出されたようだが、もし本当ならば、慰安婦たちによる「一日何十人もの兵士の相手をさせられた」という訴えよりも多い。
戦時中のハワイは、合衆国に併合された状態であり、朝鮮半島(韓国)が日本に併合されていた状態と同様だ。韓国は1948年に独立するが、ハワイは1959年に合衆国第50番目の州と認められる。もしハワイが韓国と同じように独立していたら、当時のホテル・ストリートで働いていた現地女性らは、米軍に対し、謝罪と賠償を求めるだろうか。誰もが認める奴隷制度があったアメリカだが、さすがに謝罪はしたものの、補償はしていない。当時、違法では無かった行動に対する国家の補償を認めれば、キリがないからだ。であるから例え道義的責任は認めても、補償という法的責任は認められないのは、たとえ非道であっても、法治国家として当然である。
吉見氏による「慰安婦は性奴隷だ」という呼称の修正にせよ、「謝罪と補償を」という要求にせよ、もはや歴史家としての範疇を超えた、明らかな政治活動だ。勿論、歴史家の政治活動自体が悪いのではない。そうではなく、ある歴史家の政治活動や政治意見に反対する事が、あたかも歴史事実への否認であるかのように歪曲する事に問題があるのだ。(この点、私は秦氏の歴史検証には深く敬服するが、政治的意見に全て賛成をしている訳ではない事を記しておく。尤も秦氏は、彼の政治意見に反対する事を歴史の歪曲などとは間違っても主張されないが。)
私は、その他様々の史実に対する理解を改めたように、慰安婦の実態についても、納得のいく論理の提供があるならば、喜んで意見を変えようと思う。その際には、IWGレポートに価値が無い事を自分の誤りとして認めたように、今までの意見が間違っていたと明確にしよう。私には、自分を正しく見せたり、右派であろうと左派であろうと、誰かの気に入る為の主張をする事に意味は無いからだ。それでも吉見氏の主張には、未だ全く説得力を感じない。私と同様、多くの保守派が韓国側や吉見氏の主張に同感できない理由は、吉見氏の主張が感情的、情緒的であるだけで、論理的ではないからだ。
本来、慰安婦を性奴隷と呼ぶか、呼ばないかは、言葉の問題だけでもある。性奴隷と呼ぶ事で、彼女たちの置かれた悲惨な状況への同情を表したいようだが、その背後には補償への要求が見え隠れすれば、「慰安婦たちの言葉だけではなく、証拠を下さい」と言うのはどの国であっても当然なのだ。吉見氏の主張する「オーラル・ヒストリーから証明を行なおうとするアプローチ」など、それこそ歴史だけでなく、事実検証という定義の改竄である。このような『アプローチ』を認めれば、それこそ日本は特異な国となり、信用を失う。
右派の中にある極論を以て、その全ての問題を測れる程、歴史は単純ではない。同様に、誰かを個人攻撃してその主張への信憑性を損なう手段は、その主張を正面から議論する自信が欠如している証拠だろう。藤岡信勝氏による「国家は謝罪してはいけない」という発言に私は同意しないが、氏の発言の動機も頷ける。吉見義明氏による「オーラル・ヒストリーというアプローチ」など認めれば、どんな嘘でもまかり通ってしまう。左派が極論と呼ぶ藤岡氏の発言は、吉見氏の極論があっての事だし、それを前提で言えば、藤岡氏の方が世界の常識に叶っている。
重ねて言うが、吉見氏による文書発見はともかく、「謝罪を、補償を」等は氏による政治活動である。勿論、右派にもそうした政治活動がある。右派であっても、左派によっても、学者による政治活動が悪いのではない。しかしながら、意見が分かれて当然である政治活動への反対意見が、まるで歴史という学問への侮辱であるかのように受け取られるところに問題があるのだ。米軍にもあった売春施設の使用を考えれば、日本の慰安婦制度というものを特別視、糾弾する理由は、本来見当たらない。吉見氏の意見は、彼が歴史学者という権威を利用しなかったならば、注目するに値しない。歴史という学問の威を借りて政治活動を行なう学者こそ、学問の自由を冒涜していると言って良い。
このような意見は、左右両派から、等しく主張されるべきである。
A Reply To An Anonymous On Comfort Woman Issues (Revised)
An anonymous person sent me a rather lengthy message:
["After seeing you in Shusenjo, I viewed your blog and read your defense of "why comfort women aren't slaves." The crux of your argument appeared to be, "if comfort women were slaves, then drafted soldiers and nurses must also be slaves, as they also had to go to the war zone and could not leave." This is an absurd argument, because it treats sex as equivalent to these other kinds of work. This is patently ridiculous. Any sexual act performed without consent is RAPE by definition -- the fact that comfort women were sent to war zones as victims of human trafficking and were then, unable to leave, having no choice of whether to consent to sex or not makes them clearly the victims of rape and "sex slaves." You also make the argument that "even now people don't have the right to leave contracts." This is again an absurd dodge of the fact of sexual slavery. Yes, one is not allowed to break a contract, but there is a blatantly obvious difference between being brought to court for breach of contract (with the right to legal representation), and the situation of comfort women, who were living in comfort stations under military administration, literally with guns pointed at them. The fact that you don't see this blatant difference makes me think that you are arguing in bad faith. When it comes to your whiny rejection of the label "denialist," you are simply incorrect, and strawmanning the term denialist. Holocaust denialists/revisionists never claim that Auschwitz didn't exist or that the Nazis did not oppress Jews. Famous Holocaust deniers like David Irving merely deny the NATURE of the death camps, just like comfort women deniers deny the NATURE of the comfort women system. I am perplexed when you say there is a lack of objective evidence. You bring the former military medic's lack of a personal testimony as a lack of objective evidence, but if his (a Japanese man's) testimony would have been objective evidence had it existed, why are the former (Korean women) comfort women's testimonies NOT objective evidence? Does race and gender change whether a testimony is hard evidence or not? I am sorry for the sudden message, but your arguments are so easily countered that I think it is in your best interest to encounter counter-arguments, because anyone with an IQ higher than a paper-bag moron like T*** ****** will be able to answer you.]
And below is my reply:
Dear Anonymous Yale Graduate:
Thank you for your message.
You wrote, “After seeing you in Shusenjo, I viewed your blog and read your defense of "why comfort women aren't slaves." The crux of your argument appeared to be, "if comfort women were slaves, then drafted soldiers and nurses must also be slaves, as they also had to go to the war zone and could not leave." This is an absurd argument, because it treats sex as equivalent to these other kinds of work. This is patently ridiculous.”
You seem to think prostitution is not equivalent to these other kinds of work, such as nurses and soldiers. Let me quote some passages from Ikuhiko Hata’s book. (If you do not know who Ikuhiko Hata is, please google.)
[Kiuchi Yukiko, who began working as an apprentice nurse in an army hospital in Shanxi Province at the age of eighteen, worked for three years and saved about 1,000 yen, after which she returned home and bought a small house. Egawa Kiku, who worked at a navy hospital on Hainan Island after graduating from a nurse training school attached to a field hospital, earned ninety yen a month. However, a comfort woman who came to Egawa for her regular medical checks earned 250 yen a month. When Egawa became friends with the comfort woman, she brought Egawa canned goods and sweets. Both women earned more than they would have had they been working in Japan, but the gap between their incomes is similar to the gap today between women who work in an office and at a soapland massage parlor. Interrelations among different groups could be touchy, even when those groups were working in the same battle zone. Egawa once expressed envy for the comfort women, telling her hospital friends. “Those women have it so good---they have such easy lives and they get to wear such beautiful kimono.”]
(Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone, by Ikuhiko Hata, P.285)
Hata writes many more examples of first hand accounts of the life of the comfort women. Although you seem to think sex workers are universally the most miserable, despised occupation, that was not necessarily the case. As Egawa envied the “easy life of the comfort women” back then, there are still women today who wonder whether or not they should use sex to earn money.
Other examples of military prostitution in Hawaii also prove my point that the views on prostitution are not universal, but rather cultural: “Some of the reasons for the brothels’ survivals are found in Hawaii’s multiracial and multicultural society. To many of the people who made up the islands’ varied populations, prostitution was not a ‘social evil.’” “Though the early 20th century social purity movement came to Hawaii as to every other place there were Americans, the anti-whore laws it spawned were never strictly enforced. This is partly due to the fact that neither the natives nor the sizable Asian minority saw prostitution as a “social evil” as the puritanical whites did, and the wealthy planters at the top of white society wanted hookers available to protect their daughters from being raped or seduced by laborers or American sailors.” https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/honolulu-harlots/
http://jackiewhiting.net/HonorsUS/Labor/WWII%20Hotel%20Street.pdf
You seem to be implying that serving as a comfort woman is worse or harder than serving as a soldier. As a mother of one daughter and two boys, I’d much prefer that they, in fact, live and not die. There is no greater pain for mothers than to lose their children. And there is no question that a soldier was more likely to be killed in battle than a comfort woman was.
(For some unknown reasons, you managed to write, “Holocaust denialists/revisionists never claim that Auschwitz didn't exist or that the Nazis did not oppress Jews.” I advise you to ask any fifth graders what “never” means, before you irrevocably discredit yourself.)
Further you wrote, “You bring the former military medic's lack of a personal testimony as a lack of objective evidence, but if his testimony would have been objective evidence had it existed, why are the former comfort women's testimonies NOT objective evidence? Does race and gender change whether a testimony is hard evidence or not?” Believe it or not, this former military medic is the one whom Reuter and BBC are treating as an eyewitness to the Japanese military’s crimes against the comfort women. However, he admitted, to our surprise, that he actually had not seen any killings of, kidnappings of, nor violence against those women, but had been talking about what he had read in books. I am not the one who took one Japanese man’s word as evidence. That’s what Reuters and BBC are doing. I’m simply saying he does not qualify to be an “eyewitness.” The definition of “eyewitness” in only a google away.
But all those arguments above are not the real point. The point is that there was no particular mistreatment of Koreans and others compared to the Japanese comfort women, nor that these women were in a worse situation than prostitutes in general in other parts of the world. Hata has shown that the majority of these women were Japanese. Some of them were sold by their parents, some of them were deceived by brokers, some clearly volunteered, but their conditions were the same. The military prostitutes were paid vastly more than ordinary ones. Again, many were “voluntary,” exactly the same as prostitutes are now. Some were deceived and trafficked, exactly the same as now. The brokers who tricked the Korean women were Korean entrepreneurs who did it for money. When some of them were caught doing that, they were prosecuted by Japanese law enforcement. In fact, that’s exactly the document Yoshimi Yoshiaki discovered in 1992. What he found was the documentary evidence in the Defense Agency Library of Tokyo that the Imperial Japanese Army established and ran "comfort stations".
One of these was a notice written on 4 March 1938 by the adjutants to the Chiefs of Staff of the North China Army and Central Expeditionary Army titled "Concerning the Recruitment of Women for Military Comfort Stations". The gist of the document is as below:
"Many agents should have required special attention. Some of them accentuated the name of the armies as much as they might hurt the credibility of the armies and cause misunderstanding among the public, others recruited women without control through war correspondents or entertainers, and others selected the wrong agents who took a kidnapping approach to recruit women so that the police arrested them. In the future, the armies in the field should control recruiting and select the agencies circumspectly and properly, and should build up a closer connection with the local police and the local military police in the implementation of recruiting. Take special care not to have problems which have the potential to damage the armies' credibility or are not acceptable to social standards." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiaki_Yoshimi
I am not defending this kind of practice or the treatment of these women, but the fact is that it was in no sense a crime specifically committed by Japan against Korea. However, the judging of only Japan and applying a double standard only to Japan does not seem a fair argument, knowing that exactly the same system of military prostitution was used by the American, South Korea, and earlier, French, German and Chinese military. (The Soviets, by contrast, raped and often murdered more than a than a million women).
For example, the U.S. military used prostitutes in Hawaii who were mostly recruited from brothels in San Francisco. Those American prostitutes were called “Honolulu Harlots,” and many elders in Hawaii, including professor George Akita, still remember the American military personnel lining up in a long line to be served by them.
“The central charge of the police department was to keep the district orderly and to keep the prostitutes out of sight of the respectable part of Honolulu. The majority of Honolulu prostitutes were white women recruited from San Francisco. Both police and madams preferred it that way, for women from the mainland had fewer choices but to go along with the system. Each prostitute arriving from the mainland was met at the dock by a member of the vice squad. After she was fingerprinted, but before she received her license, she was instructed in the rules that would govern her stay on Hotel street:
“She may not visit Waikiki Beach or any other beach except Kailua Beach [across the mountains from Honolulu].
She may not patronize any bars or better class cafes.
She may not own property or an automobile.
She may not have a steady “boyfriend” or be seen on the streets with any men.
She may not marry service personnel.
She may not attend dances or visit golf courses.
She may not ride in the front seat of a taxicab, or with a man in the back seat.
She may not wire money to the mainland without permission of the madam.
She may not telephone the mainland without permission of the madam.
She may not change from one house to another. She may not be out of the brothel after 10:30 at night.”
“To break these rules was to risk a beating at the hands of the police and the possible removal from the islands. Before the war, few women served in the houses for more than six months before they returned to the West Coast. The Honolulu service, while lucrative, was not paradise. A few months was often all a woman could take.”
“Most brothels required girls to see at least 100 men a day and to work at least 20 days per month…”
“The going rate per visit was $2.00 (a full day’s wages) for locals and $3.00 for servicemen; most businesses had two separate doors and waiting areas because, due to pervasive racist attitudes of the time, white sailors did not like to think they were being served by the same girls who attended to the Asian locals.”
“The military was pleased with the system, for regulated prostitution kept venereal disease rate relatively low in Hawaii. During World War II, this consideration became especially important. Like any other illnesses, venereal disease hurt the war effort by cutting into military manpower.”
“And many of the islands’ white elites, the respectable people who would have provided the necessary pressure to have the brothels closed down, approved of a regulated system of prostitution. The brothels, many believed, kept predominately lower-class soldiers and sailors and especially overwhelmingly male and dark-skinned plantation workers (who lived in communities with few women) away from the islands’ respectable women, who were, by their definition, white. The head of Honolulu police commission (which was comprised solely of leading the white businessman) said it directly: too many men in and around Honolulu were ‘just like animals.’”
“Though the early 20th century social purity movement came to Hawaii as to every other place there were Americans, the anti-whore laws it spawned were never strictly enforced. This is partly due to the fact that neither the natives nor the sizable Asian minority saw prostitution as a “social evil” as the puritanical whites did, and the wealthy planters at the top of white society wanted hookers available to protect their daughters from being raped or seduced by laborers or American sailors.”
“For most of the war, Hawaii was under martial law, ruled by a military governor.”
“Prostitution was illegal in Hawaii. Nonetheless, it existed as a highly and openly regulated system, involving the police department, government officials, and the military.”
“The majority of official Honolulu prostitutes were white women recruited through San Francisco. Both police and madam preferred it that way for women from mainland had fewer choices but to go along with the system.”
Now, isn’t this what you would call a forced sexual slavery by a government/military?
Please note that Hawaii was granted its statehood only in 1959, until then it was a U.S. territory, just as Korea was a part of Japan during the war. The only difference is that Korea became independent in 1948, while Hawaii became the 50th State in the United States. One must be a hypocrite if he refuses to see substantial similarity between Japan’s practice of comfort stations and the brothels in Honolulu street.
Now, going back to the comfort women issues, you wrote ‘Any sexual act performed without consent is RAPE by definition -- the fact that comfort women were sent to war zones as victims of human trafficking and were then, unable to leave, having no choice of whether to consent to sex or not makes them clearly the victims of rape and "sex slaves."’
Your only argument left sounds like “those Korean comfort women were the victims of human trafficking.” However, the lack of evidence of the Japanese military forcefully kidnapping those women is what even the New York Times admits, no matter what you heard from the documentary.
Moreover, today’s moral judgement aside, the sad practice of parents selling their daughters into brothels was common among the poor and was legal at the time. Today’s Japanese government cannot be legally responsible for what the poor families did to their daughters roughly seventy or eighty years ago. When it comes to brokers deceiving women into prostitution, it is still happening in Japan, South Korea, and even in the U.S., despite the efforts by the government to prosecute those criminals. Again, this is not something for which we can demand a government to apologize. For example, if some young women from Guatemala were smuggled and forced to work as prostitutes in Los Angeles by human traffickers and brokers, the best the local U.S. government can do is to arrest and prosecute the criminals, rescue the women, and close down the brothels, but not to apologize to Guatemala nor compensate for those women. What today’s United States government does is what the war-time Japanese government did: try to prevent the human trafficking and enforce laws.
Let me also add an important fact, since you sounded to not be aware of this: just as is done in private brothels, every comfort woman was asked to sign a statement that she was acting voluntarily and without compulsion. Many of these women had been recruited from civilian brothels, just has Honolulu prostitutes were recruited from brothels in San Francisco. The point about slavery is that there were among these women many who had been prostitutes before and others who were promised other jobs (often as a waitress, sometimes as a coffee plantation worker). Therefore, the natural question is: were all of them sex slaves? Or only the ones who were deceived? If all of them were slaves, then they must have been slaves when they were not working for the military. Does it mean that all prostitutes are slaves?
My long quotes from “Prostitutes on Strike: The Women on Hotel Street During World War II” and “The Honest Courtesan” are to point out that the living conditions of the comfort women and other prostitutes were quite similar. Discussing this issue of military and sex as something that only the Japanese did to Koreans is based either on complete ignorance of the evidence or on deliberate distortion. Discussing it in separation from the practices in other countries and other wars is simply anti-Japanese propaganda which is based on fanatical biases.
I have my own views on this subject which you clearly disagree. I can change my mind only when better logic and evidence are presented. No amount of accusations will change my mind. I do not care what Japanese nationalists, Korean nationalists, leftist or rightist think. And also, I don’t care if I convince you or others – I am only interested in understanding things and not in propagandizing anyone. I have had enough of propaganda from both sides. It only stupefies people and stops them from thinking for themselves or looking impartially at the evidence. And lastly, I could add that I appreciate your “civil manner” in discussing the issues, although you accused me of being a racist and a sexist if I don’t take Korean women’s words as evidence. I, as an Asian woman, have never thought I’d be called a racist and a sexist by a white male, such as yourself. With your own logic, you are a racist and a sexist if you question me ever again. 😉
Thank you.
慰安婦を性奴隷と定義する事への反論
ドキュメンタリー映画『主戦場』を視聴された方々の間で、私がインタビュー中、「南京を知れば知るほど、慰安婦たちが性奴隷であると思えてきた」等と答えた事になっているが、先の投稿でも述べた通り、そのような事実は皆無である。この点は、デザキ氏にも確認したが、私はそのような事は一切述べていない。私が述べたのは「南京を学ぶにつれ、(それまで鵜呑みしていた）ナショナリストらの主張を、懐疑的に見るようになった」である。第一、秦氏の著書に説得された形で南京の虐殺についても見識を変えた私が、氏の著書を読み進めるうちに氏の反対する慰安婦性奴隷説に傾いたとするのは、論理的に無理だ。
何せ私は慰安婦を性奴隷と呼んだことは無いばかりか、慰安婦性奴隷説を唱える吉見義明氏の著書を読む必要性すら感じていない。吉見氏については、歴史研究を政治活動の手段としている人物としか認識していない。
『主戦場』のミキネ・デザキ監督の考えでは、「慰安婦は性奴隷ではない」と主張するからには、性奴隷であると唱える吉見義明教授の著書を読まなければならないらしい。私にはこうした主張は、「地球が平らでないと主張するには、『地球平坦説』を唱える人々の著書を読んだ上でなければ正しい批判は出来ない』と言っているのに等しく聞こえる。
勿論これは、慰安婦性奴隷説を唱えた吉見氏の議論が、地球平坦説と等しい程愚かに聞こえるからではない。そうではなく、地球平坦説を唱える人々の著書を読まなくても、その主張の誤りを結論付けられるように、吉見氏の主張は、落ち着いて考えれば、同意する方が困難な理屈なのだ。しかも、戦前、戦中において、日本や韓国で行なわれていた貧しい家庭による身売りというものに関する知識を少しでも持っている人々にとって、慰安婦を性奴隷と呼ぶ新しい定義の方が、『歴史修正主義』と聞こえる。
因みに、歴史家の秦郁彦氏は、英訳された著書『Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone』で慰安婦たちの状況を、東京吉原傀儡で働いた売春婦たち、戦地に赴き働いた女性看護婦、また兵士らのそれと比較して、科学的と言える程冷静に、細かく記している。（同著282頁から285頁参照）
秦氏の検証によれば、慰安婦たちの給与は彼女たちの客であった兵士らの10から13倍にもなり、二、三年働けば、借金を返済した後に故郷に家が建つほどの稼ぎであった。戦地における慰安婦たちの行動制限を指して『奴隷状態』と結論付ける声があるが、戦地である事を考慮すれば、外出や行動にある程度の規制があるのは、何も慰安婦に限った事ではない。兵士にとっても、また陸軍病院で働く看護婦にとっても同様である。
「高給といっても、インフレーションを鑑みれば、大した金額ではない」と、慰安婦だけがインフレーションの影響を受けているような主張はおかしい。インフレのあおりは、兵士や看護婦、一般人も被ったのだから。
一兵卒の給与は月に7円50銭であり、軍曹になると月23円から30円。戦闘の手当がついても、それは倍額までと限られている。戦地の陸軍病院で働く看護婦エガワ・キクの給与は月90円であったが、彼女のもとに来て診てもらっていた慰安婦の給与は月250円であった。
「高い給与を受けていた」に対して、「仲介業者がピンハネをしていた」と、あたかも慰安婦の手元に稼ぎが残らなかったように反論する人がいる。実際には、戦時中、東京の吉原で働いていた女性たちは、手取り分が25%から40%に引き上げられたが、沖縄やその他戦地の慰安婦たちの手取り分は50%から70%にまで引き上げられている。手元に残った賃金で言えば、慰安婦たちは、日本国内の売春業に従事する女性の給与の少なくとも5倍を稼ぎ、平城の売春街で働く女性の10倍を稼いでいる。売春業は、その女性が何人の客を取るかによる。多くの客を相手にした女性が高い給与で『劣悪な労働条件』なのか、多くの若い男性が戦地に駆り出された為、若者の残り少なくなった東京に於いて少ない客を相手にした女性が、僅かの給与で「劣悪な労働条件」なのか、各々判断が違うだろうが、私には、慰安婦たちが吉原の女性よりも性奴隷であるとは思えない。
「その意思に反して」という『強制性』を鑑みても、赤紙によって徴兵された兵隊たちより、慰安婦たちは奴隷なのだろうか。慰安婦を奴隷と呼ぶ論理は、現在の日本人が享受する自由や生活のレベルと比較すれば、当時の日本人、及び韓国人の多くが当てはまるものだろう。現在でも、戦地に赴く兵士、看護婦には、行動や居住の選択に自由が無いし、廃業の自由と言っても、契約を交わして職を得る人々にとって、現在においても、契約の期間が過ぎるまで勝手に廃業できない。第一、貧困の為、或いは騙され、売られて風俗で働く女性たちは、現在の日本、韓国にもいるが、果たして彼女らは一般に性奴隷とは呼ばれているだろうか。
吉見氏の性奴隷説は、慰安婦たちがなぜ吉原の売春婦たちよりも『奴隷』なのか、なぜ看護婦や兵士らより『奴隷』なのか、言ってみれば、何故慰安婦たちだけを『奴隷』と定義しなければならないのか、客観的に説明し得るものではない。
尤も私は、個々の慰安婦たちに、語りつくせない悲話があった事も想像できる。親に売られたにせよ、騙されたにせよ、自ら応募したにせよ、何らかの事情で慰安所で働いたのだ。戦後の苦労もあったかもしれない。しかしながら、彼女たちの苦難は、兵士や陸軍病院の看護婦、また吉原で客をとっていた女性と比較して、より悲惨であったとは言い切れものなのだ。慰安婦たちだけを奴隷と定義する為には、彼女たちよりもはるかに賃金が少なく、行動規制されていた兵士や看護婦、また彼女たちと境遇を同じくしていた吉原の娼婦も奴隷だったとするしかない。吉見氏の発言として、現在も風俗産業で働く女性を指して、彼女らも性奴隷であると呼んだ事があったようだが、それが事実であるならば、そのような理屈は、もはや歴史の事実を追求する研究者の姿勢ではなく、ただの政治イデオロギーを広める活動家のものだ。
勿論、別の人々にとっては、私が以上にまとめた秦氏の説明は不充分であり、それでも慰安婦達を性奴隷だと呼びたいだろう。その通り、数百ページを越す秦氏の著書に記された氏の検証は実に多岐に渡り、私の投稿にまとめ尽くす事は不可能だ。ただこれらの検証は、私が慰安婦を性奴隷と考えない理由として充分なのだ。
慰安婦という呼称であった女性たちを性奴隷と呼び直す吉見氏の姿勢には、客観的な史実の探求よりも、吉見氏の個人的信念が感じられる。歴史家の目標は、歴史真実の客観的追及である。ところが吉見氏による無理な定義修正や、度重なる反対意見に対する訴訟を通した弾圧を考えると、歴史事実の調査は目的の為の単なる手段であり、目的そのものは別のところにあると思える。
私にとって、吉見氏は歴史家を気取った政治活動家である。氏の著書は、歴史と言う、政治とはかけ離れた学問を学ぶ上で必読の書物ではない。
たとえ、慰安婦たちを性奴隷と定義する吉見氏の動機が、慰安婦一人一人に対する心からの同情であり、善意からであったとしても、何故、これまでのように彼女たちを慰安婦と呼んだまま同情し、心を寄り添う事が出来ないのだろう。
歴史家を気取って政治活動を行なう人物は、右派にもいる。私はそのうちの一人として、阿羅健一氏をあげて批判した事がある。阿羅氏は、果たして南京において日本軍による虐殺が行われたかどうか、当時南京に駐在していた日本人には聞くものの、実際誰よりも虐殺について知る筈の元日本兵たちには聞かず、虐殺を「まぼろし」と呼んでしまっている。「組織的な３０万人の虐殺」に対する反論のつもりしれないが、これでは客観的史実の検証とは程遠い。吉見氏や阿羅氏にとって、歴史とは目的を達成する為の手段でしかないのではないか。
一国の歴史というものは、ある思想にとって便利な事の連なりでは決してない。善か悪で割りきれる程、単純なものではないのだ。そしてこれは、私自身の誤りからも言えるのだが、「信じたい歴史観」がある限り、それを補強してくれるプロパガンダに対して、我々はあまりにも弱い。
映画『主戦場』で言われた「立場の変化」とは
映画『主戦場』を視聴された方々から、「なぜ立場を変えたのか」と聞かれたり、またある記事には、「否定論者」から「肯定論者」へと立場を変えたように書かれてあったが、私自身、何についての立場を変えたと考えられているのか、理解できていない。
当然ながらこの映画は、私についての映画ではないし、私はデザキ監督がインタビューを行なった多数の方々の内の一人である。インタビューでは、「慰安婦問題について、考えを話して下さい」というような、この問題に対する私の理解と意見を求められたのではない。「ナショナリストの中にある反韓国人デモや、人種差別的言動、何其についての意見を述べて下さい」という形のものである。私の記憶としては、日本側の非だけではなく、韓国側の非難されるべき言動も意識的に付け加えた筈だが、そういった回答は、監督が私から聞き出したかった解答ではなかったのだろう。結果的に、辛うじて「日本政府に法的責任は無い」といった発言が残されただけで、あとは日本側批判に徹底している印象を与えたようだ。勿論これは、監督としてのデザキ氏の権限以内の編集であるが、その他にも、右派の主張の後に必ず左派の主張を入れ、それで議論が終結したかのような方式を取れば、右派が左派に完全論破されている印象を与える。彼が偏向しているという批判を免れるのは困難だろう。
映画では、インタビューのうちのごく一部分が使われたのであるから、歴史観を巡る私の意見の何が変わり、何が変わっていないのかが正しく伝わっていないのも当然だ。簡単に言えば、私は『歴史修正主義』と言われながらも、要は『日本無謬論者』に過ぎない「戦前の日本は悪い事は行なわなかった」という歴史観から、「戦前の日本は、(その非難に誇張があったとしても)確かに近隣諸国に対し悪い事を行なった。戦後の日本は、戦前の姿と決別し、自由民主主義社会のうちの大国の一つである」という史観に変わっている。これは、保守派政権である安倍政権も継承している史観だ。
しかしながら皮肉な事にも、この主戦場という映画が慰安婦問題を扱った映画であり、その中で立場を変えたと受け取られているにも関わらず、私は慰安婦問題に関わる意見の殆どを変えてはいない。「慰安婦問題が女性の人権問題だと考えられている現在の国際政治状況を考えれば、誤解を受けない為にも、慰安婦をただの売春婦と呼ぶ事は、特に男性方には注意して頂きたい」と、ナショナリズムの運動に活動的であった頃から主張していた。だからと言って彼女たちを『性奴隷』と考えた事は無いし、そう定義する事も誤りだと考える。私は慰安婦は慰安婦と呼ぶのが最も適切であり、正しいと考えている。
慰安婦問題に関係する事柄で私が考えを変えたのは、IWG報告書への理解だけだ。例えもし日本による韓国人女性や慰安婦に対する犯罪があったとしても、それは米国にとっては機密文書化する類ではなく、したがって冷戦後のクリントン政権下によって公開された元機密文書の中に見つかる筈はない。『機密、諜報』といった事柄に詳しい人ならば、そもそもなぜ慰安婦に関する事柄が機密扱いされたと考えたのか、私の無知、非常識に呆れることだろう。
私が『日本無謬論者』から踵を返し、「(その非難に誇張があったとしても)戦前の日本は、確かに悪い事を行なった」と考える対象国には、まず中国がある。「30万から40万の無辜の市民を組織的に虐殺した」という中国側の主張にはかなりの誇張があるが、中国に対して侵略戦争を行なったことは確かだ。それがどれ程アメリカによる経済封鎖の為に切羽詰まった状況での事情であったとしても、中国にとって侵略であった事は否定できない。日本が中国と同じ立場に立たされたら、必ずそう感じるだろう。実際、北朝鮮に対する日本や米国等の経済制裁は続くが、だからと言って金政権が資源や物質等を確保する為に国境線を越えて日本に戦争を仕掛ければ、殆ど全ての日本人はこれを侵略と呼ぶだろう。しかしながらこうした認識は、戦後、また今日も続く中国の軍事侵略や拡張主義を許容したり、弁護する為の主張ではない。ただ、自国の行為は正当化しつつ、他国の行為だけを非難すれば、公平な議論とは言えないし、信頼を損ねるだけだと考える。
中国に対する日本の行為として、議論が最も白熱するのは南京大虐殺だろう。南京での虐殺の有無に関して、私が最も史実に近いと考えるのは、秦郁彦氏が説明する、南京戦の最中に行なわれた捕虜と市民への不法殺害を指す数万規模の虐殺である。南京戦において多くの捕虜の虐殺があった事は、さすがに「ゼロ虐殺説」を唱える学者方も認めている事だから、違いは捕虜や市民の処刑を以て虐殺と呼ぶか否かである。たとえ南京大虐殺が嘘であり、それを捏造するところが単なる中国政府によるプロパガンダであったとしても、それでも『日本無謬説』には無理がある。
また「日本はアジアの諸国を欧米の植民地主義から救った、アジアの解放者である」という歴史観は、単なる無知と嘘を土台としている。一例を挙げれば、シンガポールにおいて日本が行なった虐殺は日本とシンガポールの両国が認めているが、日本人には一般的知識として知られていないだけだ。以下は、日本軍が行なった『シンガポール華僑虐殺』についてである。
『シンガポール華僑虐殺事件』、或いは『シンガポール華僑粛清事件』とは、1942年2月から3月にかけて、日本軍の占領統治下にあったシンガポール で、日本軍(第25軍)が、中国系住民多数を掃討作戦により殺害した事件を指す。https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B7%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AC%E3%83%9D%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E8%8F%AF%E5%83%91%E7%B2%9B%E6%B8%85%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6
あまり日本人には馴染みのない『シンガポール華僑虐殺事件』だが、勿論シンガポール人やマレーシア人は知っている事件だ。この事件では、中国系市民が中国に武器を購入する資金を送っているのではないかという疑いをかけられ、日本軍により組織的に殺害が計画され、虐殺されている。その被害者数を日本政府は約5,000人と見積もり、シンガポール政府は5万から10万人と数えている。これらの虐殺された中国系市民は、誰一人として兵士やゲリラではない。そもそもシンガポールでは日本兵は中国系市民によって殺されてはいないのだから、自衛戦でもない。
リー・クワン・ユーは、シンガポールの初代首相となった人物だが、彼は19歳の時に、彼の外見が『中国に資金援助をしていそうな外見』の要点を備えていた為に、粛清リストに載り、危うく難を逃れた事を証言している。日本軍や日本の憲兵による地元の人々への虐殺や蛮行は他にも記録されており、シンガポールやマレーシアでは学校の歴史授業でも教えられている。1966年10月25日、日本政府はシンガポールとの間で、2,500万シンガポール・ドル相当の日本の生産物と役務を無償で供与する、という内容の戦後賠償協定を締結した。
このような虐殺がその他でも行なわれた事を知らないが為に「日本はアジアを欧米の植民地支配から解放して、アジアの人々に感謝をされている」と主張すれば、「日本人は歴史を知らず、作り変えている」と反発されて当然である。反発する側が『反日』で『中国の手先』なのではない。ガンジーでさえアジアにおける当時の日本の行動を批判していた事を考えれば、独りよがりも良いところだろう。http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/selected-letters-of-mahatma/gandhi-letter-to-every-japanese.php
http://hkennedy.hatenablog.com/entry/2017/02/13/165327
日本の中のナショナリスト的な考えによれば、「中国や韓国以外のアジアの国々からは日本は感謝をされている」筈だが、頼みの綱のアジアの親日国も、「過去の日本の行ないを手放しで感謝」していたり、或いは日本の保守派の一部と「同じ歴史観を共有している」わけではない事が、各国８００人以上のサンプルから得た意識調査の結果から理解出来る。
具体的には、フィリピン人の47%が、日本は第二次世界大戦の行ないについて「充分に謝罪をしていない」と答え、29%の「充分に謝罪をした」、19%の「謝罪は必要ない」を上回っている。
インドネシアは同じ質問に40%が「充分に謝罪をしていない」と答え、29%が「充分に謝罪をした」、6%が「謝罪は必要ない。」マレーシアでは、30%が「充分に謝罪をしていない。」 22%が「充分に謝罪をした。」 また10%が「謝罪は必要ない」と答えている。
「充分に謝罪をした」にしても、「充分でない」にせよ、『アジアの解放者』であるなら、「謝罪は必要でない」が圧倒しなければおかしい。
ちなみに、同じ質問に対する日本人の回答は、28%が「充分に謝罪をしていない。」48%が「充分に謝罪をした。」10%が「謝罪は必要ない」と答えている。
第二次世界大戦中のアジアに於ける日本の行ないについて、日本が「日本はアジアの解放者」としての史観を主張しても、そうした史観は、アジア諸国を含めて日本のナショナリスト以外には受け入れられていない。
こうした調査結果に言及すると、「それは華僑(中国系)がアジア諸国に増えたからだ」と反発する声が一部ナショナリストから上がるが、彼らが「レイシスト(人種差別主義)」でない事を信じて欲しいならば、日本への非難の理由を全て人種や国籍に押し付けない方が良い。
私は慰安婦の問題についても同様に考える。ナショナリストであっても、保守派であっても、彼らが慰安婦問題について発言し、慰安婦が性奴隷であったと考える根底にセクシズム(女性差別主義)が無いと信じて欲しいならば、女性差別的な言動は一切控えるべきだ。韓国側による度重なる謝罪の要求をはね付け、日本に法的責任が無い事を主張する根底に、韓国人への差別感など皆無であると信じて欲しいならば、一部日本人による韓国人に対する差別的言動を批判し、それ以上は一才関わりを持たない事だ。女性差別的言動や、人種差別意識をちらつかせながら日本を擁護すれば、擁護どころか、日本の主張の動機そのものを疑わせる事になる。今回の『主戦場』を観た観客のうち、立場を決めていないニュートラルな層があったとして、そのうちの何割が『日本側』に共感を覚えただろう。これはデザキ監督による偏向や編集だけの責任ではない。語れば語るだけ日本の主張の動機を疑わせるような発言を繰り返す人々が、自分の発言がどう受け取られるかを顧みずに多く語っている事が原因でもあるのだ。
私はナショナリストらに阿るつもりも、左派への批判を控えるつもりも一切ない。韓国との慰安婦問題における事実関係についての意見を変えてはいない。韓国人慰安婦たちが意思に反して強制されたと感じた事に異議を唱えるつもりは無いが、彼女たちが日本軍によって強制連行されたという証拠は無いし、日本軍や政府が当時の法律を犯していなかった事を鑑みれば、現在の日本政府に法的責任は無いと考える。「可哀想なハルモニ」を慮る振りをしながら和解の道を閉ざし、彼女らを自分たちの反日運動の道具として扱うだけでなく、韓国人学者への自由な言論をも阻む韓国人活動家らは、反日を看板とした醜悪な商売人である。自分たちにとって都合の良い歴史観しか信じない日本人『歴史修正主義者』もいるが、自分たちにとって都合の良い歴史観しか信じない『歴史修正主義者』や、過激な言動を繰り返すナショナリストらは韓国にも大勢いる。「可哀想だから」といった感情論を優先させ、一般的な「奴隷」や「国際法」の解釈まで曲げて日本政府に法的責任を求める左派の学者は、学者としての域を超えている。慰安婦問題を論じる際には、当時の社会風俗、軍と性との関係、他国軍と性との関係、また戦地に赴いた兵士、看護婦、タイピスト、また東京吉原界隈で働いていた性産業の女性とも比較するべきだが、それでもなお慰安婦たちだけが奴隷であったと主張する左派学者は、学者としての立場を悪用した単なる政治活動家ではないだろうか。
これら左派学者らによる著書を私は読んでいない。デザキ氏によれば、左派学者らの著書を読まない限り、彼らに対する批判も的外れの事になるようだが、慰安婦問題に対する日本政府の対応を糾弾する為だけに作り出されたと思われる、他では通用しない非常識な珍定義を繰り返す左派学者の主張は、私には「地球は平らである」といった主張に等しく、「地球平坦説の主だった著書を読まなければ、その主張の誤りを指摘してはいけない」と言われているように感じる。
尤も、たとえかいつまんでであってもその全体要を知らなければ、その主張の本質を誤解する危険がある事は認めるが、左派に対する私の批判をドキュメンタリー中では全くと言って良いほど採用しなかったデザキ氏は、よく承知している事だろう。
(文中、日本側、韓国側、とした表現は、日本人の中に韓国政府の主張に共感している人がいない訳ではなく、その逆もあっての事だが、個々では敢えて、大まかに日本政府の主張と立場を同じくする人々、韓国政府の主張と立場を等しくする人々、とした意味で使用している。)
Feelings Don’t Care About Facts, But Neither Do Facts Care About Feelings
Anyone who claims that I have said “As I learned about Nanking, I came to believe the Comfort Women were sex slaves…” or anything similar in the essence in the documentary film, Shusenjo, or in the interview is wrong. I have never thought they were sex slaves. What I said was "I had started to see things that the nationalists said more skeptically."
Below is to clarify my thinking:
I used to think only the leftists spread propaganda and lies. But I learned that there were propagand and lies on both sides. Crooks, mercenaries, fanatics, demagogues, ideologists and enablers were everywhere. But so are good-hearted, respectful, honest individuals. In fact, the “side” does not authenticate anything nor prove anyone's decency at all.
There are certain elements which make resolving political or historical disputes difficult.
I used to believe the only thing we, as individuals who “seek truth,” should do was to spread truth, and the people who hear the truth would receive it with gratitude. After all, wasn’t “the truth” what the nationalists claimed to be pursuing? But I now think that was naïve, wishful thinking. It turned out, truth is a hard medicine to swallow for most people, especially when strong emotions or means of earning is involved. Facts do not care about one’s feelings, but neither do feelings care about facts. There is nothing more detestable and inconvenient than fact when it tries to stand in one’s way of meeting needs.
When I stated how I changed my views on Nanking on my Facebook account, I received, literally, hundreds of responses from my nationalistic Facebook friends, primarily to convince me to stay within “a zero massacre” theory. I tried to explain the reasons of my changed understandings of the past event, quoting Dr. Hata’s book on Nanking. Hata was and still is, considered as a notable historian who was famous for his thorough and unbiased investigations on the comfort women issues to the nationalists. To my surprise, Hata’s researches meant nothing to the nationalists. They suddenly started discrediting and some even started slandering the same historian whom they upheld as an authority on the comfort women issues. Hata’s careful estimate of total unlawful death tolls, 20,000 to 40,000, was dismissed as a result of his “biased, poor, and lazy job.”
“How could it be?” I argued, “He is the same Dr. Hata whom we, the conservatives, respect as an authority on the comfort women issue. How could his investigations on Nanking suddenly be a biased, poor, lazy job? Hata’s reasoning and the estimate are more logical and persuasive than the zero-massacre theory.” My words didn’t mean anything to the nationalists. Their focus was to discredit China’s 300,000 massacre propaganda, and Hata’s acknowledgement of some level of massacre was, they felt, standing in their mission. One even wrote: “In order to counter China’s propaganda, I think we should even state that there was negative 300,000 massacre. It’s an eye for an eye. A propaganda for a propaganda,” as if historical disputes could be settled by negotiations.
This was the moment that I realized what the nationalists, at least some nationalists, were pursuing was, unlike what they claimed, not necessarily the truth nor understanding. There were even some scholars who were seriously claimng that admitting some wrongdoings would encourage China’s exaggerations.
The ridiculousness of this illogic was obvious to anyone who was not emotionally involved with Nanking disputes.
But I can easily point out that the liberals also fall into similar inconsistencies and illogics. For example, the support groups for the comfort women which uphold the women’s words as indisputable truths have turned against the same comfort women who have accepted money from Asia Women’s Funds. The liberals who demanded official apology and compensations from the Japanese government also reject the 2015 bilateral agreement which stated Abe's apology and offered compensations.
I no longer share the belief of “people will come to know the truth once it’s given.” It’s more likely that people believe what they want to believe and disregard the rest, especially when strong emotions or methods of earnings are involved. I, therefore, am not in the business of making myself popular or getting approvals. I criticize what I find despicable, mostly bad behaviors or damaging rhetoric. I state my disagreement when I find something unreasonable. But I also share my admiration or give credit where it’s due.
I do recognize that there are personal attacks against me as well as admirations. Those do not bother me nor flatter me. What bothers me instead is that the words which I didn’t say are circulating as my words. I have never said “the comfort women were sex slaves” or anything similar in the sense. That is a fact. Anyone who wants to take it, it’s there. I ended up disappointing and angering the right side of the aisle. I’m sure this will disappoint and anger the left too. But so be it.
Feelings don’t care about facts, but neither do facts care about feelings.
"Facts don't care about your feelings" is a famous statement from an American conservative journalist, Ben Shapiro.
My Thoughts On Comfort Women Issue, 2019 May
My Thoughts on Comfort Women Issues, May 2019
I have read the article called, “The Anatomy of Neo-Nationalist Misogyny” by Nina Trige Andersen. https://www.moderntimes.review/the-anatomy-of-neo-nationalist-misogyny/?fbclid=IwAR0MhohkqJ6KO6MQ8knSRkRm6TiXvu1dctyltEe-rkZRxhloPzPFHcYhGnA
This article is based on her reactions to watching the documentary titled, “Shusenjo” by Miki Dezaki.
I’m not sure what Andersen meant by “The documentary maps the landscape of denialists, including interviews with Hisae Kennedy, a «defector» from the neo-nationalist movement, who explains how she came to realize that the revisionism she was involved in was unethical…” Anderson calls me a “defector” from my past associations with people who do not feel the Japanese military committed war crimes by protecting comfort stations and who do feel the Japanese government did apologize many times for being part of the terrible suffering endured by the comfort women.
First of all, what does Anderson mean by “denialists”? When someone calls someone, for example, a “holocaust denialist,” it usually means that person is denying the existence of the holocaust. Likewise, when someone is accused of being a “Nanking denialist,” that person denys the occurrence of the “Nanking massacre.” In fact, she writes: “Though most of those who were put to work as comfort women for the Japanese soldiers have obviously passed away, some are still alive, and so is their demand for recognition and compensation. Japan refused for many years to even speak of the issue and denied that any such thing as a comfort women system had ever been put in place.” But in actuality none of those “nationalists” deny the existence or occurrence of the “comfort women.” Of course, there are different categories of denials, for example, the denial of Japan’s legal and/or moral responsibilities, or the denial of the existence of evidence, so rounding them all up as “denialists” is rather an irresponsible labeling. As far as denying the evidence of the Japanese military’s kidnapping of Korean comfort women, even the New York Times’ Martin Fakler writes, “There is little evidence that the Japanese military abducted or was directly involved in entrapping women in Korea, which had been a Japanese colony for decades when the war began…” (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/world/asia/japanese-right-attacks-newspaper-on-the-left-emboldening-war-revisionists.html) Now, is he one of those “denialists?”
If she means by “denialists” the people who deny the Japanese government’s further responsibility on past issues, that would include several South Korean Presidents who assured others that “past issues have been solved between Japan and South Korea.”
Second of all, I’m not sure how I explained during the interview why I stopped being involved with political activities such that she came to write “how she came to realize that the revisionism she was involved in was unethical.” The reason for my “defection” was that I came to think Japan and South Korea must prioritize their national security concerns over historical disputes. This realization is a result of listening to a Polish professor, Dr. Andrzej Kozlowski, whose writing was quoted by professor George Akita in Hawaii.
It is not because I came to think the “revisionism” itself “was unethical.”
There are, however, behaviors and rhetoric among some extreme nationalists that I find extremely unethical. Those things include hateful discrimination against Koreans and/or Chinese people, willfully lying about facts in order to make political points, and making fun of or mocking the women. On the other hand, I do not consider revising the conventional understanding of past events as unethical. Everybody, conservatives or liberals, has the right to learn, relearn and change his or her opinions as he or she learns. In any field of academia, where challenges are constant, not revising one’s opinion when credible, countering information (evidence) emerges is dishonest. Of course, if one falls for obvious fraudulent “revising,” that is problematic. The underlying factors in such cases are one’s intelligence and/or motives.
Andersen also wrote: “The revisionists are, according to Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue, connected through nationalist and fascist circles and associations in Japan and the US, whose main concern is to reinstall Japan as a military empire in the East. They are driven by their belief that the Japanese belong to a superior race. The ideology of the comfort women denialists is, as Hisae Kennedy says, both racist and sexist.“ I do not believe the ideology of the revisionists is racist and sexist. However, some revisionists do say extreme or even fanatical things, and, needless to say, anyone claiming the “Japanese belong to a superior race” should be called racist and probably idiots as well. For sure, there are people whose insensitive rhetoric sounds sexist. There may be overlapping populations among those racists, sexists and nationalists. However, it is simply wrong to assume this issue is based on the racism and sexism among Japanese. In fact, most Japanese who are now labeled as “nationalists” started speaking up as a reaction to the constant and repeated demands of apology after apology. It is clear to anyone who lived, observed or objectively studied the rise of nationalism in Japan that its rise was reactionary.
More importantly, one should realize the root of nationalism in Japan. Most grassroot Japanese nationalists are exhausted, tired and sick of apologizing. They are humiliated, rather than arrogant. Liberal activists on Korea’s side dismiss Japan’s repeated apologies as insufficient. However, that’s not how Japanese think. One of the secrets of Tony Marano’s YouTube popularity (besides the fact that he is actually a good hearted, charming man) is, I believe, his “I love Japan” series works as an antidepressant or an energy pill to the nationalists’ exhausted souls. In fact, the anti-Korea nationalists do not suggest “let’s annex them again,” but they do often suggest “let’s break off relations with South Korea.” Even from that ridiculous claim, we can hear their weary “leave us alone” cries. This is not a cry of superiority but rather desperation. Wittingly or unwittingly, rounding up those “denialists (whatever Anderson really means by the label) as “racists” and/or “sexists” is nothing more than a form of ad hominin. Instead of dismissing Japan’s repeated apologies as “not enough,” and alleging racism and sexism as the root cause of Japanese nationalism, it would be wise for liberal activists to face the truth: the Japanese are sick and tired of apologizing.
This is not to deny there are racists and sexists among the nationalists. There are terrible people on both sides, as there are good people on both sides. Racism and sexism must be condemned, especially if we wish our case to be taken seriously. Still, it should be noted that extreme hatred and the sense of one’s superiority exist among Korean nationalists as well. If willing, anyone can easily find “Kill All Japs” types of Korean groups in social media. Dismissing the Korean side of extremism is a hypocrisy in which no objectivity but only one’s narcissistic sense of moral superiority can be found.
Talking about the Nanking Massacre for a moment, it is a fact that I used to think no type of massacre took place in Nanking. I used to be a Nanking “denialist.” Although I still do not believe the systematic massacre of three hundred thousand civilians took place, I now believe around twenty to forty thousand Chinese prisoners of war were unlawfully killed. In terms of the “Nanking Massacre,” my former views are considered “denialism,” since credible historians such as Dr. Ikuhiko Hata, Dr. David Kennedy, and Dr. David Askew agree that some level of massacre did take place.
However, I have not changed nor revised my overall understanding of the comfort women issues. Below is what I posted to one of my Facebook friends on my Facebook account in March, 2017:
[Dear R.,
You are a genuinely kind and principled American conservative who likes Japan. But you are understandably puzzled by some of the claims that were made by Japanese extremists on the right. This is a good lesson for all Japanese who wish to defend "the honor" of Japan. Their crazy propaganda is summarized as, "the Japanese can do no wrong," and will just help the opposing propaganda, which is summarized as, "If it's Japan, it must be bad," sound more truthful.
The Japanese need to know that every one of their attempts to deny Japan's aggressive war against China, its role in the “Nanking Massacre,” its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and its mistreatment of POWs is seen as either a whitewash of historical truths or hollow justification of Japan's deeds. In my opinion, reasonable evidence exists that Japan in some manner violated international standards of behavior in those areas.
However, as far as the comfort women issue is concerned, there is no objective evidence of Japanese war crimes, except for a few cases where Japanese soldiers kidnapped some Dutch women and forced them to serve in a newly set-up comfort station. When this incident was found out, the Japanese military officials immediately closed the brothel and punished the soldiers who were involved in kidnapping those women. Also, there is no hard evidence of comfort women being abused. On the contrary, an Australian POW recorded his encounter with many Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese comfort women and concluded that those women certainly would have been in a worse situation if they had been brought to private brothels, instead of the military-operated comfort stations.
When I talk about a lack of objective evidence, let me give you an example of what I personally encountered. A former Japanese military medic who served in China has been used as a witness of Japanese atrocity against comfort women. I read about him on BBC news, where he claimed that the Japanese terribly abused comfort women. However, I had a chance to interview him personally, and he said that he had treated women carefully for medical problems and had given them STD tests. And he told me he had never seen any violence nor war crimes against those women. When I asked him where he had heard about mistreatment of comfort women, he said he had read about those stories in books.
I do not disagree with the comfort women's memories of sufferings. It must have been horrible. I am not surprised that they describe their experiences as "rapes." My sympathy for each one of them is genuine. However, in order to find the responsible party, we have to depend on objective historical research.
During the war, and even before the war, prostitution was legal in Japan, the Korean peninsula, and most of Asia. It was common practice for poor peasants to sell their daughters to brothels, shops, or wealthier families to be used as servants. Poor peasants also sent their sons to shops or wealthier families, too. Technically, I should not use the term "sell," because it implies that the buyers own them forever. Those daughters and sons were free to leave once they had earned enough money to pay back the debts of their parents.
If you have watched Stephen Spielberg's "Memoir of a Geisha," the situations of the comfort women were not much different from the main character in the film. Many comfort women were "sold" to the "comfort stations," while the film's heroine, Chiyo, was "sold" to be a geisha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_a_Geisha
Along with those comfort women who were "sold" by their parents, there were also women who were tricked or deceived into thinking that they were going to work at cafes or factories. The deceivers should be condemned, but who were they? They were civilian brokers or middlemen, as the article written by Peipei Qiu admits. There is no evidence that the Japanese military was involved in the deceitful recruitment. There were also other comfort women who "volunteered," meaning they were not sold nor deceived but were willing to work at the comfort stations for pay (they were all paid, by the individual soldiers). Compared to private brothels, military operated comfort stations were much better operated for the protection of the women. Therefore, it is not surprising that there were volunteer women who decided to work at the comfort stations, although, if you were to ask whether or not those "voluntary workers" desired to work as comfort women, I assume their answers would be "no," since I have never heard a small girl ever say she would like to be a sex worker when she grows up.
So, who then is responsible for the terrible "rapes" which repeatedly happened to those women?
If the Japanese military was not responsible for recruiting those women, what do you think the soldiers should have done to those women at the comfort stations? Rescue them? They didn't. In fact, they slept with those women. For some soldiers, it was their first experience, and for some soldiers, it was their very last experience. While the "horror" side of the narratives have been emphasized, it is also a fact that there were natural, emotional bonds developed between the soldiers and those women. There were cases of marriage after the war, and there used to be "reunions" of former soldiers and former comfort women after the war. This is not to take away from the terrible sufferings the comfort women endured and for which the Japanese government apologized multiple times.
I do not want to discuss Peipei Qiu's accusations of alleged murders of women, since there was no evidence to back up her claims.
During and after the war, the comfort woman system was not seen as a violation of women's rights by the U.S. and its allies. In fact, U.S. Report No.49 "Japanese Prisoners of War Interrogation of Prostitution" says, "they were nothing more than highly paid prostitutes." If the U.S. had seen or found evidence of mass killings of the women, it would certainly have publicized it and brought it up during the Tokyo trials. It is almost impossible to imagine any reason to hide this kind of information.
http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html
The fact is the comfort system was considered to be a way to stop rapes of local women by soldiers, and it is a fact that troops such as the Russians, which didn't have a similar system, raped a great number of local women wherever they invaded. The U.S. troops had a similar brothel system in Hawaii, called "Honolulu Harlots." Those women were brought from San Francisco, and the conditions of the prostitutes in Honolulu were, in comparison, even slightly worse than those of the Korean comfort women. This was not made known to the general public, whose Christian values consider prostitution immoral, because of the fear that this would dishonor the dignity of the military.
https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/honolulu-harlots/
In a perfect world, soldiers would not rape women nor have sex with local prostitutes. But unfortunately we are not living in a perfect world, and the only choices were to either rape local women or use unsupervised brothels or military operated brothels. Similar systems to Japan's comfort women system were used during the Korean war and the Vietnam war. As you are probably aware, former Korean comfort women are now suing the Korean government for their psychological damage caused by being coerced to serve the U.S. military.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/world/asia/south-korea-court-comfort-women.html?_r=0
The comfort women issue emerged in the late 1980s due to two factors: the Korean military dictatorship ended, and a novel "My War Crimes," was published. It was written by a former Japanese soldier, Seiji Yoshida. Even though this book has no historical evidence to back up its claims, the crimes of kidnapping Korean women from house to house were treated by the readers as something that had actually happened. A notable historian, Ikuhiko Hata, whom I have met multiple times, visited the area where the author “confessed” his "crimes" had taken place and found no locals remembered such things ever happening. Also, Yoshida himself has publicly admitted he fabricated the kidnappings.
Still, I do agree that Japan has a moral responsibility. As politics change over time, it is common for a government to bear moral responsibility for past deeds which were seen legal and acceptable at the time of the event, such as slavery or unfair treatment of people based on gender, race, religion or ethnicity. However, one additional note is that when Japan and South Korea were negotiating the conditions of the normalization treaty in 1965 the Japanese government offered to compensate individual victims. But the Korean government refused, demanding that the entire money be paid to the government. The individual comfort women received nothing because those women were not considered by the Korean government to be uncompensated victims. Japan’s condition for the agreement was that there should never again be any legal claims. All of this is documented and can be easily checked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Basic_Relations_between_Japan_and the_Republic_of_Korea
I was glad that in 2015 the Japanese government took a step to again make an agreement with the Korean government, which was opposed in both countries. South Korea's anti-Japan nationalism has its roots in their efforts to counter North Korea. It has been the case that South Korea has a tiger by the tail, of which they can't let go. But it also seems that Japan also has a tiger by the tail which they can't let go of either. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/why-south-korea-so-obsessed-japan-13065
My emphasis could be seen to favor the side of Japan, but the fundamental reason I am writing this to you is to shed light on the side which Peipei Qiu did not cover. However, I genuinely want the wounds of those women to be healed, and often I find myself in their grief. Still, when evaluating the historical facts and the present diplomacy, I have to separate my emotions from what I want those women to have in their lives, and focus on what Korea and Japan should do. I believe I would do so even if I were one of them.
What I wrote here echoes many of the Japanese nationalists' talking points. In fact, the nationalists say many things that are true. It is just that they refuse to consider anything that does not fit their narrative. They always discredit the assertions of others by saying, "That's what leftists and liberals say." In this respect, they completely mirror the leftists and liberals.
To learn about this matter, there is only one complete, respectable source in English, and that is Sarah Soh's book. Nothing else even comes close. In Japanese, there is Ikuhiko Hata's book. (Hata published in English his research on Comfort Women issues in 2018.) Without reading either of these, one becomes vulnerable to propaganda and rumors.
This is a very complicated matter which both sides refuse to settle, and they both bring up new propaganda or ridiculous claims again and again. Determining what really happened should be in the hands of real historians who specialize in military history in Asia.
As this long post shows, this issue has become a complicated and an emotional matter which I have come to conclude both sides need to leave to the discussions of historians. Politically, both the Japanese and South Korean governments reached an agreement in 2015, and I believe any move to breach the agreement should be considered irresponsible and a political manipulation. Both Japan and South Korea, indeed, face far more serious national security issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear development and China’s military expansionism.
I have repeatedly criticized the persecution of Korean scholars who supported some of the Japanese arguments, which are, in fact, exactly the same as mine. For example, according to BBC, Park Yu-Ha, a professor at Sejoing University and the author of the 2013 book, The Comfort Women of the Empire, was fined $8,900 due to her work on comfort women issues, where she has suggested that not all comfort women were coerced and that some developed emotional connections with Japanese soldiers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41777396
She was found “guilty of defamation for questioning accepted views on so-called comfort women.” In fact, a left-wing feminist American scholar Sarah C. Soh, wrote in her book “The Comfort Women” that she could not possibly have written her book in Korea, because of the possible persecution she knew she would face. It is not only some scholars who faced social and legal persecutions; some comfort women themselves faced persecution for not adhering to the “accepted views.” Yes, even former comfort women who do not align with the demands of Korean hardliners face criticisms too. According to The Diplomat, “A majority of living survivors (34 of 46) accepted the 2015 Japanese compensation, but the media only publicized the rejectionist minority (12). Moreover, the 61 women who accepted Japanese compensation two decades ago (the 1994 Asian Women’s Fund) were vilified as traitors and denied South Korean government subsidies.” https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/confronting-koreas-censored-discourse-on-comfort-women/ It also quotes Park Yu-Ha’s report (the Korean professor), “The late [survivor] Bae Chun-Hee said she had not been taken by force, and that she wanted to forgive Japan but could not say so.”
We have to question the legitimacy of Korea’s solidarity on this issue, since there is a social and legal pressure or even persecution against anyone who voices opinions similar to what Japanese nationalists claim. The loudest voices we hear from Korea may be manufactured anti-Japan propaganda which indeed exploits the comfort women. Anyone who supports human rights and free speech should speak against the persecution of the above-mentioned Korean scholars and those surviving women who accepted Japan’s apology. However, my impression of this documentary is that it fails to acknowledge how Korea persecutes the contrary views and the possibilities that the loudest voices from Korea are not necessarily truthful.
The film’s director, Dezaki, well knows my views on this matter. He knows my criticisms of Korea’s side. Of course, he, as the director of the film, had the right to choose the questions he wanted to ask me. However, it felt to me, even during the interview, that he put most of the emphasis on my criticisms against the extremists on Japan’s side. Probably that is what he wished to hear from me. I appreciate Dezaki’s giving me a chance to criticize the extreme and hateful rhetoric from some of the extreme Japanese fanatics. However, as I wrote earlier, there are extremists and haters on both sides. There are voices on both sides that need to be condemned.
We all have a tendency to become morally outraged by the other side while turning a blind eye to our own side. When it comes to the consequences of our selective outrage, it is probably wise to listen to what the former U.S. president, George W. Bush warned: “Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose.”
Japan has often been criticized for not apologizing. The Korean side says the apology was not sincere enough and the women do not feel apologized to. However, as an American journalist Ben Shapiro famously said, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Facts are there whether you like them or not. Factually, Japan has apologized several times, and there have been times when Korea said the apology was accepted and both countries should move on. Today’s disputes might be a result of some of our “feelings not caring about facts.”
I heard Dezaki tried to include information and opinions from both sides in the film. However, I do not think he is completely able to evaluate the importance of each opinion and each piece of information. Also, I heard that by always giving Korean arguments after Japanese ones, he gives the impression that the latter refute the former.
Not all opinions are equally important. Opinions of military historians, who understand the conditions and the attitudes of the times when these events took place, should be given more weight than those of people who only express their own emotions or try to score political and ideological points.
In my opinion, the latter are either politics or propaganda.
「金正恩はかなり賢い人だと思う」トランプ発言に見る独裁政治への思慕
4月30日日曜朝、大統領就任100日目を記念する『Face the Nation』のインタビューに応える形で、トランプ氏は北朝鮮の金正恩について「かなり賢いやつだ」と発言している。
Donald Trump: N Korea's Kim Jong-un a 'smart cookie' - BBC News
[「人々は、『彼は正常な人物なんだろうか』と言っています。それはどうか知りませんが、彼の父親が死んだのは彼が26歳か、27歳の事だったでしょう。彼は明らかに困難な人間関係、特に将軍などに対処しています。彼はとても若い年齢で権力につきました。多くの人々が、彼からその権力を奪い取ろうとしたでしょう。彼の叔父やその他の人々など。それでも彼は権力を維持する事が出来たのです。明らかに賢い人なのでしょう。」]
この発言から理解できる通り、トランプ氏は北朝鮮の金正恩や、北朝鮮体制に対して、深い知識があるとは思われない。少ない情報をある一定のフィルター(偏見)を通して見ているのだ。北朝鮮で何逆万人もの一般市民が餓死している事も、多くの罪のない市民が強制収容所に入れられ、拷問や強姦をされ、強制労働についている事、北朝鮮が親兄弟、親族や友人を密告する社会である事すら鑑みていない。金正恩がいかに残酷で人間性の欠片も無い方法で自らの叔父や異母兄すら殺害したか、どれほどの猜疑心と憎悪に基づいた処刑を、側近らに対しても行なってきたか、全く考慮していない。トランプ氏には他者を理解する上で、恐ろしく幼稚な一定のフィルターしか存在しないのだ。
そのフィルターとは、自分自身である。トランプ氏は金正恩を理解し、評価する際にも、自分自身を通して見るしかないのだ。トランプ氏は、自身が27歳の時に父親の事業の一部を受け継いだ。金正恩が、権力闘争の中で、自分より経験あり、力もある将軍らを抑えて権力を維持している事と、トランプ氏自身が若年にして事業を受け継ぎ、現在も自分より経験や知識のある将軍や専門家を抑えて権力を維持している事を重ねて見ているのだ。トランプ氏が礼賛しているのは、自分自身なのだろう。トランプ氏が、金正恩が感じているだろうと主張する焦燥感は、実はトランプ氏自身が大統領としての務めの中で、毎日感じている焦りなのではないか。
トランプ氏は、就任100日を記念するロイターの取材で、「大統領としての職務がこれほど難しいとは思わなかった」と漏らし、「以前の生活は素晴らしかった」と嘆いているが、世界で一番大きな責務を負うアメリカ大統領の職務が、まさかニューヨークの不動産業者や、無責任なリアリティー番組のスターである事よりも簡単だと思っていたのだろうか。
トランプ氏は、フィリピンのドゥテルテ大統領との電話会談で、ドゥテルテ氏の麻薬取締や関連犯罪に対する姿勢と成果を称えている。ドゥテルテ大統領就任の去年7月以来、約9,000人の市民が、法的裁判を受ける事なく処刑され、ドゥテルテ氏自身、自らの手で犯罪者を殺害した事を豪語しているが、ハーグ国際裁判所に『人道に対する犯罪』を犯したとして訴えがなされ、国際犯罪裁判所も、ドゥテルテ氏が長年に渡り、少なくとも9,400人の殺害に加担してきた事を指摘ている。
またトランプ氏は、憲法改正を問う国民投票に不正を指摘されながらも勝利し、更なる大統領権限を勝ち得たトルコのエルドアン大統領に対し、西側指導者で唯一祝辞を送っている。この国民投票は、何万人にも及ぶ反対派や、それと見られる人物などの一般国民を不正逮捕し、拷問してきたエルドアン大統領が更なる権力を得、議会、裁判所から権限を奪い、メディアや反対派、国民の権利や自由を奪う権限を与えるものだ。一定のトルコの国民が今回の国民投票に賛成票を投じた理由は、議会政治によって改革が妨げられていると感じている事にある。改革の必要性を感じている有権者は、改革の為にはエルドアンという独裁者が、反対者を抑える為に更なる権力を得る事が必要不可欠であると考えているようだ。
Why did Turkey hold a referendum? - BBC News
大統領就任100日目を迎えるトランプ氏は、自身の掲げた政策の多くが達成されず、大統領特別指令を発して行なおうとした改革が達成できなかった原因を議会と司法に見出し、憲法によって定められ、権力の集中・専制を防ぎ, 政治の健全な運営をはかるために工夫された『抑制』と『均衡』の三権分立の制度そのものが国家にとっての災害であると批判している。
Donald Trump blames constitution for chaos of his first 100 days | US news | The Guardian
トランプ氏にとって、ドゥテルテ大統領の行なったような法によらない裁きや、エルドアン大統領が新たに得た権力の集中こそが、正しい政治や国家を立て直す為の改革に不可欠なのだろう。恐らくトランプ氏は、国家にとって必要な正しい改革が何であるか、「賢い」自分として承知しているつもりなのだろう。もちろんビジネスマンとしては、反対者を退けるやり方も通用してきたと思われる。
勿論トランプ氏は、いま例えこうした権限が与えられたとしても、批判者を投獄したり、反対派を暗殺するとは考えていないだろう。正しいと思われる改革を、まず反対者による妨害やメディアや有権者による批判を恐れずまず断行できさえすれば、反対者は自らの誤りを認め恥じ入るだろうと考えているかもしれない。そしてある一定以上のトルコ国民が、エルドアンに対し更なる権力を付与する事を良しとしたように、多くのトランプ支持者も、『アメリカを再び偉大な国とする』為に、トランプ氏が司法や立法の上に立ち、良いと思われる改革を、リベラル派やメディアからの批判に妨害される事なく断行する事を支持するだろう。彼らにしてみれば、「トランプ氏のする事に、悪い事がある筈はない」のだ。
しかしながら、このような『権力の集中』や、法による支配ではなく、人による支配を認めれば、必ず腐敗が生じる。また、潮目が変わり、立場が変わる時は必ずやって来る。自分の礼賛する『偉大な指導者』に与える権力は、自分の忌み嫌う反対派の指導者に与える権力でもあるのだ。
私は、あまりにも多くの人々が、自らの信じる改革の為に、それを実行しようとする権力者に絶大な権力を与えようとする現象に大きな危惧を覚える。
ロシアの場合を見てもわかるように、かつての民主主義国家が、民主主義国家としての自殺を図った例は多くあるのだ。民主主義国家としての自殺は、選挙を通してやって来ることを我々は弁える必要がある。
