Mirror for Americans: Japan

     I have just read a Japanese translation of an American book entitled "Mirror for Americans: Japan". It was originally written in 1948 by Helen Mears, who was an expert on oriental history and cultures in the prewar era, and came to Japan in the aftermath of the Great East Asian War to help the Allied occupation forces formulate new labor laws.
     The main theme of the book was why Japan got into the reckless war. The book says, Japan could not avoid the war in terms of its relations with the Western powers. The powers used deceptive policies against Japan. With a calm but very objective reasoning, the author reveals that what Japan did was the same as what the powers had already done. She continues, Japan was the best student of modernization and Westernization, following what the powers showed decades before. That is, the student was Japan and the powers were the teacher in this sense. Japan's condemned actions in Asia were just the reflection of the Western powers themselves in a mirror. I guess that the title of the book was thus made.
     I'm going to write about my father-in-law who passed away a few years ago. He had worked in a small southern island as a mechanic on fighter planes during the last war. He sometimes told me stuff about the war, and there were a lot of differences from what I learned in school and from his story. I didn't believe that he was telling a lie, but I didn't think that the history textbook wasn't correct either. Getting back on the right track, the author started the story with her flight between the U.S. and Japan. It took several days to fly between both countries at that time. She had to repeat stopovers on the islands in the Pacific Ocean, and consequently she saw native people's daily life. What she wrote about the natives was just the same as my father-in-law used to talk to me. I realized that the history textbook was not correct. http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2007/01/my-father-gone.html
     Understandably, General Douglas MacArthur, the omnipotent Supreme Commander in the occupied Japan, prohibited publishing this book in Japan. It was as late as 1995 that the book was translated into Japanese and published in Japan. The original version is said to have been criticized by American people and she was labeled as a defender of a vicious Japan.
     She didn't mean to defend Japan. She questioned the justification of the Western powers which insisted that only Japan should be condemned in the modern Far Eastern history and also doubted the way of identifying Japanese people as traditionally belligerent, and the way of thinking that America, therefore, should educate them. Her research and analysis was dispassionate and fully acceptable to me. 
     International relations are mostly ruled by the logic of the strong nations, and it was clearly demonstrated in the Far East in the first half of the last century, I suppose. Japanese education is still also controlled by the U.S. view of history. There are so many things we have to learn from Ms. Mears' book.
     Is it still too early to think about the causes and effects of the war serenely, beyond a dichotomy between winners and losers?

(Vocabulary)
Understandably  当然ながら　無理もないことだが
departure   逸脱、離脱、背反、ずれ
serenely   穏やかに　落ち着いた様子で
dichotomy  二分 二分裂 意見の相違
belligerent　好戦的な

"Mirror for Americans: Japan" (邦題：アメリカの鏡・日本）を読み終えた。１９４８年に東洋の研究者であるヘレン・ミアーズによって書かれたものだ。彼女は大東亜戦争直後、法律の策定に関わるために来日している。

中心テーマは「なぜ日本は向こう見ずな戦争を始めたのか？」である。彼女は言う、日本は戦争を避けたくても避けられなかったのだと。日本のしたことは欧米列強がしてきたことを忠実に真似ただけであり、欧米列強が先生なら日本は優秀な学生であった。日本は鏡に映った欧米列強の姿なのだと主張する。

亡くなった義父（戦時中、南方の島で戦闘機のメンテナンスをしていた)とのやりとりで歴史教科書とはまったく異なることがたびたびあった。義父が嘘つきだとは思わなかったが、教科書が間違っているとも思わなかった。話を元に戻そう。この本は著者が日本へ来る飛行機の中での独白から始まる。当時は途中で何度も降りて給油を繰り返さなければならなかった。その島々で彼女は現地の人々の行動を観察し、話をするのである。その内容は果たして義父から聞いたことと同じであった。つまり、教科書が嘘を言っていたのだ。

無理もないことだが、この本はGHQの最高責任者マッカーサーにより発禁とされた。そして日本語に訳され、日本人が読めるようになったのはなんと５０年後の１９９５年なのである。著者は当時、邪悪な日本の擁護者として批判されている。

彼女には日本を擁護するという気持ちはなく、ただ純粋に事実を述べているだけである。日本だけが悪いのか、日本人は元々好戦的で、それゆえアメリカが教育しなければならない、というのは正しいのか。彼女の研究、分析は驚くほどクールになされている。

国際関係は主として強国によって支配されている。前世紀の前半に極東で見たとおりである。日本の教育は未だにアメリカ史観に支配されている。この本から学ばなければならないことはかなり多い。

勝者と敗者という立場を越えて戦争の原因とその結果を穏やかに考えるにはまだ時期尚早であろうか。

(KW: アメリカの鏡：日本　大東亜戦争　東京裁判　マッカーサー)

Comments

[KUMO]

Hi, Matsu,

Thank you for your comments.

[matsu]

hello.
i just stumble on here when i was looking for the reviews or (summery) of this book.
the reason why i was doing that is because people are in general do not know the fact about japanese involvement of ww2. and they just think japanese are the same as the nazi, which is not true at all.
i am glad that you read it. and if you ever have a chance to share the book with other people, please do so. please try to spread the truth if possible. i know it is difficult because people are in favor for the so called victims (meaning chinese and koreans) .
thank you.