The Japanese are devils

第一次世界大戦から100周年を迎えています。先ほどの辞書の話からつなげれば、当時の考え、価値観を無視して安易に現在との類似性を結びつけようとする乱暴なことは避けたいと思います。当時の考えを学ぶのに最適なのはその当時に書かれたものを読むことではないでしょうか。雑誌Atlanticがそのような雑誌を発売しています。日本のKindleでも買う事ができますし、新宿の紀伊国屋ではこの雑誌がMagazine of the Monthに選ばれ20％オフで売られていました。

World War I: How the Great War Made the Modern World (2014/07/28) Burt Solomon 商品詳細を見る

この雑誌の前書きをAtlanticのサイトでも読むことができますが、ドイツ皇帝の1908年のインタビューでThe future belongs to the White Race, never fear … It does not belong, the future, to the Yellow, nor to the Black, nor to the Olive-colored.とあったのは驚きました。当時の感覚ではそういうものだったのですね。

The American Idea at War
One can draw a line from September 11, 2001, straight back to the decisions made by colonial mapmakers as the fighting raged in Europe 100 years ago.
JAMES BENNET
JUL 29 2014, 10:03 AM ET

It’s not easy—in fact, it turned out not to be possible—to square Sedgwick’s very American optimism with other ideas put forward in this issue, like those of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the man who took Germany to war. (An American journalist interviewed the kaiser in 1908, but the German government suppressed his remarks, and The Atlantic published them for the first time in 1934.) He held to less encompassing truths: “The future belongs to the White Race, never fear … It does not belong, the future, to the Yellow, nor to the Black, nor to the Olive-colored. It belongs to the Fair-skinned Man, and it belongs to Christianity and to Protestantism.”

このヴィルヘルム2世ドイツ皇帝の1908年のインタビューは1934年まで日の目をみることはなかったようです。いろいろ過激なことを言っていますが、日本人として驚くのはThe Japanese are devilsのくだりでしょうか。日露戦争直後で日本を脅威と感じていたようで、これがyellow peril＝黄禍論なんですね。

Called Japanese Devils
The conversation then turned to war.
“In a world of practical facts,” the Kaiser said, "we have to fight, even for righteousness' sake. The Bible is full of fights — jolly good fights some of them were. It is 'a mistaken Idea that Christianity has no countenance for war."

He contended that the sword should clear the way for the missionary.

With the assertion that the world’s greatest warriors had been Christians, the Kaiser turned to the Japanese.

“The trouble with them," he said "is that they don't want any religion. They constitutionally are incapable of religion. They are utterly without sentiment-practical, cold unsympathetic."

Tne Asiatic situation was the emperor's chief theme.

"Everybody knows what must come to pass between Asia and the West, the yellow race and the white,” he said. "We are unworthy of our fathers if we are negligent of the sacred duty of preserving the civilization which they have achieved for us and the religion which God has given us."

He thought the Japanese had been over-estimated as fighters; they were too small in stature.

“We know tins much about him (the Japanese)", the Kaiser declared. "He hates the white man worse than the white man hates the devil; The Japanese are devils, that's a simple fact. They are devils!"

It was fifteen, years earlier that the Kaiser had painted his picture "the yellow peril.”


以下のような本が出ているのですね。さっそく読んでみたいと思います。

黄禍論と日本人 - 欧米は何を嘲笑し、恐れたのか (中公新書) (2013/03/22) 飯倉 章 商品詳細を見る