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Books and Arts; Book Review;Japanese history;
Selective memory;
Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World. By John Dower.
As the ghosts of the Pacific war judder back to life in Asia, it seems appropriate to consider how nation states remember, and misremember, the past. Japan's current tiffs with its neighbours, China and South Korea, are rooted in the march to war and its undigested aftermath, more than 75 years ago. They are inflamed, however, by different narratives of history, and by national media coverage that is often parochial and amnesiac.
近日，太平洋地區(qū)發(fā)生戰(zhàn)爭的陰霾再次籠罩著亞洲。現(xiàn)在來思考民族國家是如何銘記及誤記歷史的，似乎正是時候。日本最近和中韓兩個鄰國之間起了種種爭執(zhí)，這都源于75年多以前發(fā)動的那場戰(zhàn)爭和它所帶來的尚未平復(fù)的創(chuàng)傷。然而，各國對歷史的記述不同，國家媒體的報(bào)道也往往狹隘而有所回避。因此，這些爭執(zhí)被激化了。
Conflict and memory are the themes that animate this new collection of essays by John Dower, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning “Embracing Defeat” (1999), which looked at Japan after the second world war. Mr Dower is particularly interested in Japan's sanitisation of its military past, but also the way history in general is often a tool used by the powerful.
沖突和回憶這兩種主題為約翰·道爾這本新散文集賦予了生命。他另著有《擁抱戰(zhàn)敗》（1999），該書研究了二戰(zhàn)后的日本，獲得了普利策獎。道爾對于日本粉飾其軍國主義歷史的行為特別感興趣，但他也同樣關(guān)注當(dāng)權(quán)者通常是如何利用歷史的。
Mr Dower discusses his surprise at hearing his own work cited after 9/11, when American officials evoked the post-war occupation of Japan as a model for post-invasion Iraq. President George W. Bush should have seen that Japan provided “no model” for occupying Mesopotamia, Mr Dower wrote in a strikingly prescient 2002 New York Times op-ed, reproduced here. “To rush to war without seriously imagining all its consequences, including its aftermath, is not realism but a terrible hubris.”
在9.11事件之后，美國官員援引了道爾的作品，要求以戰(zhàn)后占領(lǐng)日本的模式在入侵伊拉克之后占領(lǐng)該國。道爾表示他聽到這一消息以后有些錯愕。他在2002年《紐約時報(bào)》的社論專欄里極有先見之明地寫道：喬治·W·布什總統(tǒng)應(yīng)該認(rèn)識到，日本不能為攻占美索不達(dá)米亞“提供模式”。“不認(rèn)真考慮戰(zhàn)爭的后果、包括可能帶來的創(chuàng)傷就匆匆發(fā)動戰(zhàn)爭，這不是現(xiàn)實(shí)主義，而是一種可怕的傲慢狂妄。”
He returns to the terrain of “Embracing Defeat”, marvelling at how the vicious racial hatreds of the Pacific war dissipated so quickly, as though “turned off like a spigot”. The lesson for Mr Dower is not only that reluctant civilians must be mobilised by propaganda to fight and die, but also that new realities force new biases.
回到《擁抱戰(zhàn)敗》 的主題上，道爾驚嘆于太平洋戰(zhàn)爭深刻的種族仇視竟然平息得如此之快，就像“水龍頭一樣關(guān)掉了”。道爾得到了一個教訓(xùn)：問題不僅僅在于不情愿的平民被政府宣傳所鼓動才去拼死一戰(zhàn)；還在于新的現(xiàn)實(shí)形成了新的偏見。
No side, he argues, launched a more sophisticated propaganda blitz than the Japanese, who saw their “mongrel” enemies as biologically inferior. But they were hardly alone. During the war Americans viewed their Asian rivals as “monkeys” or “rats”, but with the start of the occupation, Japan became an ally. The popular racism in the American media more or less stopped, and stayed buried until the 1970s, when Japan emerged as an economic superpower. This resurrected Japanese stereotypes of “predatory economic animals” in Western suits who were launching a new “financial Pearl Harbor”. The spigot of racial hatred had been turned back on.
道爾指出，日本人最善于在短時間內(nèi)對人民進(jìn)行宣傳鼓吹，他們認(rèn)為那些“雜種”敵人天生就低他們一等。但這種現(xiàn)象并不只出現(xiàn)在日本人身上。戰(zhàn)時，美國人把亞洲對手視為“猴子”、“老鼠”；但侵占開始以后，日本就成了他們的盟友。后來，美國媒體中盛行的種族歧視或多或少有所收斂，歸于沉寂。直到20世紀(jì)70年代，日本以經(jīng)濟(jì)超級大國的姿態(tài)登上世界舞臺，于是西方又老調(diào)重彈，把日本視為“穿著西裝、掠奪成性的經(jīng)濟(jì)野獸”，認(rèn)為日本正準(zhǔn)備發(fā)動一場新的“金融珍珠港”之戰(zhàn)。種族仇視的水龍頭再次擰開了。
When the fighting is finished, history is written, inevitably by those in power, observes Mr Dower. The standard American view of the struggle against Japan is that it was just and moral. But this grants little space for the ghastly side of victory, which included the airborne destruction of 66 cities and the incineration of more than half a million civilians. China and Korea's political elites have found it endlessly useful to bang the nationalist drum to unite potentially fractious populations against their old enemy. Japanese conservatives have made it easy for them, whitewashing the past and attempting to pass off Imperial Japan's rampage across Asia as a “holy war” against Western colonialism.
道爾做出了這樣的評論：當(dāng)戰(zhàn)爭結(jié)束后，歷史將不可避免地由當(dāng)權(quán)者寫下。美國人普遍認(rèn)為對日戰(zhàn)爭是公正的、合乎道德的。但這份勝利仍然有著極為慘烈的一面——其中日本66座城市遭到空襲破壞，50多萬平民灰飛煙滅。中國和韓國的政治精英發(fā)現(xiàn)，想要把內(nèi)心憤怒的民族聯(lián)合起來對抗其共同的宿敵，敲響民族主義這面大鼓最為有效。日本的保守派粉飾歷史，試圖將日本帝國在全亞洲的暴行偽裝成對西方殖民主義的“圣戰(zhàn)”——這給中韓兩國的政治精英提供了有利機(jī)會。
Selective memory is often a harmful feature of children's education. Japanese high-school textbooks devote impressively little space to the war, reflecting official attempts to “downplay the dark aspects of Japan's modern history,” writes Mr Dower. For its part, China's government relies on its struggle against Japanese aggression for its historical legitimacy, so memories of wartime atrocities are kept fresh in schools. This helps to explain the strikingly different public reactions to the current island disputes. While the Chinese angrily take to the streets, the Japanese stay at home and watch it on TV.
選擇性記憶往往不利于對下一代的教育。道爾寫道，日本的中學(xué)教科書對戰(zhàn)爭描述極少，反映了官方試圖“淡化日本近代史的陰暗面”。在中國這一方面，政府依靠抗日戰(zhàn)爭來突出其歷史合理性，因此學(xué)校教育不斷提及日本在戰(zhàn)時的暴行。這可以解釋為什么對于當(dāng)下的島嶼糾紛兩國的公眾反應(yīng)截然不同。中國人憤怒地走上街頭抗議，而日本人卻待在家里看電視，電視里正是中國人抗議的鏡頭。
For a solution, Mr Dower looks to the 20th-century views of E.H. Norman, a Japan expert and Marxist historian. Like Norman, he feels that most countries need a “revolution from below” against any system that “represses freedom, sacrifices life, and retards the creation of true self-government”. All citizens should be able to challenge the narratives held by elites. At a tense time of toxic nationalism in Asia, this book is a timely reminder of the uses and abuses of history.
為了尋求解決方案，道爾研究了日本專家、馬克思主義史學(xué)家 E.H. 諾曼在20世紀(jì)提出的觀點(diǎn)。和諾曼一樣，道爾認(rèn)為大多數(shù)國家需要一次“自下而上的改革”，推翻所有“壓抑自由、犧牲生命、阻礙真正實(shí)現(xiàn)自治”的體制。所有公民都應(yīng)當(dāng)能夠質(zhì)疑社會精英所持的觀點(diǎn)。民族主義正在毒害亞洲國家。在這緊張時刻，道爾的這本書及時地提醒了人們歷史是如何被利用和濫用的。
