The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 18 (2007)

Historical Lessons in Asian-American Relations:Searching for Inter-Civilizational Dialogue

Daizaburo YUI*I INTRODUCTION
Ironically enough, 2001, the year of the Sept. 11 incident, had beenproclaimed “the year of dialogue among civilizations” by the U.N. inaccordance with a proposal by then-Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami. The Sept. 11 incident, however, had the effect of illustrating
the existence of a serious gap between the Islamic world and the UnitedStates, making it all the more important to develop ways of carrying out
dialogue among civilizations for the realization of world peace.
I think scholars of American studies in Asia have a particularly great
responsibility at this juncture. For those of us born in Asia, Asian patterns of thought and behavior come as naturally as breathing. At the sametime, however, by taking an interest in America, studying there, conducting research and making friends, we have learned about American waysof thinking and lifestyles. In other words, we have experienced contact
and friction between the two civilizations of Asia and America within
our own selves, so I think we are able to—and should—take the initiative
to act as a bridge between Asia and America.
Copyright © 2007 Daizaburo Yui. All rights reserved. This work may be used,with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work
may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without
permission from the author.
*Professor, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University
JAAS Presidential Address: 40th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association for
American Studies, Nanzan University, Nagoya, June 9–11, 2006

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DAIZABURO YUI

I think it is particularly necessary for American studies scholars inJapan, which recklessly launched a war against the United States 65 years
ago, ending in defeat, to draw lessons from the process leading to theoutbreak of that war that can be applied in developing ways to carry out
a dialogue among civilizations. It is necessary, of course, to keep in mind
that there are major differences between the Japanese militarists of 65
years ago and today’s Islamic fundamentalists. However, I think thoseon the attacking side share a feeling of being “spiritually encircled,”
while the Americans coming under attack reacted in both instances bylabeling their attackers as “savage” and “outrageous.” Accordingly, I
would like to analyze, from the most neutral position possible, what kindof communication gap existed between Japan and the United States 65
years ago and, as a factor leading to that communication gap, what kindof bilateral perception gap arose from differences in social structure andnationalism.
II

BETWEEN SEPT. 11 AND DEC. 7

As I have already mentioned, there are important differences between
the Japanese-U.S. war that began on Dec. 7 (U.S. time), 1941, and theterrorist incident of Sept. 11, 2001. First, while the former was a war
between states, the latter was an asymmetric conﬂict with terrorists on
one side. There was an important difference in the scale of these conﬂicts
as well, with the former attack taking place as part of World War II on
a battleﬁeld ranging from East Asia to the Paciﬁc, while the September
11 incident has been more limited geographically, taking place primarily
in the heart of America and in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Certain common features can be seen, however, in the American government’s response to these two attacks. In his Fireside Chat on Dec. 8,
immediately after the Pearl Harbor surprise attack, for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that “the United States can accept noresult save victory, ﬁnal and complete. Not only must the shame ofJapanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and ﬁnally broken,”1 treating
the Pearl Harbor attack in terms of “betrayal” and “savagery,” and calling
for the enemy’s total defeat. This strong criticism is reﬂected in the later
demand for “unconditional surrender,” as well as in the occupation ofJapan for a certain period following its defeat, a period that saw the car-

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23

rying out of demilitarization and democratic reform intended to eradicate
the seeds that gave birth to war. Roosevelt’s reaction, it may be said,
positioned Japan as “barbaric” and the United States as “civilized,” andexpressed the intention to carry out the “democratization” of the country
that launched the war by means of a complete American victory.
On Sept. 20, in comparison, soon after the terrorist incident, President
Bush described the terrorists as follows in an address to a joint sessionof Congress. “They hate . . . democratically elected government. Theirleaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” In other words, he depicted the problem as a clash
between terrorism, on the one hand, and freedom and democracy on theother. That simple dichotomy between good and evil places all the blameon the shoulders of the terrorists, suggesting that the United States has
nothing to answer for. Moreover, President Bush deﬁned the ﬁght against
terrorism as “not . . . just America’s ﬁght” but “the world’s ﬁght. Thisis civilization’s ﬁght. This is the ﬁght of all who believe in progress andpluralism, tolerance and freedom.” He declared that, “Every nation in
every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you
are with the terrorists.”2
As we have seen, America’s leaders reacted to both the outbreak of
war with Japan and Sept. 11 by labeling the attackers as “barbaric” and“outrageous,” and, by casting their own country as the height of civilization, sought to rally American public and world public opinion. In
addition, they treated “democracy” as a universal concept, and expressed
the idea that it was naturally America’s mission to spread democracy tothe opposing side by means of a military victory.
Positioning one’s own country as the height of civilization, however,raises the risk that America will lose the chance to reﬂect on its own
behavior, and that fundamental questions, such as whether American“democracy” is in fact universal and whether “democracy” can be exported by force of arms, will go unexamined. At this point, in an effort
to identify ways to carry out a dialogue among civilizations, I would liketo examine, from the most neutral standpoint possible, what kind of perception gaps arose along the concrete historical paths leading to the crisesof Dec. 7 and Sept. 11.

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DAIZABURO YUIIII

PERCEPTION GAPS ON THE EVE OF THE JAPANESE-U.S. WAR

Starting in April 1941, about half a year before the outbreak of war,intermittent negotiations were carried out between Japan and the UnitedStates in an effort to forestall the crisis. As Roosevelt’s policy was toconcentrate on the threat from Nazi Germany, America tried to postpone
the outbreak of war with Japan. Japanese leaders also hoped to avoid
full-scale war with the United States, provided they could ease the U.S.
embargo on oil to Japan by offering the concession of partially withdrawing their forces in southern French Indochina. That was the main focusof U.S.-Japan negotiations just before hostilities began. In fact, theRoosevelt administration was considering a modus vivendi in November
1941 as a measure to head off war that would have involved a resumptionof oil supplies to Japan on the condition that the Japanese military withdrew from southern French Indochina.
If this modus vivendi had actually been proposed to Japan, it would
have at least raised the possibility that the outbreak of hostilities could
have been delayed. However, it was not in fact proposed, and the socalled “Hull Note” that Secretary of State Hull proposed to Japan on
November 26 was no more than a statement of America’s basic position,
calling for such things as a Japanese withdrawal from China andIndochina, non-recognition of any Chinese government other than the
Chiang Kai-shek regime, and the promotion of free trade between Japanand the United States.3 It was after receiving this “Hull Note” that the
Tojo Cabinet decided to go to war with the United States.
So why did the negotiations break down? Many historians today arefocusing on precisely this question. Most of their answers emphasize theexistence of a “perception gap” between the two sides.
Behind the breakdown in negotiations lay both short-term and longterm factors, as well as structural factors. To begin by examining shortterm factors, the ﬁrst was that Japan had been constrained by its
membership in the Axis after it signed the Tripartite Alliance, which
positioned America as its hypothetical enemy, with Germany and Italyin September 1940. America, meanwhile, began acting in support of theAllied powers even before getting involved in the war, enacting theLend-Lease Act in March 1941, for example, beginning the supply ofarms on a large scale to Britain, China, and the Soviet Union, and announcing the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 with Britain, setting fortha vision for the postwar world. America reported on its November 1941

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25

negotiations with Japan in minute detail to the Chinese, British, andAustralian governments, and abandoned the modus vivendi it had been
considering as a practical compromise with Japan in response to opposition from those countries.4 To summarize, a structure of confrontation
between the Axis and the Allied countries was already in place on theeve of the outbreak of the Japanese-U.S. war, and both countries faced
limitations in their ability to negotiate independently.
Second, there was also a gap in the diplomatic posture adopted by thenegotiators taking part in the Japanese-U.S. talks. This was a gap between Japan’s “diplomacy of force” and America’s “diplomacy of ideas.”
The Japanese foreign minister from July 1940 to July 1941, Yousuke
Matsuoka, saw himself as well-versed in American ways, having lived
there for eight years between the ages of 12 and 20, but he had acquired
the belief during his time in the United States that the best way to win
the respect of Americans was to confront them ﬁrmly.5 After returning
to Japan, he became a diplomat, with expertise on China, and the president of the South Manchurian Railway, coming under international
criticism at the time of the “Manchurian problem” for arguing that
“Manchuria and Mongolia formed a lifeline for Japan.” At the time ofJapan’s 1932 withdrawal from the League of Nations he became wellknown as plenipotentiary representative and, gaining a positive reputation among militarists and the right wing as a result, he became foreign
minister from July 1940 in the second Fumimaro Konoe Cabinet. It was
as Foreign Minister that Matsuoka promoted Japan’s signing of the
Tripartite Alliance with Germany and Italy in Sept. 1940, holding misplaced conﬁdence that a “diplomacy of strength,” with the alliance withGermany and Italy backing Japan, would make it easier to win concessions from America. As a result of his success in April 1941 in signinga neutrality pact with the Soviet Union, he took a passive stance toward
negotiations with the United States, and was as a result dismissed in Julyby Prime Minister Konoe.
America’s chief negotiator, meanwhile, Secretary of State Hull, wasa man who consistently emphasized the “diplomacy of ideas.” In April
1941, for example, when talks started on an understanding proposed byprivate citizens in the two countries calling for concessions on both sides,with America recognizing Manchukuo in return for Japan promising towithdraw its military from the Chinese mainland, Hull insisted on four
principles as preconditions: the maintenance of Chinese territorial integrity, non-intervention in China’s domestic affairs, equality in commerce,

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DAIZABURO YUI

and maintenance of the status quo in the Paciﬁc Ocean.6 It seems clear,moreover, that this diplomatic posture of Hull’s inﬂuenced the choice ofthe Hull Note outlining America’s diplomatic principles over the proposed modus vivendi. This is linked to what George Kennan later criticized as the “legalistic, moralistic character” of American diplomacy.
Third, there was a perception gap between Japanese and American
policymakers regarding the effect America’s oil export embargo would
have on Japan. For example, Stanley Hornbeck, a political adviser on
Asian policy to the State Department, was strongly opposed to the proposal for a leadership summit because he believed that the Sino-Japanese
War had exhausted the Japanese military, and that U.S. economic sanctions had brought Japan’s national power to a low point; so if the UnitedStates continued its containment policy the chances of Japan embarking
on a military adventure would decline. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, on
the other hand, who decided on war with the United States, recalled in a
postwar afﬁdavit that, watching Japan’s oil reserves decline day by day,he thought that, rather than sitting quietly waiting for the end, it would
be better to try to break free of the American, British and Dutch encirclement of Japan, even knowing that this might end in death.7 While thiskind of short-sighted thinking was inappropriate for the supreme leaderof a nation, it is a fact that the Japanese leadership in those times felt driven into a corner. Interestingly, both Hornbeck and the Japanese military shared the perception that Japan’s national power was dwindlingaway, but they differed totally on how Japan would act in response. Thatis because, while the Japanese militarists argued that Japan must hasten
the opening of hostilities before its strength ebbed any further, Hornbeck
maintained that no nation had ever gone to war out of desperation andso thought the chances of Japan going to war were declining.8 Here wecan see that the ultranationalism underlying the actions of the Japanesemilitarists was dismissed by Westerners on the grounds that it was irrational.
These three elements were short-term factors contributing to the failure of Japanese-U.S. negotiations, but at the same time there were also
longer-term, structural factors that we must also take into account. First,
Japan saw itself as a “have-not country,” and, while seeing it as only natural that it should make East Asia an exclusive “sphere of inﬂuence,”
saw America’s proposed “open-door policy” as a way for the “havecountries” to maintain the status quo. Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe
was a typical example of someone who took this approach. Konoe him-

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27

self was a unique person: while he was born into a family of close associates to the emperor as the son of Prince Atsumaro Konoe, known as an
Asianist, he came under the inﬂuence of the socialist Hajime Kawakami
while a student at Kyoto Imperial University. He became widely known
toward the end of World War I in December 1918 when, at the age of27, he published a magazine article titled, “A Rejection of BritishAmerican-Style Paciﬁsm.” In this article, Konoe criticized the British
and American advocacy of humanitarianism and democracy as taking
place against a background of maintenance of the status quo, and argued
that, if Japan were to take part in the League of Nations, the country
should demand the abolition of economic imperialism and racial discrimination.9 In addition, as a result of seeing the Japanese government’s
proposal for a clause banning racial discrimination defeated by the opposition of Australia and other countries at the Versailles Peace Conference, where he served as a member of the Japanese delegation, Konoe
felt that “power politics” continued to rule the world.
Konoe, who saw both the British and the Americans as forces working for the preservation of the status quo, and who had urged a reversalof that situation from early in his career, took the position as soon as themilitarists recklessly occupied Manchuria during the Great Depression
that, without freedom of commerce or migration, Japan had no choice
under the conditions of the Depression but to advance into areas such as
Manchuria and Mongolia. Moreover, in an article in 1935, he argued
that, because the distribution of the world’s territory and resources was
unequal, “have-not” nations such as Japan should act to change the situation, winning him popularity among young ofﬁcers in the military. As
a result, he formed his ﬁrst Cabinet in June 1937, taking the place of theparty politicians who had lost inﬂuence due to the repeated coup attempts
staged by young ofﬁcers. War with China broke out soon after, but heserved as prime minister until January 1939, when he resigned over the
stalemate in negotiations to bring that conﬂict to an end.10
Konoe returned to government with the formation of his second
Cabinet in July 1940, one month after German troops occupied France.
He appointed Yousuke Matsuoka as foreign minister and Hideki Tojo asarmy minister, and sought to change the status quo against the background of an alliance with Germany. He put particular effort into freeing Japan of its dependency on British and American supplies of key
natural resources and, in addition to signing the Tripartite Alliance withGermany and Italy in September, put pressure on the Vichy regime in

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DAIZABURO YUIFrance, and stationed troops in northern French Indochina. Unlike
Foreign Minister Matsuoka, however, who took a hard line toward theUnited States, Konoe and Tojo placed greater importance on negotiations with Washington for the resolution of the Sino-Japanese war, inwhich Japan was becoming bogged down. As a result, Konoe dismissed
Foreign Minister Matsuoka in July 1941, and took the stand of promoting talks with the United States. He also increased the number of troops
in southern French Indochina, however, taking advantage of the outbreakof war between Germany and the Soviet Union in June 1941. This led
to a harsh reaction from the Roosevelt administration, which decided tofreeze Japanese assets in the United States and place an embargo on oil
exports to Japan.
The mysterious thing about this course of events is why Konoe, whoplaced such weight on negotiations with the United States, even goingso far as to dismiss Foreign Minister Matsuoka in order to keep lines ofcommunication open, pressed ahead with stationing troops in southern
French Indochina in this period, when strong American opposition waspredictable.
One reason for this was that, seeing the changing situation on theEuropean front brought about by the June 22 opening of hostilities between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941 as a chance for a “southern advance,” and, putting pressure on the Vichy regime, with its German
collaborationist character, Konoe was optimistic that a military occupation that was carried out peacefully—at least on the surface—would giverise to little opposition. However, a more fundamental reason is that both
Konoe and Tojo consistently viewed Japan as a “have-not” nation andsaw the reallocation of markets and territory in Japan’s favor by force as
justiﬁed. Moreover, they had hostile feelings toward America, which
they saw as a “have nation” seeking to proﬁt from maintenance of thestatus quo.
To be sure, America had introduced a steep protective tariff following the start of the Great Depression to protect its own markets, and the
Roosevelt administration, taking the position that a managed currency
system was more suited to reviving the American economy, opposed a
return to the international gold standard at an international economic
conference in London in 1933, in effect furthering the division of theworld into economic blocks. However, following the enactment of theReciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934, which transferred considerable authority for lowering tariffs to the president and made it possible
to agree upon reciprocal lowering of tariffs with other countries by

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29

mutual agreement, the administration began to shift toward an emphasis on liberalization of trade. Moreover, in an August 1941 agreement,
American and British leaders agreed on the Atlantic Charter, whichbecame the basic framework for a new postwar order. The charter
renounced traditional imperialism to call for territorial non-expansion,
ethnic self-determination, and the rebuilding of international institutions.
The US leaders also overcame British opposition to make sure that it
included a clear statement in favor of the principle of free trade. This was
because the Roosevelt administration saw the division of the world economy into blocs as one factor leading to the outbreak of World War II,
and regarded the global liberalization of trade as indispensable to therealization of postwar peace.
America in 1941, to put it another way, was seeking a major transformation of the world order rather than the preservation of the statusquo, and the liberalized world trade of the postwar era was in fact of great
help in the revival of the postwar Japanese economy. Accordingly, it canbe said that a major factor in the Japanese government’s hostile postureon the eve of war toward America, which it viewed as a “status quo
power,” was the constraining inﬂuence of “have-not nation” ideology,
which Japan shared with Nazi Germany, under the spell of traditional
imperialist doctrine, which sought the re-allocation of markets and territories by force.
In Japan in the 1930s, although leftists who opposed the war werethrown into prison or left with no choice but to renounce their beliefs,
there were liberal journalists such as Kiyoshi Kiyosawa who argued forfree trade. Kiyosawa went to the United States at the age of 12 shortly
after the Russo-Japanese War, and spent 12 years there before returning
to Japan in 1918 to begin wielding his pen as a journalist with a thoroughknowledge of America. In particular, he criticized the narrow vision of
those who saw Japan as a “have-not” nation, arguing that it was a “have”
nation in terms of population, and also criticized the take-over ofManchuria as economically inefﬁcient, arguing that free trade would be
more in Japan’s interest than owning colonies. Even Kiyosawa, however,was blacklisted in February 1941, leaving him without the freedom toexpress his views.11
Behind Japan’s reckless pursuit on the eve of war of the path of reallocation of markets and territories by force, lay the formation of a dictatorial military regime in Japan, along with the inﬂuence of Nazi
Germany’s strong position in Europe.
Second, amid the long economic downturn following the outbreak of

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DAIZABURO YUI

the Great Depression, some Japanese leaders, noting that Germany had
succeeded in quickly reviving its economy through militarization at atime when the New Deal had not been able to bring the United States outof its long recession, called for the “overcoming of modernity,” and more
people began to proclaim the end of the age of liberalism and capitalism.
Matsuoka, for example, who visited the United States in 1933, saw evenmore beggars on the streets than he had seen in Italy and concluded thatfascism was better suited to economic growth. Upon his return to Japan,
he called for the dissolution of political parties and the establishment ofa uniﬁed national organization.12 Moreover, participants in a roundtable
among Kyoto School philosophers that appeared under the title “APhilosophy of Total War” in the January 1943 issue of the journal Chuou
Kouron after the outbreak of war with the United States argued that
America had little chance of victory because it was impossible for a liberal state to construct a total war structure, declared that the laissez-fairesystem was based on a dog-eat-dog ideology, and rejected the Atlantic
Charter as representing “not the slightest departure from the ideology ofthe old order.”13
A third factor is that racial discrimination toward Japanese immigrants
in American society worked to strengthen the feeling of “Asianism”
among people in Japan. This was also what led the young Fumimaro
Konoe to write his article titled, “A Rejection of British-American-Style
Paciﬁsm” and, when the U.S. Congress passed an immigration law denying the right of naturalization to ﬁrst-generation Japanese immigrants
and barring new arrivals, there was such a strong backlash in Japan thateven an intellectual well-acquainted with America like Inazou Nitobe
declared that he would not visit the United States until the law was abolished. Japanese resentment over discrimination against Japanese immigrants was all the stronger because people in Japan were rejoicing overhaving attained “ﬁrst-class nation” status, having been victorious in
World War I and having become a permanent member of the Council ofthe League of Nations. In addition, according to Bunzou Hashikawa,some of the Japanese Army soldiers who took part in the Siberian
Expedition and saw the disheveled state of Russians felt that they had
ﬁnally overcome the complex Japanese had felt toward Caucasians eversince the opening of Japan late in the Tokugawa period.14
A movement to expel foreigners arose in late Tokugawa Japan out of
resentment of the Western powers’ colonialization of many parts of Asiabut, overwhelmed by Western military power, “civilization and enlight-

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31

enment” and “leaving Asia and entering Europe,” which sought to leave“backward Asia” behind and become part of the West, became mainstream thought in Japan after the opening of the country. As a result
successive Japanese governments, as seen in the Sino-Japanese andRusso-Japanese wars, sought territorial expansion in Asia at the sametime that they emphasized harmony with the Western powers. While theearlier anti-foreigner feeling became primarily an undercurrent at the
popular level, an exclusionary Asianism became mainstream thought at
the governmental level as Japan was isolated from international society
following its takeover of Manchuria.
As we have seen, there were thus many perception gaps between Japanand the United States on the eve of war between the two countries. As
for America, in addition to the problem of racial discrimination there
were doubtless also gaps in the country’s “diplomacy of ideas” and anunderestimation of the impetus toward war in Japan. The fundamental
cause of war, however, lay in the difference between political systems,
between militarism and liberal democracy. Japan, under a military dictatorship, was constrained by a “have-not nation” ideology, and it cannot be denied that a key factor leading to war was the extremely “insularmentality” under which Japan attempted to acquire new markets and territories by force. Moreover, because war opponents and liberals in Japan
had no choice but to stay silent under the country’s dictatorship, someargue that Japanese democratization would have been impossible without liberation at the hands of Allied military power. We must not forget,
however, that Spain, which was under the same kind of fascist system,
did not take part in World War II, but that the Spanish people nonetheless carried out democratization with their own hands in the mid-1970s.
IV SEPT. 11 AND THE GAP BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS
Unlike the Pearl Harbor attack, in the case of Sept. 11 it remains vague
exactly who the attackers were. But it seems likely that the 19 accusedmen, who underwent ﬂight training in the United States, including
Mohamed Atta and others who left behind objects suggesting their involvement, were in fact the hijackers. In addition, there is a high probability that Al Qaeda was also involved in the Sept. 11 incident.
Assuming those men were the terrorists, what were their motives? The
ﬁrst thing that stands out is that many of them, while sharing Arab birth,were highly educated men who had studied in or emigrated to the West.

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They came to radical Islam not only through their experiences in the Arabworld but also through their experiences in the West. Why, despite theiracquisition of difﬁcult skills such as Western languages, computer competence, and aircraft piloting, were they attracted to Islamic extremism?
The answer to that must also rest on conjecture, but it seems highly likelythat they were inspired by experiences, such as encountering prejudicein the West, or failing to ﬁnd employment suited to their education when
they returned to their home countries, that are different from the motivesof terrorists who emerge solely within Arab society.15
In Osama Bin Laden’s case, moreover, it is known that he is the 17th
son of an extremely wealthy Saudi Arabian family that runs a construction company. He became devoted to Islam in 1973 during the fourth
Middle East war and became radicalized further after joining other
Islamic jihadis who gathered from all over the world to resist the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979. It is said that Bin Ladenbegan organizing anti-U.S. terrorism out of his strong anger over the U.S.
military’s continued presence in the Islamic Holy Land of Saudi Arabia,
the land of his birth, from the time of the Gulf War.16
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Arab world started from thedefeat of Egypt in the third Middle East war in 1967, which was considered to be the defeat of Arab nationalism as led by Gamal Abdul
Nasser, the leader of the Egyptian Revolution. After the normalizationof relations between Israel and Egypt in 1978, fundamentalists began
staging terrorist attacks against moderate regimes in the region. The
classic example of this was the 1981 assassination of Egypt’s President
Anwar Sadat, reportedly carried out by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The
fundamentalists, failing in their attempts to bring about the formation ofIslamic states combining politics and religion throughout the Arabworld, turned instead to anti-American terrorism, centering their efforts
around Bin Laden, who described his goals in highly moralistic terms.
In 1996, Bin Laden issued a “Declaration of War Against theAmericans.” Describing the U.S. military’s presence in Saudi Arabia as
the greatest aggression against the Islamic world since Mohammed’s
death (in the year 632), he declared that he would organize a struggle
against the United States modeled after the actions of the Prophet
Mohammed, who led an outnumbered force to the successful destructionof an empire. Bin Laden also criticized Western countries for allegedly
blocking the development of religious states by promoting the secularization of the Islamic world and by supporting the “apostate” regimes ofHISTORICAL LESSONS IN ASIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS

33

countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In addition, in response to theBush administration’s attack on Afghanistan’s Taliban regime launchedon October 7, 2001, Bin Laden labeled the United States as Satan, andcalled for a battle to guard the Islamic umma, or world, from satanic
attack.17
Bin Laden harshly criticized secular regimes in the Islamic world andthe Western powers that supported them. His views also resonated withthe strong dissatisfaction felt by the Arab masses living under “authoritarian” regimes over the ever-widening gap between rich and poorcaused by the winds of globalization blowing from the West. They also
shared Bin Laden’s anger over the abandonment of efforts to resolve thePalestinian problem.
It can thus be said that today’s Islamic fundamentalism involves an“insular mentality” of striving to overcome the strong inferiority complex toward the Western Powers through an appeal to the past glories of
the Islamic world. It is said that one factor behind the unceasing waveof suicide terrorism by young people is the impact of the “end of theworld” mood gaining strength in the Arab world since the 1990s.18
V CONCLUSION
There is a strong trend among today’s Islamic fundamentalists, as wehave seen, toward the rejection of secularism itself. That is because thefundamentalists, who seek to build a religious state uniting politics andfaith, see Western-style democratization, with its separation of churchand state, as fundamentally in conﬂict with their beliefs. They also see
economic development by way of marketization as something to beshunned because in their view it brings increased crime and drug use as
well as leading to social depravity through such things as pornography
resulting from the relaxation of sexual mores. Moreover, because Arabgovernments favoring secularization and the promotion of a market
economy have generally taken a pro-American viewpoint, recognized
Israel, and allowed the stationing of U.S. troops, secularization has cometo be rejected due to foreign policy considerations as well.
All this means that American attempts to export “democracy” by force
of arms are likely to result in conﬂict with Islamic fundamentalists. It
would be more advisable to coolly consider how the Islamic fundamentalists’ extremely “insular mentality” could best be exposed to the fresh
winds of new ideas. Islam was originally a faith with a spirit of tolerance

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providing for the recognition of followers of other faiths, and the Koran
contains teachings encouraging “consultations” between followers ofdisparate religions, so the development of a distinctly Islamic type of“democracy” is possible. The current unfortunate situation can be traced
to the fact that, with secular trends having been imported as part of a
package with America’s pro-Israeli foreign policy and policies against
Arab extremism, it is difﬁcult to independently consider “democratization.”
One thing to keep in mind in this connection is that, although it canbe said that Islamic parties are enjoying increasing inﬂuence in theIslamic world, this is the result of the introduction of a multi-party systemand the religious parties winning increasing numbers of votes in elections.
It is thus indisputably clear that there is a trend in the Islamic world
toward the democratization and secularization of the political system,
and it is entirely possible that the inﬂuence of secular parties will increasein the long run. With Islamic extremists frequently committing acts ofterror there is a trend toward increased casualties among Muslims and,as the renowned French scholar of the Middle East Gilles Kepel points
out, terrorism that targets Muslims can by no means be considered jihad
but instead falls under the category of ﬁtona, or internal conﬂict among
Muslims, and as such is likely to face criticism from followers of Islam.19
Democracy, in any case, is something to be created and developed inany given region by the local people themselves. Just as the Soviet Union
failed during the Cold War in its attempt to “export communism,” it is
impossible for any power, no matter how great, to export “democracy”
by the force of arms. What the present situation calls for, rather, is for
America to strive to convey the appeal of “American democracy”
through tenacious dialogue and cultural exchanges. The wisdom of thispoint has been illustrated by Sept. 11 and the ensuing “war on terror,”the pursuit of which unfortunately showed that the U.S. government is
operating at cross purposes to this kind of “dialogue among civilizations.”
That is because the approach of condemning Islamic fundamentalism
as evil and responding on the basis of a dualistic division of the world
into good and evil costs America the opportunity to reconsider its own
Middle Eastern policies, which are part of the cause of the conﬂict in that
region. Immediately after Sept. 11, for example, many universities set
up new courses on Islam to seek the causes of that incident, but the well-HISTORICAL LESSONS IN ASIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS

35

known neo-conservative intellectual Norman Podhoretz criticized thistrend as something that might lead to the legitimization of Islam.20 Thiscan only be considered a major step backward compared to America’s
eager pursuit of Japanese studies at the time of the war with Japan.
The ﬁrst step toward making a dialogue of civilizations possible is to
overcome ethnocentric attitudes and have the conﬁdence to consider
one’s own civilization in a critical light. The next step is to recognizethat there is a vast diversity of civilizations and cultures in the world,
each with its own values. Both Christianity and American democracy
have traditionally placed a high value on tolerance, and a “politics ofrecognition” took hold in the United States in the form of multiculturalism following the ethnic revival of the 1960s. I think it is now very important to extend this multiculturalism beyond America’s borders.
Edward Said, a Palestinian-born scholar who has had a great impact
on the world of American thought, wrote as follows in his article,“Backlash and Backtrack,” immediately after Sept. 11. “How many ofus have denounced all suicidal missions as immoral and wrong, eventhrough we have suffered the ravages of colonial settlers and inhumancollective punishment? We can no longer hide behind the injustices done
to us, any more than we can passively bewail the American support for
our unpopular leaders. A new secular Arab politics must now make itself
known, without for a moment condoning or supporting the militancy ofpeople willing to kill indiscriminately. . . . Our purpose is coexistence
and inclusion, not exclusivism and a return to some idyllic and mythicalpast.”21
I hope that American studies scholars in Japan, which launched a reckless war on the United States 65 years ago as a result of its “insular mentality,” can act as a bridge enabling dialogue among civilizations for therealization, on a global level, of the kind of “coexistence” and “inclusion” of which Said spoke.
NOTES
1Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers of the President of the United States(GPO, 1941), 528.
2
George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Sept. 20, 2001.
3
Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (Macmillan Co., 1948), 1072, 1083.
4
Ibid., 1082.
5David J. Lu, Matsuoka Yosuke to Sono Jidai, 1880–1946 [Matsuoka Yosuke and
His Time, 1880–1946], translated by Shinichi Hasegawa, (TBS Buritanika, 1981),
32–34.

36

DAIZABURO YUI

Hull, The Memoir, 995.
Tojo Yufuko, ed., Daitoua Senso no Shinjitsu [The Truth About the Great AsianWar] (Watts-sha, 2005), 119–123.
8
Sudo Masashi, Haru Note o Kaita Otoko [The Man Who Wrote the Hull Note],(Bungeishunju, 1999), 60–66.
9Konoe Fumimaro, Konoe-ko Seidanroku [The Collective Essays of Konoe
Fumimaro] (Chikura-Shobo, 1937), 234, 240–241.
10
Oka Yoshitake, Konoe Fumimaro (Iwanami Publishers, 1972), 29–30, 42.
11
Kitaoka Shinnichi, Kiyosawa Retsu (Enlarged Edition), (Chuou Kouronsha, 2004),
129–130, 184.
12
Lu, Matsuoka Yosuke, 156, 164.
13
Chuou Kouron, January 1943, 70–71, 82.
14
Hashikawa Bunzo, Koka Monogatari [The Story of the Yellow Peril], (Chikuma
Shobo, 1976), 135–137.
15
Asahi Shinbunsha, Terorisuto no Kiseki [The Locus of Terrorists] (Soshisha, 2002).
16
Elaine Landau, Osama Bin Laden: A War Against the West (Susan Schulman Library
Agency, 2001), translated by Satoru Ohno, (Take Shobo, 2001), 36–61, 82–103.
17
John F. Hoge, Jr. and Gideon Rose, eds., How Did This Happen? (Public Affairs,2001), 33–38.
18
Ikeuchi Megumi, Gendai Arabu no Shakai Shiso [Social Thought of the Contemporary Arabs] (Koudansha, 2002), 242.
19
Gilles Kepel, “Conclusion,” Fitna: Guerre au Coeur de l’Islam (Paris: Gallimard,2004).
20
Norman Podhretz, “America at War,” February 13, 2002, http://www.aei.org/boyer/
podhretz.htm.
21
Edward Said, “Backlash and Backtrack,” Al-Ahram Weekly, Sept. 20–26, 2001.
67