Opinion You're right, it's not fair By Douglas Lummis	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
確かに、ずるいよね 子供はまだ小さいころから ｢嫌だ」という言葉を口にするようになる。 これは「自分にとって嫌だ」という個人的な意見だ。 少し大きくなると、今度は、 ｢ずるい」という言葉を口にするようになる。 こちらは、だれにとってもあてはまる意見だ。 つまり、「それはほかの人がやってもいけないし、 自分がやってもいけないことだ」という 意味合いがあるのだが…。

When I taught political theory in college, one thing I tried to teach was the concept of justice. One approach was to look At how children first learn the language of justice.

Among the first words children learn is "no" (in Japanese, "iyada"). This helps children protect themselves against things they don't like. But when a child (or anyone) says "no" (or "I don't like it"), that's a private statement. I don't like it, but somebody else might.

At around 3 or 4, children start saying: "That's not fair" (in Japanese, "zurui"). They might not realize it, but they are making a statement that applies to everyone. If I say, "It's wrong to do that," I am saying it would be wrong for me or for anyone else to do that. To say, "That's not fair," is to promise not to do the unfair thing. Yes, many people break that promise, but still that's what the words mean.

I will give two examples where it would be good to remember this simple truth.

One is in the response by Americans to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In an earlier ST article I quoted a young American who, right after the attacks, said, "I guess this proves that bombing civilians is wrong, doesn't it?" This statement invites the people in shock and mourning to take the step from "I don't like it" to "It's unjust." If it's unjust, it shouldn't be done by anyone, anywhere. This invites people to expand their imagination and think, if the killing of 3,000-plus people here was this horrible, this monstrous, then think how the people must have felt in Hiroshima, in Nagasaki, in Dresden, in Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan. It invites people to think, "Now that I know this pain, I would never want to be responsible for causing the same kind of pain to others."

In fact there are some Americans, including families of victims, who do see it that way, and who oppose the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But that's still a minority view.

A second example is the tragedy of the 13 people kidnapped (rachi) some years ago by the North Korean government. The Japanese mass media have taken this issue up actively, and the public now has a vivid idea of how awful, how life-ruining it can be to be kidnapped or to have a member of your family kidnapped. To paraphrase the above quotation, I guess this proves that kidnapping is wrong.

And if it was brutal and wrong to kidnap those 13 Japanese, then it was equally brutal and wrong (actually, worse) to kidnap (kyousei renko) tens of thousands of Koreans during the last war, and to use them as forced laborers and sex-slaves. Today's passion against kidnapping gives the Japanese public an opportunity to remember that the majority of the Koreans in Japan are here because they, their parents or their grandparents were kidnapped. In fact there are some Japanese who do see it that way. But it's still a minority view.

Shukan ST: Nov. 29, 2002

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