UN Reform and Japan's Role
OZAKI Michio / Lecturer, Tsurumi University
November 25, 2003
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the late twentieth century and thereby brought the Cold War to an end, the people of the world experienced a profound sense of relief. But then in 2001, the opening year of the twenty-first century, terror struck from the sky at the United States, the world's superpower, and its economic, military, and political symbols. In that instant the dreams of well-intentioned people everywhere, who had their hopes pinned on a transition from a century of war to a century of coexistence, were ripped asunder, and their fragments came raining down in ashes.
Samuel Huntington's prophecy that the confrontation of ideologies would give way to an age of a "clash of civilizations" drew criticism on the grounds that it was too finely tailored to the strategic perspective of the United States. It was not long, however, before conflicts were erupting in many places and terrorism was on the rise, compelling the conclusion that his thesis had indeed hit upon the direction of history. The sharpest confrontations are a historical reenactment of the animosities among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, close relatives in the family of monotheistic religion. History would seem to have retrogressed to the age of the Crusades. On witnessing each instance of cold-hearted warfare, I am reminded of the view of the Hungarian-born writer Arthur Koestler, who hypothesized that the human brain is an evolutionary error.
Like all organisms, Koestler explains, the brain followed an evolutionary path starting from the single-celled organism and proceeding through amphibians and reptiles to mammals. At a certain point in the evolution of the human brain, however, the cells in part of it underwent explosive proliferation, creating incompatibilities with cellular structures that had gone through a very gradual process of progress over the ages. There are animals that depend on killing other animals to survive, but even in such cases they do not extend the slaughter beyond what they need to satiate their own appetite. It is only the human being that massacres others of its own kind, sometimes on the scale of a holocaust. We may not at present have the means to ascertain the correctness of this fatalistic view of the human being. But if we inquire into the motives behind the mass slaughters humans engage in, which Koestler traces to unusual reactions of the human brain when exposed to virulent slogans or religious beliefs, we will find our thoughts first returning to such scenes as the atrocities of the Nazis and the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, then moving on to the present time with its tragedies of terrorism, as well as its deep-rooted religious animosities, in such places as Iraq and Palestine.
It is not clear how seriously people perceived the United Nations, organized after the catastrophe of World War II, to be an agent intended to bring an end to the wars of human beings. In the United States and the other countries that led the UN's creation, though, there was undoubtedly a serious intent to make adjustments in the clashes over sovereignty among modern nation-states, which came into being with the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Now that the weight of the Cold War has been lifted, even though the factors disturbing peace in the world have shifted from ideologies to cultural friction, the UN is, for the time being, the only institution working to adjust the interests of peoples and states. In the United States the Bush administration, which is ensconced in an ideological hotbed of neoconservatism, has been pushed even more decidedly toward unilaterialism by the winds of September 11. As a result, in the Iraq War a fissure opened up within the Atlantic alliance, which was a model of solidarity during the Cold War, between Washington on the one side and Paris and Berlin on the other, and the centripetal force of the UN has diminished.
In the recent general election in Japan, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro did not show much enthusiasm for pressing Japan's case to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. In explaining his stance, he made reference to the fact that the existing five permanent members are all nuclear powers, as if to imply that securing nuclear arms was a necessary precondition for gaining a permanent seat. But is this really so? If Japan, a country that is second only to the United States in the dues it pays to the UN and that espouses the three nonnuclear principles of not possessing, producing, or permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons, were to participate as a permanent Security Council member, international public opinion might shift toward favoring disarmament under the UN's lead. Japan could act as a bridge spanning the cultures of the East and West, and it could also play a role further down that road in the establishment of a "global united states" within which cultural diversity would be tolerated. Precisely this is what Japan should undertake to accomplish in the twenty-first century.
The writer is Lecturer of Faculty of Political Science at Tsurumi University. He is a former Mainichi Shimbun journalist.
Samuel Huntington's prophecy that the confrontation of ideologies would give way to an age of a "clash of civilizations" drew criticism on the grounds that it was too finely tailored to the strategic perspective of the United States. It was not long, however, before conflicts were erupting in many places and terrorism was on the rise, compelling the conclusion that his thesis had indeed hit upon the direction of history. The sharpest confrontations are a historical reenactment of the animosities among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, close relatives in the family of monotheistic religion. History would seem to have retrogressed to the age of the Crusades. On witnessing each instance of cold-hearted warfare, I am reminded of the view of the Hungarian-born writer Arthur Koestler, who hypothesized that the human brain is an evolutionary error.
Like all organisms, Koestler explains, the brain followed an evolutionary path starting from the single-celled organism and proceeding through amphibians and reptiles to mammals. At a certain point in the evolution of the human brain, however, the cells in part of it underwent explosive proliferation, creating incompatibilities with cellular structures that had gone through a very gradual process of progress over the ages. There are animals that depend on killing other animals to survive, but even in such cases they do not extend the slaughter beyond what they need to satiate their own appetite. It is only the human being that massacres others of its own kind, sometimes on the scale of a holocaust. We may not at present have the means to ascertain the correctness of this fatalistic view of the human being. But if we inquire into the motives behind the mass slaughters humans engage in, which Koestler traces to unusual reactions of the human brain when exposed to virulent slogans or religious beliefs, we will find our thoughts first returning to such scenes as the atrocities of the Nazis and the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, then moving on to the present time with its tragedies of terrorism, as well as its deep-rooted religious animosities, in such places as Iraq and Palestine.
It is not clear how seriously people perceived the United Nations, organized after the catastrophe of World War II, to be an agent intended to bring an end to the wars of human beings. In the United States and the other countries that led the UN's creation, though, there was undoubtedly a serious intent to make adjustments in the clashes over sovereignty among modern nation-states, which came into being with the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Now that the weight of the Cold War has been lifted, even though the factors disturbing peace in the world have shifted from ideologies to cultural friction, the UN is, for the time being, the only institution working to adjust the interests of peoples and states. In the United States the Bush administration, which is ensconced in an ideological hotbed of neoconservatism, has been pushed even more decidedly toward unilaterialism by the winds of September 11. As a result, in the Iraq War a fissure opened up within the Atlantic alliance, which was a model of solidarity during the Cold War, between Washington on the one side and Paris and Berlin on the other, and the centripetal force of the UN has diminished.
In the recent general election in Japan, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro did not show much enthusiasm for pressing Japan's case to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. In explaining his stance, he made reference to the fact that the existing five permanent members are all nuclear powers, as if to imply that securing nuclear arms was a necessary precondition for gaining a permanent seat. But is this really so? If Japan, a country that is second only to the United States in the dues it pays to the UN and that espouses the three nonnuclear principles of not possessing, producing, or permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons, were to participate as a permanent Security Council member, international public opinion might shift toward favoring disarmament under the UN's lead. Japan could act as a bridge spanning the cultures of the East and West, and it could also play a role further down that road in the establishment of a "global united states" within which cultural diversity would be tolerated. Precisely this is what Japan should undertake to accomplish in the twenty-first century.
The writer is Lecturer of Faculty of Political Science at Tsurumi University. He is a former Mainichi Shimbun journalist.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
国連改革と日本の役割
尾崎美千生 / 鶴見大学講師
2003年 11月 25日
20世紀後半を覆った米ソ両超大国による東西冷戦の重圧がソ連の崩壊によって氷解したとき、世界の人々に与えた開放感は大いなるものがあった。しかし、新世紀の幕開けのその年に世界のスーパーパワー・米国の経済・軍事・政治の象徴を狙った空からのテロによって、「戦争の世紀」から「共生の世紀」へと期待をかけた善意の人々の夢想は粉々になって灰燼の中に降り注いだ。
イデオロギーに代えて、文明間の対立時代に入るというS・ハンチントンの予測は、あまりにもアメリカの戦略的視点が強すぎるとの批判を呼んだ。だが、その後世界の各地を襲った紛争の激化とテロリズムの高揚をみると、その所説は歴史の方向を探り当てていたと言わざるを得ない。その最大の対立は共に一神教であるキリスト教、ユダヤ教と、イスラム教間の近親憎悪の歴史的再現である。歴史は十字軍の昔に逆戻りしたかのようにみえる。非情な戦争の現実に直面する度に思い起されるのは、ブタペスト生まれの科学ジャーナリスト、アーサー・ケストナーの「人間の頭脳は進化論的には欠陥商品である」という所説である。
人類の頭脳も他の動物と同じように単細胞生物から両棲類、爬虫類、哺乳類と進化してきた。しかしながら、ある時期に人間の頭脳はその一部の細胞がまるで腫瘍のように異常増殖し、それまで永年に渉ってなだらかな進歩のプロセスを辿ってきた細胞群と不具合を起こすに至った。他の動物が自分の食欲を満たすに足る捕食のために他の動物を殺すことはあっても、必要以上の殺傷は行わない。人間だけが、同じ種に属する人間を大量殺戮（ホロコースト）するのはそのためである、とケストナーは言う（「ホロン革命」）。私たちはいま、人間にとってこの究極の宿命論が正しいかどうかをただすべき手立てを持ってはいない。しかし、ケストナーから人間が犯すその大量殺戮の動機は強烈なスローガンや、宗教的信条に触発される脳の特質に由来するということを聞けば、ナチスによる惨劇や、旧ユーゴにおける民族クレンジング、さらにいま連日繰り返されているイラクやパレスチナにおける宗教対立の根の深さ、テロの悲惨さに思い至るのである。
第二次世界大戦の惨禍のあとに組織された国際連合に「人間の業」としての戦争に終止符を打とうという認識がどこまであったのかに疑問は残る。しかし、米国をはじめ国連結成を主導した連合国のリーダーの中には、少なくとも1648年のウェストファリア条約によって幕を明けた近代「国民国家」の主権の衝突を何とか調整しようという真摯な志はあったはずである。冷戦の重しがとれ、世界の撹乱要因がイデオロギーから文化的摩擦に移ったにせよ、国家間や民族間の利害の調節を図る機関としては、目下のところ国際連合をおいてない。「ネオコン」という思想的温床に包まれた米国のブッシュ政権は、9・11テロの風圧によって一層その単独行動主義への傾斜を深めた。その結果、イラク戦争をめぐって、冷戦下では大西洋同盟の結束を誇った仏、独との間に亀裂を深め、国連の求心力を弱体化させたことは否めない。
日本の小泉首相は、最近行われた総選挙においても日本の国連安保理常任理事国入りへの熱意は見せなかった。その理由について首相は、現在の常任理事国G5がみな核戦力を保持している事実を指摘、まるで核武装することが常任理事国入りの条件ででもあるかのような言説を吐いている。しかし、果たしてそうだろうか。米国に次ぐ国連分担金を拠出し、「非核三原則」を掲げる日本が常任理事国に参加することによって、国連による核軍縮への世論を高め、東西文化の架け橋として、またその延長線上には文化的多様性を認め合う「地球合衆国」の形成に一定の役割を果たすことこそ、21世紀にかける日本の役割ではあるまいか。
(筆者は鶴見大学講師（政治学）、元毎日新聞政治部副部長。)
イデオロギーに代えて、文明間の対立時代に入るというS・ハンチントンの予測は、あまりにもアメリカの戦略的視点が強すぎるとの批判を呼んだ。だが、その後世界の各地を襲った紛争の激化とテロリズムの高揚をみると、その所説は歴史の方向を探り当てていたと言わざるを得ない。その最大の対立は共に一神教であるキリスト教、ユダヤ教と、イスラム教間の近親憎悪の歴史的再現である。歴史は十字軍の昔に逆戻りしたかのようにみえる。非情な戦争の現実に直面する度に思い起されるのは、ブタペスト生まれの科学ジャーナリスト、アーサー・ケストナーの「人間の頭脳は進化論的には欠陥商品である」という所説である。
人類の頭脳も他の動物と同じように単細胞生物から両棲類、爬虫類、哺乳類と進化してきた。しかしながら、ある時期に人間の頭脳はその一部の細胞がまるで腫瘍のように異常増殖し、それまで永年に渉ってなだらかな進歩のプロセスを辿ってきた細胞群と不具合を起こすに至った。他の動物が自分の食欲を満たすに足る捕食のために他の動物を殺すことはあっても、必要以上の殺傷は行わない。人間だけが、同じ種に属する人間を大量殺戮（ホロコースト）するのはそのためである、とケストナーは言う（「ホロン革命」）。私たちはいま、人間にとってこの究極の宿命論が正しいかどうかをただすべき手立てを持ってはいない。しかし、ケストナーから人間が犯すその大量殺戮の動機は強烈なスローガンや、宗教的信条に触発される脳の特質に由来するということを聞けば、ナチスによる惨劇や、旧ユーゴにおける民族クレンジング、さらにいま連日繰り返されているイラクやパレスチナにおける宗教対立の根の深さ、テロの悲惨さに思い至るのである。
第二次世界大戦の惨禍のあとに組織された国際連合に「人間の業」としての戦争に終止符を打とうという認識がどこまであったのかに疑問は残る。しかし、米国をはじめ国連結成を主導した連合国のリーダーの中には、少なくとも1648年のウェストファリア条約によって幕を明けた近代「国民国家」の主権の衝突を何とか調整しようという真摯な志はあったはずである。冷戦の重しがとれ、世界の撹乱要因がイデオロギーから文化的摩擦に移ったにせよ、国家間や民族間の利害の調節を図る機関としては、目下のところ国際連合をおいてない。「ネオコン」という思想的温床に包まれた米国のブッシュ政権は、9・11テロの風圧によって一層その単独行動主義への傾斜を深めた。その結果、イラク戦争をめぐって、冷戦下では大西洋同盟の結束を誇った仏、独との間に亀裂を深め、国連の求心力を弱体化させたことは否めない。
日本の小泉首相は、最近行われた総選挙においても日本の国連安保理常任理事国入りへの熱意は見せなかった。その理由について首相は、現在の常任理事国G5がみな核戦力を保持している事実を指摘、まるで核武装することが常任理事国入りの条件ででもあるかのような言説を吐いている。しかし、果たしてそうだろうか。米国に次ぐ国連分担金を拠出し、「非核三原則」を掲げる日本が常任理事国に参加することによって、国連による核軍縮への世論を高め、東西文化の架け橋として、またその延長線上には文化的多様性を認め合う「地球合衆国」の形成に一定の役割を果たすことこそ、21世紀にかける日本の役割ではあるまいか。
(筆者は鶴見大学講師（政治学）、元毎日新聞政治部副部長。)
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟