湯浅八郎と二十世紀(三)

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I. Light and Shadow in the Japan-U.S. Relationship (1) Right after war between Japan and the U.S. broke out in 1941, a study group for peace after the war started in New York. John Foster Dulles (an international lawyer and a son of a pasture of Presbyterian church), who had been an assistant to President Woodrow Wilson, and who had attended the Paris peace treaty conference after WW I, was a member of this group. In this group meeting, he expressed his concern that if the victorious nations made one sided treaties after the present war, they would once again lay the foundation for a future war. This was the mistake that had been made after WW I, and he said that this mistake must not be repeated. In addition, in New York, the mayor and former missionaries began support activities for the Japanese who had lost theirjobs. Yuasa felt American good will deeply in those times. (2) On the other hand, on the West Coast of the United States, American authorities forced 1,230,313 Japanese immigrants to move into concentration camps. This included immigrants and their children with American citizenship, who made up 70% of the Japanese-American population at the time. All their property was lost, and the Japanese immigrants and their families were forced to stay in poor barracks in hastily erected camps in the desert. These new Americans were disappointed and enraged. Yuasa Hachiro visited those camps and told the people that this was one of the darkest pages in American history. However, he said that the War would come to an end eventually, and that since they were American citizens, they had the right and responsibility to contribute country, and that by doing this America would change for the better. Some Japanese were angry with him for saying this. After the War, there were remarkable activities done by Japanese-Americans in academic, educational, social and political fields. They could be proud of their upright Japanese-American identity. Eventually, their movement for redress moved the U.S. Congress, and in April 1988 the U.S. Government expressed an official apology, and the 60,000 survivors of the camps were given compensation of $20,000 each. Yuasa's words to the immigrants seem to contain some important messages for our times as well. Now in the present world vast numbers of refugees and immigrants have been uprooted from their home countries due to political and racial struggles in Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world. They are challenged to take root in foreign countries and to become responsible citizens there. II. World Peace and Democracy: The Vision of International Christian University After the defeat in WW II, ultra-nationalism and militarism were removed from Japan by the United Nations' army of occupation. In addition, the Emperor promulgated a "negation of his divinity," and the constitution was changed into a democratic constitution. In October 1946, upon his return from the U. S., Yuasa took office as President of Doshisha University. For those young and middle aged people who had een brought up in the liberal atmosphere of the Taisho Democracy Era (1910-23), emocratic reform after the War was not something that they were forced to accept by an occupying army, but rather it was a "liberation" from "the dark valley" of the early Showa Era. In addition, after two World Wars, it seemed that the time had finally come to realize the long awaited dream of founding a Christian university with high academic standards. International Christian University (ICU) was founded through the collaboration of a preparatory committee of representative Japanese academics with North American Christian churches. These churches with a spirit of reconciliation (for Hiroshima and Nagasaki) were able to respond resonantly to the strong desires of the Japanese committee. In the course of events, it was in June 1949, at the Gotemba conference, held jointly by both the Japanese and the U.S. sides, that the foundation of ICU was decided upon and that Yuasa Hachiro was elected the first president (For details, please refer to my book, Higher Education for Tomorrow: ICU and Postwar Japan). President Yuasa started to create the university as a Liberal Arts College with the cooperation of excellent scholars from Japan, the U.S., Europe, and etc. Such phrases as, "Be a person who serves both God and the people", "Pledge to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights", "Provide vision to youth", ICU as "the University for Tomorrow", and the concept of "the ICU Family" capture the guiding visions of the university's formation period. These are all visions that President Yuasa articulated and helped to make manifest. He called on the professors and students from different educational ideas and cultures with different languages and histories who gathered there to achieve these visions and led them in the formation of the university. This process could be compared to the Biblical process of making one's way through the wilderness. The university was not without its frictions, conflicts, dissatisfactions and problems. Some members were against Yuasa. However, Yuasa presented himself as a simple and optimistic man, who would often say, "I do my best, butjudgment is left to God." In any case, Yuasa seems to have been the suitable man to serve as the central figure in the adventurous beginnings of this new university.
2003-09-29

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武田清子
国際基督教大学

湯浅八郎と二十世紀(三)

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