"Third World America"

Climbing the social economic ladder sounds irrelevant these days. The problem is not if you can climb the ladder or not, but if you can take part in, or cling onto, the ladder or not. We EFL teachers should provide our students with English literacy, not to say proficiency, so as that they can cling onto the global social economic ladder.

A Partial Translation from "Kaikyo kara Mita Chugoku" (written by Zhang Chengzhi) (4)

The Story of the Grievous Brothers

Let me cite a case. I'm going to talk about the 4 brothers I know. The eldest and the third were arrested in 1958. The fourth tried to commit the suicide, but failed and became handicapped. The second brother spent despairing days with the fourth for 15 years.

The eldest, who had been arrested, was put to death, but his body was not given to his family. The third, who had also been arrested, died in prison at the beginning of the 1970s. The news of his death was brought to their village. The second brother, who stayed in the village and in good shape, only hoped to bring the third brother's body back to their home town and bury it at the town's shrine.

The second brother reached the prison after a long journey, and found his younger brother's body which had not rotted yet in the winter cold. The police handed the body to him after checking that he was a bereaved brother. There started the famous story of contemporary Jahriyya history, “to carry a body for 500 kilometers.”

As he could not walk along highways with the body on his back, he chose mountains and fields to walk on. He hid during daytime, and moved quickly at night. He walked over some 500 kilometers within half a month, and brought the brother's body home. The brother's wife, who had been 20 years old when she married the brother and reached middle age by this time, fell unconscious upon seeing the body. After burying his younger brother in the sacred Jahriyya shrine, the second brother lost the will to live.

His family had offered martyrs one after another for generations from the ancient time to the third brother. He also dug a hole as his own grave in the shrine, put himself into the hole, and observed a fast.

I have wanted to write about this story for the dead and for the living since the time I met the only survivor, the fourth brother who had broken down mentally, at the peril of my life.

Understanding Hui people including Jahriyya is real humanitarianism, and I realized spreading the understanding to the wider people is my responsibility, as a person who was born as Hui Ethnic.

A Partial Translation from "Kaikyo kara Mita Chugoku" (written by Zhang Chengzhi) (3)

Preface: China's Islam

I sometimes feel that I have trouble in giving a general idea of the concepts of Islam in China which have some indispensable concepts to talk about. However, misinterpretation of the concepts might lead to a false-conclusion. Listeners also face risks of getting false-information even when they just want to increase their knowledge. All in all, Muslims or Islam in China are difficult for ordinary people to understand, and are easy to be misunderstood. This misunderstanding might be caused by the failure of defining the concepts.

It is vitally important to understand Islam, Muslims, and Hui people in China. It is one of the keys to understanding the national framework of China and religions there. I firmly believe that this understanding will give you important help in thinking about the future of Chinese people and their culture. Accordingly, I have long been looking forward to the publication of one textbook which enables people to understand the A to Z of Islam in China. As I write this book myself, I'd like to give brief descriptions of some concepts over Islam in China.

The name Hui Religion is an old phrase in China. Hui Religion is actually the same as Islamic Religion, or just Islam. In the old days, Chinese people didn't know the word “Islam”, but after the Qing Dynasty, if you had a neighbor called Hui-hui for example, you would have certain knowledge on the religion and customs the neighbor had. So, the religion Hui-hui people believed came to be called Hui-hui Religion or Hui Religion after the people's name. As the understanding of Islam spread, the old phrase Hui Religion became Islam. The Chinese Islamic people who speak Chinese and who live in the middle of Chinese culture have rather different aspects from those of Muslims like Uyghur, who speak a Turkish dialect and live in a different area within the national border. Besides, Muslims in China face different political-social circumstances than those in West Asia, where Islam is the state religion in many countries. Although the name Hui Religion is an old one, the name can be a proper one to describe Chinese Islam, with its complicated history and culture. So, I will sometimes use the name Hui Religion as well in this book.

Chinese Muslims, or Hui Religionists, have been referred to as Hui-hui in Chinese historic documents from the 13th Century. Some Mongolian documents in the 13th Century, Mongolian Dynasty Anecdotes for example, recorded Hui-hui as sartagul and Uyghur documents recorded Hui-hui as sartlar. In the Mongolian language, the suffix gul makes plural forms, and in the Uyghur language, lar does the same. The root sart means a merchant in the Persian language. The Chinese translation in the 13th Century for those words was Hui-hui. The meanings of the Chinese characters Hui-hui have had various folklore and academic explanations. We don't have an accepted theory yet, and the phrase is still unclear. However, Hui Religionists or Chinese Muslims, call themselves Hui-hui even today.

Hui-hui, which used to appear in old historical records, was called Hui for short. The word Hui was misused to refer to Uyghur people, who speak a Turkish dialect. Uyghur people and Hui-hui people do not share the same origins, language, history, or time when they first came to believe Islam. Old Chinese historical documents, however, recorded Uyghur as Hui because they didn’t have a particular name for the Uyghur. They often distinguished the 2 peoples by calling Uyghur as “Uy Hui” and Hui-hui as “Han Hui.” As Uyghur people regarded the name as discriminatory, they picked up the name Uyghur, which used to be the name of one of their ancestral tribes. Thus, we don’t confuse Hui with Uyghur today, and the name Hui is only used for Hui people who speak Chinese.

When we are not talking about religions, we sometimes call Hui Religionists Hui People. We similarly call Chinese People Han People or Han Man. However, the name Han Man is not appropriate. In China, we usually use Hui People instead of Hui-hui and refer to Chinese People as Han People. These names were used during the rule of the Republic of China. The government of the Republic of China didn’t classify Chinese speaking Hui People as an independent ethnic group, but emphasized that Hui People were also Chinese People, although they had different religious belief and customs. This was a deliberate act of the government at the time.

Today, the government of the People’s Republic of China regards Hui People as an ethnic group. The name Hui Ethnic, which indicates Hui People as an ethnic group, has been used most often from the 1950s. In today’s China, if you have either a father or a mother who is Hui, you are admitted as a Hui Ethnic, regardless of your religious belief. The usage of the term Hui Ethnic has been adopted by Hui People themselves after the turn of the century. Today, Hui Ethnic includes those who believe Islam and those who don't. According to the 1990 demographic statistics, the population of Hui Ethnic is 8,603,000.

I'm going to write within the conceptual framework above.

Let me repeat here that this book is about those who believe Islam in China and who speak Chinese. Those less than 10 million Hui People's history and present situation will tell us the fate of religions under the national order and culture of China. I'd also like to consider raison d'etre of those Chinese who have religious belief.

A Partial Translation from "Kaikyo kara Mita Chugoku" (written by Zhang Chengzhi) (2)

In Lanzhou, the struggle for their belief has started. The aged people who are leaving their town for the fight have made up their mind not to return home but to die for martyrdom without victory. People are starting to Lanzhou not only from this village, but also from the vast Ocher Plateau, from Yunnan, and even from Xinjiang. A sacred grave was destroyed more than 2 decades ago, and, now, the government is going to construct a building over the grave yard. The Muslims decided that the place is more meaningful than our lives, so we should get the place back from the government. Villages do not live in peace anymore. Peasants, who rarely show their feelings, now have glorious expressions with the sacred light. This is almost unbelievable after having seen their incredibly poor everyday lives.

Having graduated from the history faculty, I started reading relevant documents from the habit acquired during my college days. I found a simple article about the martyr Ma Mingxin, who was killed by the Qing government 200 years ago. The deprived Muslims are heading to Lanzhou really because of their self-sacrificing faith in Jahriyya, which was founded by Ma.

Even China, which holds secularism as their national policy, really has those who take their history into heart. They actually stake their lives on their faith.

A Partial Translation from "Kaikyo kara Mita Chugoku" (written by Zhang Chengzhi) (1)

The oppression policy against the Jahriyya during the Qing Dynasty was severe. After the Qing destroyed the rebels completely, the bereaved of Jahriyya were exiled from the Salar area to other places with "men to the south, women to the west."

Ma Mingxin had two wives. When Ma Mingxin was caught, his Salar wife committed suicide, and his other wife, Mrs. Zhang, was exiled to Ili in today's Xinjiang with their daughters. It is not hard to imagine how tragic the fate of the women who were exiled to Xinjiang by the government army was, but today's Jahriyya people have come not to mention their pain. The two daughters (in 1 opinion, three) of Ma Mingxin couldn't put up with the insult on the long journey on the Silk Road, and killed themselves. One young female follower of Mrs. Zhang threw her body in a lake on the way as well.

Mrs. Zhang herself endured it, and reached Ili at last. There were many Jahriyya followers who had hoped to follow her, and they too came to live in Ili. However, Mrs. Zhang killed more than ten members of a government official family who made her cook pork on New Year's Eve. She then went to the public office to surrender herself. Even an official is said to have admired her as she confessed that she killed them for the revenge.

At the time of her execution, she cried to one Islamic religious leader who was watching her at her execution: "What are you waiting for?"

While in tears, the religious leader painted her blood on his face, and performed the last ceremony for her, shedding tears, which must be done at the funeral for a Muslim, that is, the ceremony of regret, and he offered a final prayer for her.

Notes on Italian History

"A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise 'leadership' before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to 'lead' as well." (Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971, London,　p.57/58)

You can, and indeed must, already exercise 'leadership' before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power); you subsequently become dominant when you exercise power, but even if you hold the power firmly in your grasp, you must continue to “lead” as well.

"(T)here does not exist any independent class of intellectuals, but every social group has its own stratum of intellectuals, or tends to form one; however, the intellectuals of the historically (and concretely) progressive class, in the given conditions, exercise such a power of attraction that, in the last analysis, they end up by subjugating the intellectuals of the other social groups; they thereby create a system of solidarity between all the intellectuals, with bonds of a psychological nature (vanity, etc.) and often of a caste character (technico-juridical, corporate, etc.)" (ibid, p.60)

As it is said that "the artisanal character of agricultural labour was too obvious" (ibid, p.76), so it can be said that the artisanal character of educational labour is too obvious even today. I wonder when we will be able to conquer that character and to become an organized one.

In reality, geopolitics is always cold-blooded. "In reality, the principal tendencies of French politics were bitterly opposed to Italian unity. ...France, which 'ought' to be surrounded by a swarm of little states of Switzerland type in order to be 'secure'." (ibid, p.76)

"In real life, one cannot ask for enthusiasm, spirit of sacrifice, etc. without giving anything in return, even from the subjects of one's own country; all the less can one ask these things of citizens from outside that country, on the basis of a generic and abstract program and a blind faith in a far-distant government." (ibid, p.89) The give-and-take system is inevitable in real life.

How long will school grade deviation value keep being a fetish for adolescence? Will a figure of job prospects become another fetish someday? If the figure is to be important for choosing colleges, what figure will be important for preparatory levels of education? What can we predict over the fetishism over those figures?

"This form of hysterical unitarianism was especially prevalent among the Sicillian intellectuals (as a consequence of the formidable peasant pressure on the nobility's land, and also of the local popularity of Crispi);" (ibid., p.95) Some forms of hysterical anti-officialism have been especially prevalent among the teaching intellectuals (as a consequence of the formidable parental pressure on the nobility's information, and also of the local popularity of the governor).

As "the intellectuals of the lower grades, who normally tend to follow the university professors and great scholars, through spirit of caste" (ibid, p.104), so they form, or join, caste-spirit groups, or so called schools, under the names of great scholars.

"The 'leader' presupposes the 'led', and who was 'led' by these nuclei? These nuclei did not wish to 'lead' anybody, i.e. they did not wish to concord their interests and aspirations with the interests and aspirations of other groups. They wished to 'dominate' and not to 'lead'." (ibid, p.104/105) "This fact is of the greatest importance for the concept of 'passive revolution'---the fact, that is, that what was involved was not a social group which 'led' other groups, but a State which, even though it had limitations as a power, 'led' the group which should have been 'leading' and was able to put at the latter's disposal an army and a politico-diplomatic strength." (ibid, p.105) This is true not only of Italy but also of Japan. During the last days of Tokugawa Shogunate and Meiji Restoration, nobody seemed to be leading. Every one was just trying to dominate the nation, and, after accomplishing the domination, the parvenus just made the “revolution” “passive”, that is, they carried out a counterrevolution.

"The important thing is to analyse more profoundly the significance of a 'Piedmont'-type function in passive revolutions---i.e. the fact that a State replaces the local social groups in leading a struggle of renewal. It is one of the cases in which these groups have the function of 'domination' without that of 'leadership': dictatorship without hegemony." (ibid, p.05/106) Obviously, Meiji Restoration is dictatorship without hegemony. Then, was it domination without leadership?

"The hegemony will be exercised by a part of the social group over the entire group, and not by the latter over other forces" (ibid, p.106). In this sense, Meiji Restoration lacked hegemony, and might have had no leadership.

We need some "changes which in fact progressively modify the pre-existing composition of forces, and hence become the matrix of new changes." (ibid, p.109) Such changes could be brought about with the strategy composed with "war of position” and “war of manoeuvre" (ibid, p.108). In one sense, I'm better at war of maneuver, while not so much at war of position. Or the other way around actually? It is always very difficult to be aware of one's role.

"On Education"

Many teachers forget that the teacher “must be aware of the contrast between the type of culture and society which he represents and the type of culture and society represented by his pupils,” (Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971, London, p.36) They think the Japanese society is uniform, and that those students who cannot get accustomed to the teachers' culture and society are those who lack competency and efficiency.

"In reality a mediocre teacher may manage to see to it that his pupils become more informed, although he will not succeed in making them better educated; he can devote a scrupulous and bureaucratic conscientiousness to the mechanical part of teaching---and the pupil, if he has an active intelligence, will give an order of his own, with the aid of his social background, to the 'baggage' he accumulates." (ibid)

Even "a mediocre teacher may manage to see to it that his pupils become more informed, although he will not succeed in making them better educated”. Some pupils who have “an active intelligence, will give an order of his own, with the aid of his social background,” but other students who lack those background cannot “give an order of his own”.

Without "an order of his own,” “the 'baggage' he accumulates" cannot be called education. (ibid, p.36) The question is how we can have those students without “the aid of his social background” “give an order of his own”.

Mediocre teachers can only manage to bureaucratically arrange to have his students become more informed. They will not succeed in making the students better educated, no matter how scrupulous and conscientious their devotion may be, and they are the majority in school. Such being the case, only those students who have an active intelligence, that is, who have the aid of their certain social background, can give an order of their own to the pieces of information they have accumulated through the mediocre teachers.

If we desire to have our students get educated, we need a certain system through which even mediocre teachers can give an order of information to those students without the aid of their social background.

"It is noticeable that the new pedagogy has concentrated its fire on 'dogmatism' in the field of instruction and the learning of concrete facts --- i.e. precisely in the field in which a certain dogmatism is practically indispensable and can be reabsorbed and dissolved only in the whole cycle of the educational process. ... the new curriculum impoverishes the teaching and in practice lowers its level (at least for the overwhelming majority of pupils who do not receive intellectual help out side the school from their family or home environment, and who have to form themselves solely by means of the knowledge they receive in the class-room) --- in spite of seeming very rational and fine, fine as any utopia." (ibid, p.41) Here, Gramsci is not talking about today's “the Education at Ease”, but about their Italian educational reform some 80 years ago. What a coincidence that the both reforms worked or works against the lower social classes.

"Wider participation in secondary education brings with it a tendency to ease off the discipline of studies, and to ask for 'relaxations'." (ibid, p.42) So does it even today, some 80 years later.

"Undoubtedly the child of a traditionally intellectual family acquires this psycho-physical adaptation more easily. Before he ever enters the class-room he has numerous advantages over his comrades, and is already in possession of attitudes learnt from his family environment: he concentrates more easily, since he is used to 'sitting still', etc." (ibid, p.42) So, the question is how we should provide certain “attitudes” to those who lack certain family and social background. The social experiences or experiments in and around the Youth Clubhouse might make a good help.

"If our aim is to produce a new stratum of intellectuals, including those capable of the highest degree of specialisation, from a social group which has not traditionally developed the appropriate attitudes, then we have unprecedented difficulties to overcome." (ibid, p.43) If Japan is to become intelligent-based society, "then we have unprecedented difficulties to overcome."

"The Intellectuals"

"(T)he entrepreneur himself ... must be an organiser of the 'confidence' of investors in his business, of the customers for his product, etc."(Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971, London, p.5)

The educator should be an organiser of the 'confidence' of parents in his business, of the students for his classes.

"All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say; but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals." (ibid, p.9) So, "although one can speak of intellectuals, one cannot speak of non-intellectuals, because non-intellectuals do not exist." (ibid, p.9) Thus an educator is suppose to grow an sich intellectuals into fuer sich ones, not to make intellectuals out of nothing. "The problem of creating a new stratum of intellectuals consists therefore in the critical elaboration of the intellectual activity that exists in everyone at a certain degree of development," (ibid, p.9)

A Farewell to Japanism. The geopolitical concept Japan is too large to bundle the cultures and climates within her border. Decoding activities should not be based on the concept.

When we decode local or regional information, surmounting Japanism is essential. Otherwise, our information would be stereotyped. We must be, in other words, a realist.

Decoding areal information is to contribute to area studies. That is, decoding areas in Japan is to contribute to Japanology. When we do decoding in Japan, however, we have to be careful not to fall into the pitfall Japanism.

Japanism is a pitfall, which we must carefully avoid when we do decoding to contribute to Japanology abroad.

Gramsci once argued, "in Old Europe, where there exists a whole series of checks ... which ... give to every initiative the equilibrium of mediocrity". (ibid, p.20) Even in today's Japan, there exists a whole series of checks which give to every initiative the equilibrium of mediocrity, “diluting it in time and in space.” (ibid)

"In Protestant countries the difference [between the intellectuals and the people] is relatively slight (the proliferation of sects is connected with the need for a perfect suture between intellectuals and people, with the result that all the crudity of the effective conceptions of the popular masses is reproduced in the higher organisational sphere)." (ibid, p.23)

Gramsci seems to have thought Protestant countries played a rather innovative role at his time of history. If I could put it in an adverse way, as far as a country wants to be innovative, it should have relatively slight difference between its intellectuals and its people, and its sects should proliferate, which connect perfectly suture the intellectuals and the people, with the result that all the crudity of the effective conceptions of the popular masses is reproduced in the higher organisational sphere.

Existence is nothingness, and nothingness is existence. Existence is absence, and absence is existence.