英語エッセイにトライ・・・

After the Ben Ali administration had collapsed in Tunisia, the Mubarak administration of Egypt also collapsed. These phenomena have extended to other North African nations and Middle Eastern nations like the dominos falling, such as Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It recalls to me the days when I went to Egypt in November, 2009. At that time, I just took part in a tour, so I travelled the places which a local tour guide conducted me around. Notwithstanding that, when I saw the demonstrators clashed against the security forces in the centre of Cairo on TV, I could find that I had gone through that street by tour bus.



That year, 2009, was the year when the DPJ won the election and the change of government was realized. When I was talking to the tour guide, who was in her 30’s, the topic of conversation turned to this change of administration, I do not remember why we started talking about that though. I said that one of the parties had had the political power for over 60 years after the Second World War in Japan and politicians were all elderly people. And then she said, “Egypt is the same situation.” I noticed she looked blue but I could not understand why she made such a face. There occurred a lot of “???” in my mind.



I realized why she had looked gloomy when I saw the news which announced President Mubarak had resigned. The Egyptian president, Nasser, died when I was a high-school student. The media pronounced that “the Star of Arab” had fallen. It was the last message about Egypt for me. I did not know the dictatorial government had been lasting in Egypt after Nasser’s death. I realized the reason why we had had to go through a security check gate of the hotel when we had returned there and also I really understood the reason that a member of the Japan Red Army, who had fled Japan, had sprayed bullets at the famous tourist spot in Egypt years ago.



I had the similar embarrassing experience when I attended an English school in England in 2002. One of the students, who entered the school on the same day as I did, asked me how many languages I could speak. I said, “Not many. I speak just English and Japanese. And you?” She said that she could speak English, Spanish and Basque. She was a sixteen-year-old high-school student. I thought it was a distinctive pattern of childish jokes. Then I said, “Basque is one kind of Spanish!” with a smile. She had a sorrowful look on her face. I was really ashamed of having said so to her as I knew Basque has tried to be independent from Spain and there is the fact that its culture and language have its own peculiarities, after I returned to Japan. My ignorance stems from the ground where I stand.



People tend to estimate things by the culture, the institution or the stance which have been cultivated from each of their historical backgrounds. There exists a variety of nations on the earth and also there is a variety of different ways of thinking. The problem is not as to which one is right or wrong. In my view, it is important that people become free from their usual position and widen their mind to see what has occurred all over the world.









グローバル社会に賛成しているんじゃないよ。今のグローバル社会は、唯一の観念に収斂していって、開かれた「グローバル社会」とはとうてい言い難いから。