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To
Change Japan, For the Japanese to Change Pub.:
Yamateshobo-shinsha (November, 1995)
The era of international cooperation left up to the
government and somebody else is over, or rather it must be over. "It is not the government that is
at the front of
international cooperation; it is the people. That the voice of the
front reaches the general public, and that messages from ordinary people are
listened to and reflected in actions at the front, will lead to better
and more effective international cooperation" (Preface vii-viii).
People are
not powerless. If willing to take others' perspective, do to others
what you want them to do to you, and discuss things through with your
opinion firm but listening to opinions different from yours, you can even
change the world eventually. International society is rapidly
becoming borderless and what will be even more necessary in the future is
for the "ordinary people" to join and participate in the
construction of its structure.
From the preface . . . .
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Scenes of the U.S. armed forces' bombing with
sheer precision making full use of the latest
high-tech at the Gulf War are played on TV just like some video game.
Also, scenes of the
utterly merciless famine in Somalia are replayed over and over in our
living room. Once accustomed to this impersonal media called
television, its impact on everyday experiences as felt gets weaker, and
people become less able to feel the sense of reality no matter what they see.
However, the message conveyed by Somalia was too intense
to ignore. If they could take the action they want just by
pressing a button like a video game, many of them would have pressed the
button. Yet, in reality there is not a way even to convey their
opinion to those who are in the position to take action, much less to take
action on their own.
Many people probably think that they want to do
something that contributes to international cooperation no matter how
small a thing it might be, if given a chance or an opportunity. There may be even more than a few who have concrete plans for
Japan to contribute more to international society. Meanwhile, it is
probably also true that many think of international cooperation as a deed,
nothing to do with their daily life and by only some specialists in
relevant fields. Eventually, many come to conclude that if given an
opportunity they will do something, but for the time being, there is
nothing they can do and their daily living hanging in front of them is
more important.
It looks as if the Sagawa Express incident, in which
the general public pressured Mr. Kanamaru to resign the Diet, proved that
even ordinary people could influence the status quo if they united as a
whole. However, a case so simplistic and uncommon like that does not
serve as a useful reference. As seen in the PKO issue for example,
problems associated with international cooperation are not simple. Nobody will follow even if mothers cry out that they will never allow
their sons to be sent to the battlefield again. Besides,
international cooperation is not uncommon.
It takes considerable reformation to boost Japan's
contribution to the global community through international
cooperation As expressed by Mr. Ken'ichi Omae, international
cooperation, too, is now to be discussed in terms of its
"direction," not its "degree" anymore. It should
be relatively easy to talk about gradual reformation on daily, common
problems. This is the "degree" argument. On the
other hand, most "direction" arguments will not turn into
guiding principles as to what to be done everyday. So, the direction
argument may easily end up being "theoretically and ideally true but
in reality . . ." Given this dilemma, the present
book attempts to speculate "what can be done now" for
international cooperation. It was the author's desire not only to
picture the ideal but to think about international cooperation from
everyday life perspective without getting swept by the flow of daily life.
Most important is to conjure up a goal that may eventually be reached and
to make the first step forward in a more or less correct direction that
will get one close to the goal. If cooperation is regarded as
something that is reciprocal, and development as essentially that of human
resources, any international cooperation, in which people can learn from
each other in various ways, is development cooperation. It is also
part of development cooperation to construct mechanisms, in which better
international cooperation, both practical and substantive, can be
initiated.
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The basis of development cooperation is people. For
better development cooperation, there must be enough people whose
understanding of international society and motive toward cooperation are
legitimate, and the mechanisms in which national consensus can be formed
around those people. The theme of this book is how to create such
mechanisms and human resources necessary for development cooperation.
[. . .]
Because of the nature of their work, development consultants are inclined
to have more uncommon experiences, so to speak, than most other people,
including contact with other cultures, exchange with people of different
races, observation of different worlds, etc. Moreover, everyday they
think of problems associated with development and international exchange, at
the front of development cooperation, as it were. As a result, it
should come natural to development consultants to foster their own view and
unique perspective on the world. I believe that they can be of
service, however small their contribution might be, by suggesting
somewhat different angles from development cooperation perspective to issues
many people including specialists of every field have been mulling over.
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