２００２年１０月１１日
日本語を消してしまったので、翻訳者さんが送ってくれた英語文を掲載しておきます。と言っても多分アメリカ人は読まないと思うので、授業のレポーととかで使いたい人は使ってください。ちなみに俺のわけのわからない日本語を直訳してもらったため、所々で意味をなさない個所があるかも知れませんが、その辺は訂正して使う事をお勧めします。
History repeats itself.
Almost all classes I’m taking this semester are for my Business major. I’m also taking an anthropology class as my core class. The textbook covers the civilization of China and India too; however, the professor still talks to us about the Greek history in Chapter 3, in spite of having passed the first half of this semester. (Actually the textbook has 13 chapters through…) He seems to like Greek history very much. The semester might end when he has finished talking about European history if he continues this way.
I was a little disappointed at first because I like Chinese history, but Greek history is slowly becoming more interesting. In ancient Greece, many nations consisting of various governments were developed. Today, the story of their rise and fall is used as a model to predict the history of existing nations.
My teacher’s favorite phrase is “History repeats itself.” He especially spoke intensely about the collision of civilizations being repeated, comparing the September 11th attack to the Persian War. The Persian War was caused by that Greece was invaded by Persia, which flourished where present-day Iran is. Against the take over, Greek allied forces from democratic Athens met the Persian army, and then they barely beat back the Persians.
It’s certain that there is a similarity between this war and the “war against terrorism” that George. W Bush speaks of. If we think of the Persian Army like the Al Qaeda or Iraq and consider the Greek allied forces that were directed by Athens as the allied force headed by the U.S., their racial make up and governments correspond well. However, the clear difference is that the terrorists attack against the U.S. neither to invade it nor to get the profit, but they attack it by the motive of only hatred toward the U.S. Moreover, the Persian Army that attacked Greece was a greater force, whereas present-day terrorists have a smaller army than America’s (like elephants to ants). For that reason, I cannot easily conclude that the recent military affair was a collision of civilizations.
On one occasion, there was an essay question in the exam that asked: “Write an essay about a similarity between the Persian War and what is happening in the U.S. now.” I thought my professor wanted us to write about the Persian War, but I held back before writing about it. Instead, I wrote about the Peloponnesos War that took place after the Persian War to mention the process of the corruption of the democracy and compare it to the Bush administration.
War happened between two big nations in Greece, Athens and Sparta. To my surprise, Athens’s democracy was defeated by the Spartian oligarchy (minority leaders control people). Although the Athenians were able leaders, the defeat resulted in a plague epidemic. The most fatal outcome is that demagogues controlling the government of Athens confused the people, saying, “for the justice of democracy we can get huge amounts of money if we defeat Sparta.” They led the people of Athens to support the reckless war. In this way, democracy stopped working, and then it changed into an oligarchy. Athens was soon defeated and the golden age of the ancient city that created the bright culture ended. It rapidly grew worse.
What we have to notice here is that the decline of the democracy of Athens parallels what might happen to the United States due to George W. Bush’s current course of action. Just as demagogues rose to take power in the midst of confusion after the death of able leaders and a plague epidemic, the Bush administration is rising to surpass the deadlock of the American economy after the 9/11. Saying, “for American justice, we fight together” and “our nation will be jeopardized unless we attack Iraq.” Patriotism incites people’s fears. Many are agitated because of the aerial bombings of Afghanistan and the endless terrorism. If taxes are used for the production of weapons and for the murder of people in other countries, the U.S. will not only diminish in national power, but also make many enemies. People who are in the center of the Bush administration seem to get wealthier by the war, but the citizens don’t. Resembling how Athens fell into an ochlocracy, the U.S. has already fallen into a money politics.
If the democratic part is still paralyzed, the American golden age will end soon. The historians know that Athens’ democracy was ruined not by foreign enemies like Persia and Sparta, but by its collapse from inside corrosion. How many people have already known that the crisis of America will be brought, not by Iraq, but by the corruption of the Bush Administration’s democracy?
Here, I have summed up what I’ve discussed in my class essay. History has not yet finished. After the Peloponnesos War, Sparta, which was a winner, was exhausted. Greece plunged into the long war era, fighting against one nation controlling the entire terrain. The once prosperous Greece wound up invaded and controlled by Macedonia, which became strong after the take over.
Applying this flow of history to today’s world, we can say that the alliance between the U.S. and Japan will succumb to the invisible fear of “the battle against the terrorism.” Wars will break out around the world, and then these countries will be exhausted as Sparta was after warring with Athens. After that, the U.S. and Japan will be controlled by the Macedonian country, which does not participate in the war and develops into a strong nation. Will India be this nation? Or will it be economically-growing China?
I’m disappointed that human beings repeat the exact same history that happened 2,400 years ago. No! The situation is worse because they developed nuclear weapons and bacteriological weapons. We must prevent the same mistake.