Past and Tradition are the Magical Ways of Progress
Nowadays, Japan is considered as the second largest industrial and technological power in the world that it has reached the climax of technology and development. Moreover, everyone, who has visited and known Japan, will be assured that it is the superpower country in the industrial and technological knowledge despite the fact that Japan is a country with the poorest natural resources.
Japan has reached a developed stage in the electronics and robot fields the thing that makes the Western World astonished. But, for the Arab, there is no comment. An invited official from my country, whom I accompanied a tour in Japan, says that Japan is a planet which is very different from ours in every aspect. For example, The Japanese are different in their ways of dealing with people; they deal with each other in a sort of civilized human way which is still rare in the rest of the world.
Has Japan achieved this developed position through globalization and the madness of the Western mode? Never, because everyone knows that Japan is still attached to many of its cultural characteristics which make it distinct from the culture of the great industrial countries.
As we know, the G-7 countries are six Europeans and Japan which is the only one that does not belong to the West culturally.
Japan, the country which has reached the climax of development, is still considered traditional and primitive. For instance, the origin of Japanese language is spoken language not written one, so when the Japanese needed to write, they borrowed letters from their neighbor, China, despite that the Chinese letters were totally new to them. Moreover, the Chinese way of writing used to be primitive and written in the pictorial characters which are called Kanji. In other words, kanji has been used by the primitive man who tried to express his ideas through drawing. For example, tree, as a word, is written as it looks. Likewise, the word river which is portrayed as three wavy lines.
In the 5th and 6th centuries AD, Japan applied the Chinese way of writing, and it is still used until now. Nevertheless, Japan modified these characters to simple letters in order to express the phonetics in their language to make combinations between the words and sentences. These letters are divided into two types of writing. Firstly, Hiragana, which is mainly used to write the linking articles and the complement of the words. Secondly, Katakana is used to write the foreign words except the Chinese ones.
Nowadays, the Japanese sentences consist of three types of letters: Kanji characters, Hiragana, and Katakana. Actually, the difficulties of learning a language like Japanese are clear because the Kanji characters are unlimited and they may reach more than hundreds and thousands in the Chinese language . Therefore, Japan has been obliged to put a limit to the use of the Chinese characters in the fields of mass media and obligatory education. Moreover, these characters are frequently changeable because of omissions and insertions. However, the law now provides only 1945 characters. Therefore, during the American occupation of Japan, after the World War II, also, in the pretext of the difficulties and the less of the practical dealings, the Americans tried to control the usage of Kanji and replace it with the Latin letters as the other colonialists did. But it was quite useless because the Japanese have confronted them bravely due to their knowledge and faith in their civilization and culture; moreover, changing the writing ways was not practical. Therefore, the Japanese language is not suitable for their civilization and vice versa.
Beside of the other different disasters which may result in the knowledge alienation of the generations which will grow up according to the new system in all their past and heritage which is written by the traditional language.
In spite of the occupation, the Japanese stood against the interests of the foe in extracting them from their history and lingual heritage. Also, despite that their language is borrowed, they considered it after all these centuries as a part of their tradition. Moreover, “HASHI”, chopsticks, which seem a very simple thing, but very deep in meaning that most of the East and Southeastern Asian nations use them at table.
Since five thousand years ago, the Chinese have been using wooden sticks in eating which has spread over the neighboring countries, and one third of the world inhabitants use these sticks in stead of spoons, knives, and forks the thing which is considered primitive concerning the Western tableware or etiquette.
In the past, the Japanese slept on the floor which is called “TATAMI”, a matless made in a special way. But now the style of their house has changed in accordance with the European style. Nevertheless, every house has at least one room furnished with‘TATAMI’ and this room is mostly the bed room.
Despite all the progresses and luxury, the Japanese still sleep on the floor. Besides, in the old Japanese hotels called ‘RYOKAN’, there are no beds, they only contain ‘TATAMI’ and every dweller sleeps on it as well as the emperor.
Finally, I will speak about religion in Japan which is very important because Japan, in spite of all the progress it has achieved, it still primitive in its religion.
‘SHINTO’ is the religion which is mainly based on worshipping the souls and many gods that count an imaginary number, and it is until now counting some eight million gods, but this number indicates just many.
The Japanese scholars disagree that the translation of the word ‘KAMI’ is ‘God’, but it must be translated into ‘SPIRIT’ because there is no typical translation of ‘God’ in the Japanese language. The Japanese do not have an idea about “Deity” which is found in the divine religions. Therefore, in sixteenth century, when the Christian missionaries came to Japan, they did not find a word better than ‘KAMI’ to express the meaning of Deity.
Moreover, ‘SHINTO’ is primitive because it worships Nature and bases on that everything in Nature is a divine soul must be worshipped; otherwise, it will be harmful. So that everything in Nature, e.g. mountains, woods, rivers, seas….etc. is divine. Also, it is an everlasting religion that the Man will only live, and, after death, there is nothing but nonexistence, no re-creation, no punishment, no Paradise, and no Hell.
‘SHINTO’ is the original Japanese religion, and the number of its believers is about eight percent of the whole Japanese while the other religions are from abroad.
The second large important religion in Japan is Buddhism which is from India that came through China in the 6th century AD. Its believers are about seventy percent.
The sum of the believers in the two above-mentioned-religions is one hundred and fifty percent because most of the Japanese believe in more than one religion in the same time, so they specialize ‘SHINTO’ on the happy occasions , e.g. marriage, Christmas, and the New Year celebrations, while they specialize ‘BUDDHISM’ on the sad ones such as death and illness.
Concerning the rest of the religions, Christianity is the largest divine one that its believers are not exceeding one percent. Moreover, the Japanese social activities still follow the old primitive religions such as ‘SHINTO’, ‘BUDDHISM’ and, also, ‘CONFUCIANISM’ that affects their daily life. Yet it does not have large efficiency on their beliefs and rituals.
Eventually, it is important to think about what has been kept on the Japanese past which sustained the people’s life and culture.
Then, the religion of the Japanese is primitive because they believe that there are spirits in the Nature that everyone must glorify and thank in order to bring them welfare and avoid their wraths, or they will harm them. Anyway, the Japanese primitive religions do not avoid them from reaching the utmost degrees in science and technology and their superiority over the West in addition to industry. But, recently, the reason of Japan’s relative regression is the separation of the young generation, who lives in luxury and keeping in touch with the West, from their original traditions and culture, which are very different from the Western ones.
In my opinion, the modernism and development in their meanings which tend to abandon past and traditions are not the magical way to progress especially that our Arab Islamic heritage can be described as a primitive one in no way, but it is at the top of all fields such as thoughts, literature and ethics…etc.
Nowadays, how much we hear about the advocators of modernization after the appearance of their theory which calls us back to the past and apply it in our daily life. Moreover, they try to call us back to the nature and its productions. They also take us far from what are manufactured especially the excessive usage of the electronic tools due to their negative influence. However, I do not mean that we should reject modernization, but we should stick to our traditions and look into the ways that we should follow in updating our civilization without spoiling our rules that go with the present time.
Written by: Dr. Mohammed Shihab, the professor of the International Studies,
Deputy & Councilor to the Chairman of Syrian–Japanese Friendship Association.