The fact that Ararat, a 2002 film by Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan is permitted to be screened in Turkey, is a productive step towards deep and perhaps painful cultural introspection. The film depicts the events of 1915 in which droves of Armenians were expelled from modern day eastern Turkey. Turkish and Armenian historians differ in their accounts of what happened in 1915. It is a fact that Armenians were driven out of eastern Anatolia, their ancestral homeland. It is also a fact that many Armenians died during this forced march out of Anatolia. The unresolved question is whether this incident — what amounted to a death march for the Armenians — was planned and orchestrated by the Ottoman government. The traditional Turkish answer to the Armenian accusations of state-sponsored massacre has been that the Armenians, with the backing of czarist Russia, rebelled against Ottoman rule. The deaths that resulted from the resultant conflict in 1915 must be placed in their appropriate historical context of World War I and the twilight years of the soon-to-be-abolished Ottoman Empire.

Erkan Mumcu, the minister of culture and tourism, is allowing what some consider to be a virulently anti-Turkish film to be screened in Turkey. This is no small feat, considering that while Turkey boasts many private TV and radio stations, there is still significant self- and government-
censorship in the media, and that a branch of the Nationalist Action Party has threatened violence against cinemas where Ararat is shown.

Ararat will hopefully pave the way not for more violence but instead for productive historical reconsideration.

Mimi Hanaoka

Has the language of demonization been productive? Two eminent journalists, David E. Sanger and Neil MacFarquhar, wrote an article in The New York Times about the ramifications of President Bush’s declaration that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea constituted an “axis of evil.” The question is whether Bush’s pugnacious attitude and language have been instrumental in facilitating productive changes in the behavior of these nations.

It is possible that Bush’s tactic of terror and language of demonization have encouraged change in a number of nations that includes Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. However, America should not count on bullying the world into submission forever. The important question that we should be asking is whether Bush’s declaration of an “axis of evil” has done lasting and substantive harm.

Bush’s belligerent language and the anti-Americanism it has engendered has had a negative effect on the moderate middle ground in the Middle East and Muslim world. The article notes that reformists in the Middle East and Muslim world claim that Bush’s inflammatory language has created an environment where reformists are easily dismissed as “lackeys” of the American regime. When the moderate voices are lost in the din of America-bashing, the voices that are most easily heard may be those of radicals and political extremists. In effect, Bush has marginalized the moderate reformists.

The New York Times quotes a senior defense official as making the alarming pronouncement that ‘What he did was get the whole world’s attention. It’s had an effect beyond the three nations, and whether that was accidental or calculated, in retrospect I think it was a smart thing to do.’

It is truly frightening if the consequences of Bush’s axis of evil” statement were simply accidental. Furthermore, his pronouncement has marginalized moderate reformists in a flood of anti-American anger. At this point, Bush’s rhetoric has not proven to be much better than abysmal.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Demonstrating the extent to which the government’s anti-terrorism measures have affected quotidian life, some foreign students find themselves stranded and unable to return to the United States due to complications with their student visas.The New York Times devoted a lengthy article on the subject of student visa delays and the havoc it has wrecked on the academic community. As a result of the September 11 tragedy, the State Department has become wary of foreign students in the United States, and President Bush issued a directive that mandated increased surveillance of foreign students.  There is currently a “technology alert list,” that lists 150 areas of study which have the potential of transferring sensitive information and technology to other nations.

While foreign students whose areas of focus lie within the benign bounds of the humanities fare comparatively better, the visa application process may prove to be a bureaucratic nightmare for students looking to study disciplines such as nuclear technology, immunology, and urban planning. There are approximately 600,000 foreign students studying in American colleges and universities, about half of whom study technology and science. Some students who have returned to their home country during their course of study—to visit their family members or, in the particularly tragic case of Xiaomei Jiang , who returned home after both of her parents were killed in a traffic accident—find themselves stranded and unable to return to the United States due to complications with their student visas.

Students whose student visas are submitted to the State Department for review are at the mercy of bureaucratic inefficiency. The State Department, the Defense Department, the Department of Energy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and several other agencies all have a say in the visa review process. There is no limit on the amount of time that a review can take. While only about 0.05 percent of the visa applications filed in 2003 will eventually be rejected, the students whose applications are accepted can still suffer from horrendous delays. Classes start before a student’s visa application is processed, and stranded students are forced to put their plans on hold, uncertain of when they may return to the United States to continue their academic careers.

This lengthy visa review process has had disastrous consequences, particularly since foreign students comprise about a quarter of the study body at top graduate schools. Graduate students are stranded, unable to complete their teaching assistant duties; scholars cancel their lectures. And the freedom of intellectual exchange in a market place of ideas has come under attack. Irving Lerch, director of international affairs at the American Physical Society, stated that “the health and vitality of our scientific research depends on the open and free exchange of ideas. Without such exchange, science cannot survive.”

We can only hope that students remain undeterred and continue to want to study in the United States. If this surveillance process drives students away from America and into the more welcoming arms of Britain, Australia, and other nations, the United States will be sapped of the vitality and intellectual progress of its foreign scholars.  

Mimi Hanaoka

In order to curry favor with his conservative support base in an election year, President Bush will soon be promoting “healthy marriages.” The President is ostensibly working to develop supportive and nurturing relationships — at the cost of $1.5 billion — for the benefit of couples, children, and the nation at large. Yet the motivation for this project may be to undermine the recent Massachusetts precedent which upholds gay marriages. In November of 2003, the highest court in Massachusetts declared that the state’s constitution allows for same-sex marriages. This ruling has had the unhappy consequence of Republican lawmakers demanding a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages in all states.

This healthy marriage initiative comes at a politically opportune moment for President Bush; it should pacify those who fear that traditional marriages are under attack. Bush has yet to acquiesce to the calls for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, but this initiative will certainly signal to his conservative support base that traditional marriages enjoy the blessing of the government. Indeed, Bush has stated that marriage is a union between man and woman. Thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act, all federal funds allocated for marriage promotion will be off limits to gay couples.

Mimi Hanaoka

At a time when public sentiment towards the U.S. forces in Iraq is turning increasingly sour, particularly with the recent incident in which American soldiers opened fire on an Iraqi family traveling in a car, Japan is sending forces to Iraq. Japan’s presence in the region is notable because this is the first time since the end of World War II that Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been ordered into a combat zone. The Japanese constitution prohibits the existence of a standing combat-ready army, just as it prohibits troops from being dispatched to a combat zone. It is thanks to a law that was enacted in the summer of 2003 that Japanese troops are legally able to enter non-combat zones in Iraq. As The Japan Times rightly notes, those critical of sending the Self-Defense Forces argue that no such non-combat zones currently exist in Iraq. While the war may officially be over, the deaths and casualties continue to mount.  

According to a poll published in The Japan Times, the residents in the city of Samawah, located in southern Iraq, may be very welcoming or very opposed to the Japanese troops, depending on their purpose.  Should the Japanese SDF aid in the reconstruction of Iraq, they will be welcome.  Should the Japanese forces appear to support and abet the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, the welcome will be significantly more tepid.  

Given that many Japanese are wary, if not outright opposed, to the deployment of SDF troops to Iraq, the Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba would do well to consider the purpose and extent of the Japanese presence in Iraq.

Mimi Hanaoka

QUOTE OF NOTE

“It shows how frantically the ruling class is rushing toward a revival of militarism.”

A statement by the North Korean state radio agency, Korean Central Broadcasting, regarding Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine on New Year’s Day. The shrine serves as a memorial to Japan’s war dead, including convicted World War II war criminals. While Koizumi has stated that this was a personal visit, various governments in East Asia have objected to the visit on the basis that the shrine celebrates Japanese militarism.

Mimi Hanaoka