FM Esenbel.Indd

Japan, Turkey and the World of Islam The Writings of Selçuk Esenbel Selçuk Esenbel completed her undergraduate degree in History at the International Christian University (Japan) and George Washington University (USA). She received her master’s degree from the Department of Japanese Language and Linguistics at Georgetown University (USA) in 1969 and a PhD in Japanese history from Columbia University (USA) in 1981. From 1982 to 1985, she was assistant professor at Bosphorus (Boğaziçi) University and became full professor in 1997, serving as Chair of the Department of History at Bosphorus University between 1994 and 2003. She helped establish Turkey’s Japanese Studies Association in 1993 and consolidated the organization as a Board Member. She became its third president in 2002 Her major publications in English include Even the Gods Rebel: The Peasants of Takaino and the 1871 Nakano Uprising in Japan and The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent (co-authored). Her articles in Japanese have appeared in Kindai Nihon to Toruko sekai and Ibunka rikai no shiza: Sekai kara mita Nihon, Nihon kara mita sekai. Her articles in English have been published in journals such as the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (UK), and The American Historical Review (USA). a Widely known for her writings on Islam with a particular focus on the transnational history of nationalism in Turkey and Japan, as well as her work on the social history of Tokugawa Japan, this volume brings together seventeen of the author’s key essays written over a period of thirty years, a number of which have been edited to take account of more recent developments. The essays range from ‘Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Powers, 1900–1945’ to ‘The People of Tokugawa Japan: The State of the Field in Early Modern Social/Economic History’. Importantly, the fi rst 30 pages of this volume also contain a personal memoir by the author exploring her early life and cross-cultural infl uences and their impact on the development her academic career. Selçuk Esenbel Japan, Turkey and the World of Islam THE WRITINGS OF SELÇUK ESENBEL a Series: THE WRITINGS OF Volume 3 JAPAN, TURKEY AND THE WORLD OF ISLAM The Writings of Selçuk Esenbel First published 2011 by GLOBAL ORIENTAL PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP UK www.brill.nl/globaloriental Global Oriental is an imprint of Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints BRILL, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, and VSP. © Selçuk Esenbel 2011 ISBN 978-1-906876-12-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Set in Plantin 10 on 11pt by Dataworks, Chennai, India Printed and bound in England by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wilts Contents a Plate section facing page 132 Introduction vii 1 Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945 1 2 Japan and Islam Policy During the 1930s 28 3 The Legacy of the War and the World of Islam in Japanese Pan-Asian Discourse: Wakabayashi Han’s Kaikyo¯ Sekai to Nihon 53 4 Maps in Our Mind: Chinese Coins, the Asian Muslim Network, the Japanese and the Transnational 73 5 A Transnational History of Revolution and Nationalism: Encounters between Japanese Asianists, the Turkish Revolution, and the World of Islam 87 6 Japanese Interest in the Ottoman Empire 108 7 A Fin de Siècle Japanese Romantic in Istanbul: The Life of Yamada Torajiro¯ and His Toruko Gakan 130 8 The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War on Ottoman Turkey 148 9 Meiji Élite and Western Culture 154 10 The Anguish of Civilized Behavior: The Use of Western Cultural Forms in the Everyday Lives of the Meiji Japanese and the Ottoman Turks During the Nineteenth Century 163 v CONTENTS 11 A Comparison of Turkish and Japanese Attitudes Toward Modern National Identity 201 12 Remarks on the Modernization of Japan and Turkey in the 18th and 19th Centuries 217 13 Commentary for the General Discussion on Japan in a Comparative Perspective 223 14 Refl ections on Japanese and Turkish Modernization and Global History 234 15 The Study of Local Administration in Early Modern Japan: The Case of Nakano Tenryo¯ During the Tokugawa Period, 1637–1868 246 16 The Remembrance of the 1871 Nakano Uprising in Takayama as a Contemporary Trauma in Village Life Today 266 17 The People of Tokugawa Japan: The State of the Field in Early Modern Social / Economic History 285 Bibiliography (Writings of Selçuk Esenbel) 319 Index 323 vi Introduction a BETWEEN T HREE W ORLDS suppose I have always felt that my life has been made up of a series of I border-crossing experiences based on my exposure to a life lived in the United States, Japan, and Turkey which has inevitably resulted in a certain ambivalence regarding all the claims of any particular culture about itself. Moving between different societies, cultures, and political discourses has allowed me to see and hear what frequently remains hidden in bilateral comparisons and relations between countries – juggling as I have had to do between three different worlds which I had to simultaneously understand and navigate. This rich and varied experience, which is the sum of my life, has been meaningful and exciting but at times presented me with great diffi culties. I was born in Washington D.C. right after World War II as the child of a young diplomatic couple of the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey. My father is said to have congratulated my mother on the fact that I was a “peace” baby. As diplomats, my parents Melih and Emine Esenbel knew the horrors of World War II fi rst hand even though Turkey had remained neutral during that worldwide confl ict. My father’s fi rst appointment was to Paris where they saw fi rst hand the outbreak of the war and the German occupation. To my father, who was the product of his French education in Turkey, the defeat of France was as unbearable as it would have been to a French citizen. After a diffi cult journey, the Turkish Embassy staff joined the thousands of French men, women, and children escaping from Paris and fi nally settled in the embassy quarters in a hotel under occupied Vichy France. My mother published a memoir about their experiences in the oppressed atmosphere of Vichy France revealing what really went on beneath the seemingly 1 congenial everyday life of the city during these little known years. After this fi rst appointment, my parents had moved on to the United States where my father was appointed fi rst secretary to the Turkish Embassy in Washington. As a young diplomat he directly participated in the fi rst important steps to bring Turkey into the Western Alliance, namely NATO, and the shift in the foreign policy of the United States toward incorporating Turkey into the Southern fl ank of the Truman Doctrine. The genesis, at least in part, of this historic turning point began as intensive conver- sations between Turkish diplomats and Americans in our modest middle class home on 41st and Fessenden street North West which still stands in that quiet and pleasant vii JAPAN, TURKEY AND THE WORLD OF ISLAM neighborhood to this day, the only home of my childhood which remains intact – the others in Turkey have been demolished as a result of so-called “development” projects. Before he died, my father wrote briefl y about this important transition 2 to the Western Alliance. As a kindergarten student who spent a happy childhood among the residential family homes of Wisconsin Avenue and Fessenden, lined on both sides with shady trees and the small back yards of wooden homes, I have fond memories of my childhood in the United States enjoying a happy carefree life with friends from the block with whom I played every day. But although “diplomatic immunity” protected us from the harsh reality of racism, I still remember American society with the unwritten rules of racial segregation in the nation’s capital where Afro-American men and women had to sit in the back of the bus. Later, when I studied at Holton Arms Junior High School in 1959–60 and as an undergraduate in History at George Washington University in 1967–69 and subsequently in 1969–71 as a graduate student of Japanese language in Georgetown, and again in Washington in the heady anti-Vietnam War movement era, I also witnessed the race tensions and violence in the streets, the Civil Rights movement, and the radical shift after the Kennedy administration toward breaking down the walls of race in American society. The experience gave me the enduring sense of how the American people were able to grapple with the inner problems of their own society regarding racism and other issues of inequality. The outcomes may not have been perfect, not least concerning the problem of poverty that was the backbone of the racial divide. But Civil Rights had opened channels of integration that were signifi cant in demolishing racism from the public culture of the nation as we witness today the courageous political act of electing President Obama. Such courage is not often encountered in other societies. During these years my father’s career took us back and forth between Turkey, Japan, and the United States.

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