cities we live in exactly the kind of situation Professor Reid has described in his paper. In the villages, the idea of having more than one ethnic or religious identity is not unthinkable or uncommon, Japanese census dutifully records that the percentage of people belonging to different religions in Japan add up to more than 100% because many people who describe themselves to be Shintoist, I am told, also happen to be Buddhists. One can predict, without much fear of contradiction, that at least one thing in Japan should be difficult to organize. Even if Japan goes for large-scale urbanization, industrialization, and a melting-pot model, a Shinto-Buddhist ethnic conflict in the country would be difficult to imagine. I suspect that other parts of Asia also have known such multiple identities. Only we do not care to know about them. For 100 years Indian census has been faithfully recording that the proportion of people belong to different religious groups invariably add up to l00%, exactly.
But when the Anthropological Survey of India three years ago did its study of communities -- not individuals but communities -- in India, it found about 600 communities which had more than one religion. This is only in India. We do not have the full data for the rest of South Asia and South East Asia. I think this kind of multiple identities ensures a different kind of capacity to live with others -- not as strangers, who can be called others with a capital O -- but with others as part of yourself and yourself as you are telescoped into others. That capacity assumes that the selves of others are implicated in the very definition of your self. Perhaps, if we are fully aware of the possibilities opened up by such pluralities, we shall be able to face the future with a greater degree of cultural self-confidence. Not merely in our everyday times but, in our larger collective endeavors. I am also confidant that the next century will belong to Asia economically, as some have already pointed out here. But even in those who say this, there is the fear that culturally the next century will belong to the United Sates entirely. As we look at our own children, we know this in our heart of hearts. To recover the future for us, we shall have to ensure that the culture of this part of the world will not only become a matter of using chopsticks, visiting the right oriental restaurants, or occasionally going to see Asian plays or musical performances on the stage. If we do not want to reduce the various Asian cultures to an ornamental existence, manageable from the point of view of the 19th century concept of the nation-states, which we have accepted uncritically in this part of the world, perhaps we shall have to rediscover alternative forms of cosmopolitanism of which, we have had some tradition，however imperfect
｡?AOKI
India, seemingly, is the biggest democratic country in the world. Right now, the campaign for the general election has been staged. The general election would be the biggest in scale, too. India celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence after World War II. Bangladesh and Pakistan, both Islamic nations, seceded from former India at the time of independence, and encountered unfortunate political incidents, such as constant military intervention and coups. On the other hand, India has maintained the system of parliamentary democracy, though there have been some domestic chaotic occurrences. I have been wondering how they could manage the system and I'm personally very much interested in it.
As Dr. Nandy has just mentioned, although cosmopolitanism stimulates ethnic conflict and violence, in the villages multiple identities and respected, which help them maintain the peace. The subject of recognition of own identity and others in a critical issue, in common with Japanese Society.
｡?Yuko TANAKA
Professor，Faculty of General Education，Hosei University
The Edo Period was said to have the most closed culture in Japanese history and that's what we were taught. But when I look at Edo culture, the culture of the time when Japan closed its doors to the outside world. I feel its dynamism in various aspects, that is, it had dynamic energy, in which Japan was linked not only with China and Korea but also with other Southeast Asian countries and that the culture of the Edo Period was created in such dynamism. As I feel we cannot understand the whole Japanese culture, unless we understand this dynamism, I try to look at Japanese Culture in the history of such a network, an Asian network. From that point of view, Dr. Reid, when he studies Southeast Asian history, he compares various cultural aspects of each nation going beyond national borders, and describes their universality and difference or diversity as he said. This diversity is not static but always moving and according to him this moving diversity has been creating Asian history. I have learned a lot from his point of view. I felt the same way when I listened to his speech today. When we think of Asia's future, he compares the crisis of the European history, not that of a
