that in the South Asian case, particularly in the worst affected region. Punjab, when people recounted their experiences for us, in a large number of cases, the victims mentioned someone from the other side, somebody from the aggressor community, who helped them to survive. Most victims -- including the ones who, having suffered that violence fifty years ago, have joined chauvinist or fundamentalist political formations in their country -- had to, reluctantly but consistently, recount how somebody from among the enemies helped them, often at the risk of their own lives and that of their families. Such help was not an exception to be celebrated after five decades with such films as "Schindler's List", it was the rule. That was the way communities and individuals resisted the "madness of ethnic violence" at the ground level.
Most of the people who resisted were rustic and uneducated, not modern. They were also deeply devout. They were not secularized Muslims helping Hindus, or secularized Hindus helping Muslims, but believers who believed that it was the part of their religious duty to help out the people from the other communities at a time when social and moral norms were breaking down, where their own communities were participating in organized killings.
I give these two examples not to suggest that culture will determine the new emerging international order or that the students of culture will do better than what the scientists or thinkers have done in trying to understand the contours of the future global culture. I give these examples as a student of cultural psychology, to propose that culture is double-edged weapon. It can be a resource as well as a liability.
That it partly depends on us to decide in what kind of way we shall use what kind of culture to serve the needs of another kind of citizenship that will have to inform a future international order. Please permit me to give one more example to make this point more sharply.
There is a well-known Indian historian who follows all the conventions of the proper historiography. His study of contemporary India shows the right kind of values and all the politically correct concerns. Recently he has written his autobiography, not in English, though he stays in Oxford and teaches Indian history, but in Bengali and has published it from Calcutta. To make clear that he does not stand by the autobiography and doesn't himself take it seriously, he has titled the book the memoirs of senile old man. In this autobiography, he expresses his perplexity about a childhood Muslim friend of his family. The author's family, an upper caste Hindu family, was originally from Bangladesh. They became refugees in the wake of the partition of British India in 1947. The author in his childhood used to call this family friend uncle. The author's mother used to treat this friend like a younger brother. In 1940s, this family friend gradually got sucked into ethno-nationalist politics and as often happens, he also gradually became a small town leader. And the family began to hear second hand that this old friend was not only involved in demonstrations, but also in violence against the Hindus. Now, this Muslim friend had this practice of coming every year on the most auspicious religious day of the Hindus to the home of the historian and touching the feet of the historian's mother, whom the friend also called mother -- to show respect. That year, the author recalls, when the friend came to touch the feet of his mother, she said, "Why are you coming on this auspicious day to the house of Hindu to touch my feet and rake my blessings? I am told that you are now a politician trying to drive away the Hindus from here?" The author tells how the family friend, a huge man, suddenly broke into tears and like a small child said, "Mother, you have seen me from your childhood. You have spoilt me by tolerating all my aberrations. Please don't ask me about what I do elsewhere. If you close the doors of this house to me, I will have nowhere else in the world to go". I suggest as my final proposition that the double-edged nature of culture is matched also by the double-edged nature of human nature. It depends on the future generations to decide which part of a person they would tap and which part they will try to transcend. The battle is not only outside, but also within.
｡?IOKIBE
He talked about citizenship based on his profound idea, a picture of salad-like co-existence, not a melting pot, taking up the example of the town of Cochin and that people are placed in a situation of a double-edged sword and culture, too. Next, we would like to have Dr. Lee's report.
｡?Speaker: LEE, Jong won
Professor, Faculty of Law, Rikkyo University
