グラスゴー大学ウェルカム研究所の常勤講師Deborah Dewar，デビーは私の学問の友であります．歳は私より２つ若いだけの生粋のSottish．髪はショートカット．年中ジーンズ姿の機能優先一点張りの容姿でありました．竹を割ったようなさっぱりした性格で，グラスゴーの研究所では，同じ鍋のチップスを喰らい，アルツハイマー病の脳を100余り保存してある地下室に二人でこもりきりになって実験し，データを議論し，2年間で８つも共著論文を書き上げた仲であります．私にとって大切な親友であると，自信を持って断言できる人の数を数えるには，両手の指を必要としません．彼女はその中の一人です．

そのDebbieから9月26日にメールが来ました．タリバンが，ヒンズー教徒を“守るため”と称して，ヒンズー教徒が胸に黄色い布を付けるように強制する政策に対して，抗議声明を国連に届ける，ついてはそれに署名してくれというのです．ナチがユダヤ人に対してダビデの星を強制したのと同じ事だというのです．

私はすぐに返事を書けませんでした．というのは，多くのアメリカ人と同じように，2001年9月11日の出来事で，60年前の真珠湾攻撃を思い出していたからです．

彼女は踏み絵を意図するような人間では金輪際ありません．彼女にとって私はあくまで僚友　池田正行であり，日本が無条件降伏してから11年も後になって生まれた，第二次大戦とは全く関係のない人間なのです．しかし，私の尊敬する父母，祖父母は，日独伊三国同盟を結んだ国の国民であり，鬼畜米英と戦いました．私にはこの歴史を無視できないのです．かといって，白人優越手技を振り回すなと，喧嘩を売るのも本意ではありません．こういうメールを送ってきてくれたこと自体，私を友人として尊重してくれていることを意味しているのですから．

二ヶ月以上迷った挙句，クリスマス前には返事を書かなくてはと思い，12月10日，メールを送りました．

Dear Debbie
Excuse me for the delay of the reply. I have been thinking. Your letter reminded me of the vicious cycle of violence sixty years ago, just as what is happening now.

In 1941, we Japanese raid Pearl Harbor. We were then terrorists just as the modern Kamikaze mission on 11 September 2001, just as Americans, who killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and just as George Bush regime.

What I can do is to support a famous doctor Tetsu Nakamura and his colleagues who have provided medical service and water supplies in Afghanistan for seventeen years.

The article on the address below should help what they are and what I mean.
http://www.afghanan.net/taliban.htm

Best wishes
Massie

9月26日付けのデビーからの手紙は下記のようでした．

Dear Friends (and apologies to those who have already had a copy )
Please take a few minutes to read and act on this email.

On May 23rd 2001 the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan confirmed that all Hindus will be required to wear a strip of yellow cloth sewn onto a shirt pocket in order to identify themselves. They claim that the measure is for their "protection". The world has faced this before: in 1939 it was required, at great cost, to rid itself of Hitler's tyranny. It is not hard to spot his child: those who fail to learn from history are condemned to relive it.

The Taleban's record on respecting other religions gives great cause for concern that their ultimate aim, upon which they are intent, is "religious cleansing". They have already demonstrated their distain and intolerance for other religions and traditions by the desecration and destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues, our collective heritage, within the Afghanistan. Whatever your religion, or even if you have none, we hope that you will agree that this fundamentally wrong. Remember, "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". Please do not do nothing, add your voice.

DIRECTIONS:
PLEASE COPY this email on to a new message, add your name and those of your household who wish to participate to the bottom and forward it to everyone on your distribution list. If you receive this petition and you find that you will be the 251st name on it, please e-mail a copy of it
to:
xxxxx@om-int.com.
It will then be forwarded to the UN.

Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
the petition as you will be denying your friends, and theirs, their
legitimate voice. Instead return it to xxxxx @om-int.com

To The Secretary General, Security Council and General Assembly of the
United Nations.
We the undersigned are appalled by the decision of the Taleban government of Afghanistan to require all Hindus to wear a piece of yellow cloth sewn onto a shirt pocket in order to identify themselves. An individual's communion with God, however they find him, is a matter of personal conscience and must not be the subject of intimidation or persecution. The right of everyone to worship as they wish is fundamental and inalienable. The United Nations was founded in order to defeat Hitler and his henchmen who required the same from another religion with all its horrific consequences. It is completely unacceptable that nearly 60 years later history is repeating itself.
We ask the following:
1. That the Taleban government is made aware in the strongest possible terms that the world will not countenance this perversion of human rights.
2. That prior to the United Nations and/or it's constituent members granting recognition of the Taleban government this obscene policy is reversed.
3. That the United Nations widen the terms of the trade sanctions currently in force.

中村　哲先生のタリバンに対する見解を参考までに下記に．http://www.afghanan.net/taliban.htmからです．

Webfiles: "The Taliban Are Well Liked"
A Japanese doctor's up-close observations contradict overseas reports
By MUTSUKO MURAKAMI
Thursday, October 18, 2001
Web posted at 03:20 p.m. Hong Kong time, 03:20 a.m. GMT

Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura works with leprosy patients and refugees in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a job that keeps him in touch with the raw reality of life in that troubled country. And he says that from what he has seen, the Taliban are being wrongly portrayed internationally. "There's something wrong with the media reports," he says. "This talk of the Taliban being vicious and disliked doesn't fit with reality." Nakamura says the fundamentalists have wide support from the population, particularly in rural areas. "Otherwise, how can they rule 95% of the country with only 15,000 soldiers?"

Villagers around Nakamura's Peshawar base hospital and 10 clinics in both northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan were pleased to see peace established under Taliban rule, he says. The Pushtun people, who make up two-thirds of the Afghan population, can accept strict Muslim codes because they have lived by them all their lives, he says. Women are not deprived of education or jobs, as far as he can see. In fact, half the local doctors at his clinics are women.

So why are the people of the capital, Kabul, reportedly hoping to see the Taliban overthrown? "The Taliban may act differently there," he told me when we met recently in Tokyo. "They're obliged to fix the corrupt urban life. The people most vocal in criticizing the Taliban are upper-class Afghans who have been deprived of their privileges." Nakamura's words reminded me of news footage I have seen several times since the attacks on New York and Washington. Shot by French journalists in Afghanistan, it showed Afghan women speaking critically of the Taliban. Significantly, they are dressed in shiny silk-like costumes, with large rings on their fingers.

Nakamura, 55, says the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are not the freedom fighters some journalists describe them as. Villagers are frightened of them because they are more violent and cruel than the Taliban, he says. They execute innocent people in horrific ways, though not in public as the Taliban do as a warning to others.

Nakamura works for Peshawar? kai Medical Services, a Japanese aid agency based in Fukuoka City that has been operating in the Peshawar district for 17 years. He first visited the area as an alpinist when he was still a medical school student in Fukuoka. Shocked by the lack of medical care in the area, particularly for leprosy patients, he volunteered to work at a local hospital in l984. He says: "I spent most of my time not in straight medical work but in trying to understand my patients, their lifestyles and values -- what makes them weep or what matters most for them. "Luckily, I can eat anything and sleep anywhere," he grins.

Nakamura has seen foreigners visiting Afghanistan and returning home to criticize the Muslim culture -- from a Western perspective. These people may be "heroes or heroines in London or New York," he says, "but they contribute nothing to the welfare of Afghans." As for suggestions the Taliban have cut the country off from the world, Nakamura says the Afghans are perhaps better informed than the Japanese, as they listen daily to BBC radio in their own language.

The doctor's greatest concern is the fate of millions of starving refugees in and around Afghanistan. Over one million of them are suffering from hunger, he says, while up to 40% are bordering on starvation. He thinks 10% could die during the winter. Nakamura and his staff stopped focusing exclusively on leprosy in the l980s as they had so many refugees to deal with, many suffering from malaria, diarrhea, infections and fever. Severe draught in recent years created hundreds of thousands of refugees. And now the American bombing and the fear of an invasion has brought more. His aid agency helps to dig wells not only to provide water but also for irrigation for farms, so that the refugees can return to their villages.

Back home in Japan temporarily and thinking of his base area in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Nakamura says: "It's all like a mirage far off in the desert." He fondly recalls the red-brown soil of Afghanistan fields, the villagers sharing their joy about water from newly dug wells, and the friendly faces of Taliban soldiers helping villagers. "I have one simple question," he says. "What are the big powers trying to defend by attacking this ailing, tiny country?" It's a good question.