"A Naive Adventurer?"
One of the leading journalists of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, HONDA Katsuichi (b.1933), and FUJIKI Takane, a photographer, visited Saudi Arabia to stay with Bedouin in the desert from May to July 1965. They were only two of very few foreign journalists allowed by Saudi Arabia to enter the interior of their country then. It is said that HONDA became a Muslim just for this visit.A report of their three weeks stay was carried daily in the evening edition of Asahi Shimbun for eight weeks in 1965, and then came out as a book entitled BEDOUIN IN ARABIA in January 1966. HONDA compares Arabic culture, their way of life and especially the way they take the blame, with Japanese, sometimes mentioning his former experience with Canadian Inuit and natives in New Guinea.
Curiously enough, after HONDA's report in the newspaper, he received many letters from readers, particularly women, protesting against his mention of Lawrence as "a naive adventurer." He said in the 1966 version that "understanding how popular Lawrence has been among women, I even felt jealousy against this adventurer, a reputed homosexual, 'with a broken dream' as Benoist-Méchin [a French biographer of T. E.] put it." [*1] After 1967, he took back the word "naive" and change it to "'with a broken dream' as Benoist-Méchin put it."
[*1] HONDA Katsuichi & FUJIKI Takane, ARABIA YÛBOKUMIN, Asahi Shimbunsha, Tôkyô, January 1966, p.236. (photo above: Asahi bunko edition, November 1981)
MISHIMA's remark
A novelist MISHIMA Yukio (1925-70) left a review of the film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA entitled "A Hero's Pathology" in 1964 [*2]. After having read NAKANO's biography as well as Robert Payne's, he analyses T. E. as quite unique as a man of action, because he recognised his self-consciousness and he makes a mystery of himself, unlike conventional heroes. MISHIMA adds that T. E.'s self-examination of the Deraa night in SEVEN PILLARS reveals that he was a Freudian, and he was a stereotypical character as a hero, except for 'talking too much'.[*2] MISHIMA Yukio, 'Geijutsu Dansô vol.8: Eiyû no Byôrigaku', Geijutsu Seikatsu [Art Life], March 1964, pp.166-68.
Japanese Arabists despise T. E.
Professor ITAGAKI Yûzô (b.1931), former Tôkyô University, is an authority on the Middle East. He has been hard on T. E., like typical historians in Japan who fiercely criticise British policy towards the Middle East in the 20th century and treat Lawrence of Arabia as a 'sacrificial lamb'.On IWANAMI WORLD HISTORY Vol.24, MODERN HISTORY PART 1: THE FIRST WORLD WAR, he writes that "in the course of determining politics and military policy by Britain, also in the organization of the Arab Revolt, he was not a mainspring but a mere liaison officer of the secret service. His attitude to the Arabs was primarily based upon that of a head foreman's behavior towards his 'navvies' in an archaeological excavation." [*3]
Professor ITAGAKI points out in a review [*4] of Suleiman Mousa's book in 1988 that before 'the Oil Crisis' (1973), many Japanese had no image of Arabia but that of the ARABIAN NIGHTS, a Japanese song for children called Tsuki no Sabaku [the desert of the moon] and the film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Almost all the students who discussed their thesis with him were women, and they admitted that the film involved them in the history and culture of Arabia. Since then, after a time, men students and company workers became involved in the Middle East for business reasons. Still many people have looked at the modern history of Arabia through T. E., a tragic hero and a leader of the Arab Revolt. That is what disgusts intensely some of pro-Arab scholars.
[*3] ITAGAKI Yûzô, IWANAMIKÔZA SEKAI REKISHI (24), GENDAI (1): DAIICHIJI SEKAITAISEN, Iwanami Shoten, Tôkyô, May 1970, pp.222-23.
[*4] Shûkan Bunshun, 5 & 12 May 1988, p.171.
A professor went to Reading University
Professor YOKOYAMA Tokuji (b.1938) discovered T. E. when he read an article by NAKANO Yoshio in 1954. As a scholar of English literature, his field has been Imperialism and British novels, especially Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. He argues that T. E. filled the unique role to the British Empire.He annotated Phillip Knightley's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in 1980 [*5]. When he went to the University of Reading, England, he had entertained a hope that he would write another T. E. biography, which has not appeared yet. His research led to an article in 1982, summarising 42 of Lawrence's letters to Lady Astor [*6], There is also a small T. E. mention in his article, "George Smiley and Britain" in 1987 [*7].
No student in his University took T. E. for a thesis.
[*5] Philip Knightley, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, Hokuseidô Shoten, Tôkyô, September 1980
[*6] YOKOYAMA Tokuji, "Asuta^kyô Fujin Ate T. E. Rorensu Shokan [Letters of T. E. Lawrence to Lady Astor]," Jimbun Kenkyû (Ôsaka City University, Ôsaka), Vol.34, 1982, pp.42-54.
[*7] YOKOYAMA Tokuji, "Jo^ji Sumairi^ to Igirisu," Jimbun Kenkyû (Ôsaka City University, Ôsaka), Vol.39, 1987. pp.464-65.
"Lawrence of Arabia was a Spy"
HIROKAWA Ryûichi (b.1943) is a photo journalist specialising in Palestine matters. In 1989 he visited some T. E. sites, as well as libraries and museums in Oxford and London, and discovered a diary of D. G. Hogarth in Oxford, which makes clear an astonishing connection between the Ashmolean Museum (and its Archaeological Room), the Geographical Room, the Middle East Centre of St. Anthony's College, the British Museum and the British Secret Service. HIROKAWA also discovered a paper by a high officer of the British Secret Service, who wrote, "he [T. E.] had been travelling in Sinai prospecting for an oil company in 1913. He had been instructed to pose as a tourist." He assumed that, at the time, T. E. followed instructions from Hogarth and under orders from Winston Churchill and the British Petroleum Company. T. E. was an agent or a puppet of the secret service, and he played false with the Arab, he concludes.The article, entitled "Lawrence of Arabia was a Spy" [*8], was deeply affected by Knightley & Simpson's book, and full of inaccurate and journalese expressions. Many photographs, including T. E.'s birth certificate, seemed to support up his assertions, but no actual sources were given.
Five months later, the magazine DAYS JAPAN which carried the above article was discontinued after another inaccurate story.
[*8] HIROKAWA Ryûichi, "Arabia no Rorensu wa Supai datta," DAYS JAPAN, September 1989, pp.164-71.
The Rothschilds and T. E.
A popular non-fiction writer HIROSE Takashi (b.1943) has dig up a hundred family trees and biographies elaborately to prove how the Rothschild family and their relatives have been controlling politics and the economy of the world. He concludes in his book entitled THE RED SHIELD (1991) [*9] that the "Beefsteak Club" in London is a den of conspiracy, Sir James Goldsmith (1933-97) was a key figure, and his father Frank Goldsmith (1878-1967) had a connection with T. E.. In sum, he assumes that T. E. was controlled through Frank Goldsmith by the Rothschilds, who pulled the strings to take control of the Arabs(!). T. E. was not a friend of the Arabs, but a double-crosser who was busy fulfilling his country's colonial policy.It is obvious that HIROSE uses T. E. as one of the clowns at a sideshow in his circus, because T. E. is well known after the Lean film in Japan. Very much like HIROKAWA's article, the story is full of extremely sensational expressions.
The 85 charts of genealogical trees of important families which back up his theory are very well made. However, he couldn't find T. E.'s relationship with the Eden family, so I wrote to him to explain the relationship, and he adopted this in the revised edition in 1996 (Volume I, pp.446-47).
[*9] HIROSE Takashi, AKAI TATE : ROSUCHAIRUDO NO NAZO, Volume II, Shûeisha, Tôkyô, November 1991, pp.827,857,864,900,903,904.; Revised edition, 4 volumes, November 1996.
Remembrances of a diplomat
KATAKURA Kunio (b.1933), who entered the diplomatic service in 1960, wrote an article entitled "Lawrence of Arabia Re-analysed" [*10] on June 1990. With reference to IMAGES OF LAWRENCE by Stephen Tabachnick and Christopher Matheson (1988), he described his remembrances concerning T. E. -- read some biographies when he studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, visited Akaba from Petra following T. E.'s journey when he was at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies (MECAS) in Lebanon, his first encounter with the Lean film in 1963 in Cairo, visited a ruin of the Hejaz Railway in Tebuk etc.He makes mention of a British Arabist, Edward Firth Henderson (b.1917), an ex-British ambassador to Qatar, as another 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
KATAKURA refers to T. E. also in his Gulf War memoir [*11], about this time he was the Japanese ambassador to Iraq. In 1994-97 he was the ambassador to Egypt. His wife, KATAKURA Motoko is a notable scholar of Islamic matters.
[*10] KATAKURA Kunio, '"Arabia no Rorensu" Saikaibô', Gekkan Chûto Kenkyû, June 1990, pp.10-7.
[*11] KATAKURA Kunio, HITOJICHI TO TOMONI IKITE: IRAKU TAISHI NO WANGAN KIKI TAIKENKI [Living with Japanese Hostages: An Experience of the ambassador to Iraq on the Gulf War], Mainichi Shimbunsha, Tôkyô, 1994, pp.32,174-75,178,180,183-84,189,191.
A translator of ARABIAN NIGHTS
MAEJIMA Shinji (1903-83) was a pioneer among Islamic scholars, renowned as a translator of ARABIAN NIGHTS from Arabic, 1966-81.When he was a student of the department in Oriental History on Tôkyô University, he had a genial relationship with KOBAYASHI Hajime and ONO Shinobu.
It seems that MAESHIMA had a life long attachment to T. E.. Among his studies before WWII, he had seen mention of T. E. in "King Abdulla of Trans-Jordan [*12]" (June 1941), and EUROPEAN POWER IN ARABIA [*13] (November 1941). When he wrote A HISTORY OF WEST ASIA (1955) and A HISTORY OF ARABIA (1958), he never forgot to refer to T. E., even in books he edited like MECCA (1975), and DICTIONARY OF THE SILK ROAD (1975), or a free translation of NARRATIVE OF A YEAR'S JOURNEY THROUGH CENTRAL AND EASTERN ARABIA (1982) by William Palgrave. In 1970, he wrote a short article about T. E.'s thesis, "Lawrence of Arabia and the Crusader Castles" for a book entitled THE CIVILIZED EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE EAST AND WEST Vol.3: LEGACIES OF ISLAM [*14].
One may gather from this description that MAEJIMA hold a romantic image of T. E., partly because his own main subject was not the modern history of Arabia but classic matters.
[*12] MAEJIMA Shinji, "Toransuziyorudan Kokuô Emiiru Abudorura^," Shin Ajia, June 1941, pp.14-31.
[*13] Mantetsu Tôakeizaikyoku (MAEJIMA Shinji) ed. ARABIA SHIIKI TO ÔSYU SEIRYOKU, Mantetsu Tôakeizaikyoku, Tôkyô, November 1944, pp.55,79-80,110,131,133,140.
[*14] SHIMADA Jôhei ed. TÔZAI BUNMEI NO KÔRYÛ (3): ISURAMU TEIKOKU NO ISAN, Heibonsha, Tôkyô, 1970, pp.166-8.
"He will come back!"
TANAKA Shirô (b.1921), ex-professor of the Arabic language, tells how he came across Arabia in his first school days, in an article in A BASIC GUIDE FOR THE ARABS (1992) [*15]. Shortly after T. E.'s death in May 1935, he was told the news by a Mr Hickman, an English teacher of English language, who continued passionately his story about T. E. till the bell went for the end of class. TANAKA was moved, and after he went home, he opened a map of Arabia and put mark on Akaba & Damascus. That was his first encounter with Arabia, which he can well remember now.In 1940, Ôsaka College of Foreign Languages created the very first department of the Arabic language in Japan, where TANAKA started leaning Arabic. He asked an assistant lecturer from Saudi Arabia, "Did Lawrence fight faithfully for the Arabs?" The assistant lecturer, a Mr Tashkensy replied seriously "Yes, of course. I believe that he is still alive, and he will come back when we are in a crisis!"
I hear that Professor TANAKA was on a TV show in full Arab dress around 1970!
[*15] TANAKA Shirô, YAWARAKANA ARABU-GAKU, Shinchôsha, Tôkyô, August 1992, pp.194-95,213.
*NOTE* For those who are wondering if there are too many professors in Japan; here are the numbers of universities and their students in this small country.
year universities students 1915 4 9,696 1925 34 46,690 1955 228 523,355 1990 507 2,133,277
Since 1972, over 30% of high school students have gone to University or Junior College. In 1996 there were 576 universities and about fourteen hundred thousand teaching staff, including over fifty thousands professors and thirty thousands readers (lecturers) in Japan.
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