But I do remember the beginning of the Great War, and everybody’s mood then was almost exactly what it is in a bad fog – one of hilarious and excited friendliness. In the first days there were very few who were saddened by the prospect of horrors to come. Light-hearted confidence was the order of the day in all the countries concerned.
* hilarious (形):大変陽気な;浮かれ騒ぐ/order of the day 当時の風潮(流行)
出典:http://russell-j.com/MISHAPS.HTM
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/MISHAPS.HTM
This book went to press in the autumn of 1966, as I was preparing the International War Crimes Tribunal mentioned in it. At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Chief Prosecutor Justice Jackson of the United States Supreme Court declared:
‘If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.’
There was, however, a moral ambivalence rooted in the nature of the Nuremberg trials and in the role of Justice Jackson. Nuremberg was a trial conducted by the victorious party over the defeated. Nuremberg was carried by a real-politik alliance of powers and yet, through the legalisms of force majeure, crept the voice of humanity, a voice crying out against the unconscionable criminality of the Nazi terror.
I have called for an International War Crimes Tribunal to be held in 1967 because, once again, crimes of great magnitude have been taking place. Our tribunal, it must be noted, commands no State power. It rests on no victorious army. It claims no other than a moral authority.
Over a period of years, an industrial colossus has attacked a small peasant nation. The Vietnamese revolution is part of an historical development through which exploited and hungry peoples are establishing their claim to the basic necessities of human life. The United States has shown itself determined to overwhelm with brute force this struggle for life. We have, on American authority, the fact that three million pounds of bombs have been falling daily on North Vietnam, involving an average of 650 sorties per week and tonnages in excess of those used during World War II and the Korean war. Beyond this, the armies of the United States have been using experimental weapons such as chemicals, gas, napalm, phosphorous, ‘lazy dog’ fragmentation weapons and bacteriological devices.
Who, in the West, is unaware of these facts, as they have been presented on film, on television and almost daily in our newspapers? Who among us has not seen the photographs, or read the statistics? Who among us can deny the David-and-Goliath character of this incredible Vietnamese struggle for national autonomy and social transformation?
It is this awareness which provides the proper background to my call for a War Crimes Tribunal. I do not maintain that those who have been invited to serve as members of the Tribunal are without opinions about the war. On the contrary, it is precisely because of their passionate conviction that terrible crimes have been occurring that they feel the moral obligation to form themselves into a Tribunal of conscience, for the purpose of assessing exhaustively and definitively the actions of the United States in Vietnam. I have not confused an open mind with an empty one. I have not believed that to be just one must be without conviction. The authority of the Tribunal and its reputation for fairness follows from the character of its membership and the correctness of its procedures.
THE DISPUTE
When fighting began in the disputed regions, I thought at first, as did almost everybody in the West, that China was wholly in the wrong and had undoubtedly been the aggressor. I telegraphed to Prime Minister Nehru, with whom I had for long been on friendly terms, on November 8th, saying:
‘While I think you are entirely in the right over the boundary dispute with China I plead with you to accept cease fire to permit talks to begin. Alternative may be disastrous for India and world as a full-scale conflict may make negotiations impossible. I appeal as a lifetime friend of India to agree to Chou En-lai’s offer while time permits otherwise world war may result.’
It was indeed true that I had been a life-long friend of India. My great-great-grandfather had been Governor General of India (and his great-grandson, Viceroy) and when I was a little boy tales of him had seemed to me romantic and interesting. Very many years later, I was the President of the India League and worked for her freedom. On the other hand, again when I was a small boy, a party of Chinese in beautiful robes and pig tails had come to see my grandfather at Pembroke Lodge and stirred my curiosity and interest; and again, many years later, I became much interested in Chinese philosophy, especially in Chuang-tse, and after living and travelling in China for eight months I felt that I had many sympathetic Chinese friends and I greatly admired the Chinese. When the Communist Revolution took place in China, I felt desolated, though I saw nothing good to uphold in Chiang Kai-shek. I thought that the brain-washing of which I read and the intensive destruction of old traditions and learning would destroy what I had found delightful and admirable in China. Now, after the last month, I do not feel at all sure of this. At any rate, though it seemed to me a forlorn hope – I then pinned my hope upon the Indians in whose many protestations of love of peace at any price I had largely believed – I felt that, having telegraphed to Mr Nehru, I had better try to get into some sort of touch with Prime Minister Chou En-lai, and I telegraphed to him, also, on November 8th:
‘May I appeal to you to prevent inflamed national passions from translating border disagreement into tragic major conflict. Could you begin cease fire and seek Indian agreement to follow suit so that talks may begin before major war engulfs the world. Respectfully, Bertrand Russell.
出典: Unarmed Victory, 1963, chap. 3
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/cool/60T_3FUNSO-01.HTM
An extraordinarily interesting case which illustrates the power of the Establishment, at any rate in America, is that of Claude Eatherly, who gave the signal for the dropping of the bomb at Hiroshima. His case also illustrates that in the modern world it often happens that only by breaking the law can a man escape from committing atrocious crimes. He was not told what the bomb would do and was utterly horrified when he discovered the consequences of his act. He devoted himself throughout many years to various kinds of civil disobedience with a view to calling attention to the atrocity of nuclear weapons and to expiating the sense of guilt which, if he did not act, would weigh him down. The Authorities decided that he was to be considered mad, and a board of remarkably conformist psychiatrists endorsed that official view. Eatherly was repentant and certified; Truman was unrepentant and uncertified. I have seen a number of Eatherly’s statements explaining his motives.
These statements are entirely sane. But such is the power of mendacious publicity that almost everyone, including myself, believed that he had become a lunatic.
Quite recently, as a result of publicity about Eatherly’s case, the Attorney General in Washington intervened, and Eatherly, who had been locked up in the maximum security ward for half a year, was transferred to a section of the hospital where he enjoyed unusual privileges and had been told that he would be released without any fresh hearing in the near future. He was not released, but for the moment has escaped.
出典: Has Man a Future? (1961),chap.4.
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/cool/58T-0401.HTM
[寸言] クロード・イーザリーの事件は,次のラッセルの危惧を例証する事例
「我々の時代において新しいこと(の一つ)は,権力者たち(政府その他大きな権力を持っている人たち)が,自分たちの(様々な)偏見を民衆に押し付けることができる力が増したことである。」
(What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices. Quoted on Who Said That? BBC TV, Aug. 8, 1958.)
殺戮を行って成功をおさめる幸福な時代(注:皮肉)はもう終わっていることを理解することは,特に本国で権力に慣れている人々にとっては,困難である。
そうした時代を終わらせたのは,戦争のための現代兵器の持つ恐ろしい性格である。兵器が社会構造(社会組織)に及ぼす影響は,まったく目新しいものではない。それは,歴史が始まった時,馬とロバとの争いで開始され,予想通り,この争いにおいては,馬が勝利した。騎士道の時代は,その言葉が含意しているように,馬の時代だった。この時代に終止符を打ったのは火薬であった。中世を通じて,自分の城を持っていた地方豪族たちは,自国の中央政府に対抗して自由を保持することができた。火薬が彼らの城を破壊できるようになると,今日でも繰り返し唱えられている‘自由を守る’ためのあらゆる言葉を口にしたけれども,豪族たちは,新たに力を増したスペイン・フランス・英国の君主制に屈服せざるをえなくなった。こうしたことは全て周知の事実である。 (現代において)新しいことは,勝利を得ることが不可能になったという事実である。この新しい事実は,非常に受け入れがたいものであり,敵を破ることは気高く素晴らしいことであると歴史を学ぶことによって信じ込んでいる者たちは,現代世界に順応することがまったく不可能になってしまっている。 ファーブル(Jean Henri Fabre, 1823-1915.フランスの昆虫学者)は,自分たちのリーダーのあとを追う習性のある一群の昆虫のことを描写している。ファーブルは,それが円形であることを知らないリーダの昆虫とともに,それらの一群の昆虫を円盤の上に置いた。(その結果)彼らは円盤上をぐるぐる何度も回り,ついに疲労で死んでしまった。 現代の政治家とその信奉者たちは,これと同等で非常に似通った愚行を犯している。
It is difficult,especially for those accustomed to power at home, to realize that the happy days of successful slaughter have been brought to an end. What has brought them to an end is the deadly character of modern weapons of war. The influence of weapons of war on social structure is no new thing. It begins at the dawn of history with the conflict between the horse and the ass,in which,ass was to be expected,the horse was victorious.The age of chivalry, as the word implies,was the age of the horse. It was gunpowder that put an end to this age. Throughout the Middle Ages,barons in their castles were able to maintain freedom against the central governments of their countries. When gunpowder was able to demolish their castles, the barons,though they made all the speeches in defence of freedom which are being repeated in our own day,were compelled to submit to the newly strengthened monarchies of Spain,France,and England. All this is familiar. What is new is the impossibility of victory. This new fact is so unpalatable that those in whom history has inspired a belief that the defeat of enemies is noble and splendid are totally unable to adapt themselves to the modern world. Fabre describes a collection of insects which had the habit of following their leader. He placed them on a circular disc which their leader did not know to be circular. They marched round and round until they dropped dead of fatigue. Modern statesmen and their admirers are guilty of equal and very similar folly.
Woodrow Wyatt: But isn’t it a part of human nature to have wars?
Bertrand Russell: Well, I don’t know what human nature is supposed to be. But your nature is infinitely malleable, and that is what people don’t realize. Now if you compare a domestic dog with a wild wolf you will see what training can do. The domestic dog is a nice comfortable creature, barks occasionally, and he may bite the postman, but on the whole he’s all right,. whereas the wolf is quite a different thing. Now you can do exactly the same thing with human beings. Human beings according to how they’re treated will turn out totally different and I think the idea that you can’t change human nature is so silly.
Woodrow Wyatt: But surely we’ve been a long time at the job of trying to persuade people not to have wars, and yet we haven’t got very far.
Bertrand Russell: Well, we haven’t tried to persuade them. A few, a very few, have tried to, but the great majority have not.
My critics seem to think that, if you have once advocated a certain policy, you should continue to advocate it after all the circumstances have changed. This is quite absurd. If man gets into a train with a view to reaching a certain destination and on the way the train breaks down, you will not consider the man guilty of an inconsistency if he gets out of the train and employs other means of reaching his destination. In like manner, a person who advocates a certain policy in certain circumstances will advocate a quite different policy in different circumstances.
出典: Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare, 1959, Appendix II: Inconsistency?
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/cool/53T-AP02.HTM
There are three things that must be achieved before stability can be recovered: the first of these is a world government with a monopoly of armed force; the second is an approximate quality as regards standards of life in different parts of the world; the third is a population either stationary or very slowly increasing. I do not say that these three things will be achieved. What I do say is that unless they are, the present intolerable insecurity will continue.
出典: New York Times Magazine, Aug.3,1952. Repr. in :Fact and Fiction, 1961, pt.4,chap.4: Three essentials for a stable world (George Allen and Unwin) p.235.
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/beginner/STABLE-W.HTM
[寸言] IS (ISIS) の戦闘員を全員殺害しても、テロリストはなくならないであろう。それどころか、貧富の格差が今以上に進めば、(自然災害のように)テロは常態化していくだろう。
ラッセルがあげる3つの条件が(ラッセルは後に4つに増やしている。)解決されない限り、テロを未然に防ぐための市民の権利の制限(究極的には、脳波を感知してよからぬことを考えていないかさぐるような社会=(映画)Minority Group で描かれた「素晴らしい世界」)がやってくることも覚悟しなければならない。