「犬にあやかる」

http://pokoapokotom.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-238.htmlにて知る。小泉純一郎前首相の昨年正月の発言が最近になって問題視されているという。その発振地は英国であるらしい。Timesの記事;


January 5, 2006
Women are told to have a litter in Year of Dog
From Leo Lewis in Tokyo
IN A sign of rising despair over the country’s dwindling birth rate, the Prime Minister of Japan has suggested that his people should take their cue from the canine world and breed larger litters of offspring in the Year of the Dog.

Junichiro Koizumi’s unexpected “do as dogs do” advice arose during his new year press conference — his first public appearance since it was revealed a week ago that Japan’s population contracted by 19,000 last year and is shrinking for the first time in more than a century. Since this is now the Japanese Year of the Dog, he explained, Japanese in 2006 have an ideal role model from the animal kingdom: “Dogs produce lots of puppies and, when they do, the pains of labour are easy,” he said, adding that he will now do everything in his power to “fashion an environment where people can think raising children is delightful”.

Beyond this canine counsel, and in what is almost certain to be his last new year’s speech as Prime Minister, Mr Koizumi offered no other ideas about how to deal with the birthrate problem. In Tokyo, home to 30 million people, the rate has declined to 0.99 children per woman.

Although Mr Koizumi has pushed through a string of difficult reforms in Japan, his failure to address the birth issue is striking. He has repeatedly been asked whether he has a strategy in place, and repeatedly said that he does not.

The arrival of Japan’s first year of natural population decline has been vaguely predicted but has actually come far sooner than expected. Even the Prime Minister’s jovial dog litter remarks, say political analysts, have the “clear ring of panic about them”.

In its last session of 2005, the Cabinet announced a gender equality initiative that was widely interpreted as a last-ditch attempt to stave off the country’s looming demographic catastrophe. The seemingly impossible plan was designed to create conditions in which the nation’s women will both stay at home to have more children and work harder.

At its core the new drive is a package of improvements to working conditions which, it is hoped, will remove some of the obstacles preventing women from having larger families. Measures include the introduction of flexible working hours and a proposal that hundreds of shops left vacant by the recession be converted into childcare facilities.

But the scheme also attempts to address the other side of the demographic problem: as the population contracts, so too does the workforce, with potentially dire economic effects. The Government’s solution is to cajole more women into coming back to work after their child-bearing days are done.

The plan, which has been awkwardly dubbed Help Female Re-Challenge and has been pushed through the Cabinet by Mr Koizumi himself, aims to create a generation of women leaders in business and political fields.

Around 70 per cent of Japanese mothers do not return to work after childbirth. Part of that pattern is cultural, but much of it has to do with the practical difficulties of returning to work: women find it nearly impossible to return to good jobs that they have left in order to have children.

This forces Japanese women to make a stark choice between career and maternity, and the current generation is increasingly interested in pursuing a career.

By introducing flexible working hours and actively encouraging mothers to return to work, the plan aims to present child-rearing as something that does not hamper a career.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article785003.ece

そして、問題視された小泉前首相の発言というのは、

今年は、犬年でありますが、犬は子どもをたくさん産む、そしてお産も軽いそうです。犬にあやかるわけではありませんけれども、多くの方々 が子育ては楽しいぞと、子どもを持つことは人生を豊かにすると、そのような環境整備に多くの皆さんの知恵を借りて邁進していきたいと思っております。
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2006/01/04press.html
であるらしい。
Leo Lewis氏の記事であるが、その中心は”Beyond this canine counsel, and in what is almost certain to be his last new year’s speech as Prime Minister, Mr Koizumi offered no other ideas about how to deal with the birthrate problem.”ということであり、後半では例えば出産後のキャリア保証についての無策などが指摘されている。それ自体は正当な指摘だと思う。寧ろ「犬」云々というのは枕にすぎないともいえる。
ただ、ここでは小泉前首相の擁護を試みたい。今引用した小泉発言を、今年問題になった柳澤伯夫の「機械」発言*1と同じ次元で批判することはできないと思う。また、「犬」が引き合いに出されているとはいっても、魁生さんが紹介した、それが明らかに侮蔑的な文脈で使われているエピソード*2とは全く意味合いを異にしているのではないかと思う。小泉前首相はたんに日本の民俗宗教を踏まえ、それに言及しているにすぎない。Leo Lewis氏の記事には、日本では「戌の日」*3を選んで安産祈願のための帯祝いをする宗教的慣行があるという記述はない。そこに窺われるのは、日本の民俗宗教に対する無知或いは無視である。英語から日本語へと文脈が再度変わって、それを今度は日本人が取り上げているというわけだ。http://pokoapokotom.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-238.htmlでも、こうした民俗宗教への言及は全くない。それは無知なのか無視なのか。「ロンドンの日本大使館は、こうした報道にしかるべき対応はしたのでしょうか」というけど、そんなの、大英図書館に行って民俗学の論文を読めで終わりでしょう。
勿論、小泉前首相の政治について肯定すべきところは殆どないと思っている。しかし、だからといって、小泉についてなら何を言ってもいい、何を言っても(批判として)有効になるのかといえば、それは間違っていると思う。また、所謂〈伝統〉を肯定するにしても否定するにしても、自文化への無知を羞じるという態度は持っていて然るべきだろうとも思う。「戌の日」の帯祝いだが、決して廃れてしまった伝統(慣行)ではない。Googleをかけると、各地の寺社の安産祈願の頁が目白押しでヒットする。
ところで、動物を含む異者に「あやかって」多大なるパワーを得るというのは、(これは日本の例ではないけれど)ジャッキー・チェンカンフー映画等を観ていれば容易に理解できるだろう。「酔拳」とか「蛇拳」とか「鶴拳」とか。

*1:Cf. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070128/1170005200

*2:Cf. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070215/1171538188

*3:マタニティ用品の「犬印本舗」のサイトを読んで、「酉の日」に行う地域もあることを知った――http://www.inujirushi.co.jp/mame.html