Japanese Studies in the Arab World

The Development of Japanese Language Education in the Arab World

INTERVIEWER How did the establishment of a Japanese language course at Cairo University come about?

KARAM The original impetus came with the oil crisis of autumn 1973. This was triggered by the Fourth Middle East War,(*1) which started when Egyptian troops entered the Sinai Peninsula, which was occupied by Israel at the time. The Arab countries raised the price of crude oil and in some cases banned oil exports to certain countries altogether based on those countries’ Middle Eastern policies.

The Japanese prime minister at the time was Tanaka Kakuei [1918–93]. He sent the deputy prime minister, Miki Takeo [1907–88], as a special envoy to the Middle East to express Japanese support for the Arab side. During his visit, Miki promised Japanese economic and cultural support. As a result of this, a Japanese language program was established at Cairo University. The aim was to increase the number of people in the Arab world with an understanding of Japan. At the time, the policy was mocked in Japan as “begging for oil diplomacy.”

But the Japan Foundation, which was in charge of administering the program, sent many outstanding scholars to the region, starting with Kuroda Toshio. The program attracted many ambitious students hungry for knowledge, and in the years since then the program has produced numerous Japan specialists. Regardless of what the initial objective may have been, nearly 40 years later the department has become an indispensable focus of Japanese studies in the Arabic-speaking world.

INTERVIEWER What is the state of Japanese language education in the wider Arabic-speaking world today?

KARAM Egypt is at the center of the Arab world, and Cairo has been the cultural hub of the Islamic world since taking over that role from Baghdad during the time of the Mumluk Sultanate [1250–1517]. It is a mecca of politics and culture, and that position remains secure to this day.

In that sense, it was highly significant that the first Japanese language program in the Arabic-speaking world was established in Cairo. Students wanting to learn Japanese could come together in the center of the Arab world and then return to sow the seeds of Japanese language education in their own countries. Egyptian graduates of the program have also gone to work in other countries in the Arab world, and today there are Japanese language courses at seven universities—in the Arabic-speaking countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria and also in Turkey.

The leading universities for Japanese studies are King Saud University [Saudi Arabia, 1993], Ain Shams University [Egypt, 2000], and Damascus University [Syria, 2002]. Japanese instructors sent out by the Japan Foundation also teach at universities throughout the region.

INTERVIEWER You have spent time in Saudi Arabia yourself, haven’t you?

KARAM Yes, from 1993 to 2002 I was on the faculty at King Saud University, where I helped lay the groundwork for Japanese language education in Saudi Arabia. Along with my Japanese and Egyptian colleagues, I worked for five years to create the first Japanese textbook in the Arabic-speaking world. Until then, we had relied on educational materials from Japan, but these were not always suitable for use in Saudi Arabia for cultural reasons: references to drinking alcohol, for example, or Buddhist temples. Sometimes they would offend Islamic precepts. In other cases, they just made the materials difficult for the students to understand. It was difficult to use the materials as they were. A lot of students said the same thing. So we produced a series of three Arabic textbooks that incorporate materials relating to Muslim pilgrimage and prayer, to make them better adapted to the requirements of Islam. The textbooks are now widely used throughout the Arab world.

The Importance of Diversity in an Era of Change

INTERVIEWER Tell us a little bit about your own background. What was it that first got you interested in studying Japanese?

KARAM I first encountered Japan via a famous poem called Ghada al-Yaban, or “Maiden of Japan,” which we studied in high school. It’s a very beautiful poem by Hafez Ibrahim [1872–1932], Egypt’s national poet. The poem praises the patriotism of the young nurses attached to the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War. I recited it over and over until I had it by heart. I suppose I was also intrigued by the fact that the Japanese, a race of Orientals like us Arabs, had defeated the great Russian Empire in battle—and that spurred me to find out more about what kind of country Japan was.

In 1976 I entered the Department of Japanese and Japanese Literature at Cairo University, where I studied under Professor Kuyama Munehiko [now president of Caritas Junior College], who introduced me to everything from the basics of the kana syllabaries to the delights of Japanese literature.

In 1981, I entered the graduate school at the University of Tsukuba on a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education, as it then was called. I studied under Muramatsu Takeshi [1929–94], who passed on his love of tanka. Professor Muramatsu was an important teacher for me. He opened the door to the wide world of Japanese classical literature for me—something for which I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.

INTERVIEWER What was the subject of your research during your time at the University of Tsukuba?

KARAM My subject was “dreams in Japanese literature.” I was interested in the concept of dreams as they appear in Japanese literature, including religious texts, from the “Floating Bridge of Dreams” chapter in the Tale of Genji to Hōnen’s [1133–1212] dream in which he meets a great priest of the Chinese Pure Land sect, to the “Dream Diary” of the Buddhist priest Myōe [1173–1232]. When I came to write this up as my PhD dissertation, I also wrote about dreams that appear in the Old and New Testaments and the Koran. I received my PhD for this study in 1988.

INTERVIEWER What are you working on now?

KARAM Recently, I have been looking at the subject of suicide as a theme in Japanese literature: the aesthetic treatment of the double suicide as it appears in the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon [1653–1724], for example. The lyrical passages that describe the two lovers as they take their final journey together to their deaths present the idea of the “love suicide” as something extremely romantic and admirable. In the Arab countries, suicide is forbidden, and it would be unthinkable to describe the act of self-destruction as beautiful. But I think this attitude to death incorporates something essential about the Japanese aesthetic.

I’m extremely interested in the question of how this view of life and death came into being. In the field of modern literature too, the question of why authors such as Mishima Yukio [1925–70] and Kawabata Yasunari took their own lives is a fascinating subject. Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki [1867–1916] also takes suicide as its subject, and it is very popular with people in Egypt. For Arabs, although jihad is permitted, suicide is taboo, and I think there is something about the subject that fascinates because of that.

But although suicide is theoretically forbidden in Egyptian society, the reality is that increasing numbers of people are taking their own lives. Young people in particular are facing unemployment and other negative aspects of competitive society in an increasingly globalized economy.

INTERVIEWER Egyptian society as a whole seems to be undergoing dramatic change following the Arab Spring.

KARAM We don’t use that term ourselves, by the way. In Egypt, the spring is the season of sandstorms, so it’s not a time of year that has particularly positive connotations for us! But yes: The wave of democratization that began in Tunisia in December 2010 gradually spread to Egypt, and on February 11, 2011, Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down as president. Young people’s spiritual lives and worldview are undergoing major changes at the moment. In a time of flux like this, it is more important than ever to educate people so that they grow up with flexible minds that can incorporate diverse values.

In that sense, Japanese studies can have a significant impact, by teaching our young people about the culture of Japan, which developed in a temperate climate and landscape quite different from the Arab world. I sincerely hope that Japanese studies will continue to thrive in the years to come and that the subject can make a contribution to the work of forging a new future for the Arab world.

(Translated from an October 14, 2011, interview in Japanese. Interview and text by Kondō Hisashi, director of the Japan Echo Foundation. Photographs by Nagasaka Yoshiki.)