Drawing on a personal visit to Arashiyama and a reading of Masayuki Takayama, this essay exposes Western colonial rule as a system that transformed entire nations into slave plantations through taxation, repression, and forced monopolies.

2016-04-26

Put simply, colonialism meant turning an entire country into a slave plantation.

As readers know, Arashiyama is my own garden.
Today was a truly clear day.
For the first time since the cherry blossom season, I headed to Arashiyama again.
It had become a season of splendid fresh greenery.
I have entered Tenryū-ji easily more than thirty times.
Anyone who has visited would surely think the gardens of Tenryū-ji are magnificent.
Today, the wisteria was almost in full bloom, giving off a fragrant scent, which is one of the reasons I love it so much.
That alone felt like having reached the very essence of flowers, birds, wind, and moon.
After leaving Tenryū-ji, I headed toward Ōsawa Pond.
The air was truly refreshing.
My companion, a friend, said it had really been worth coming.
A blue-banded swallowtail butterfly also appeared.

On the drive home, I read a book by Masayuki Takayama.
Below are the words written on the obi band.

“Common sense about the Pacific War is nothing but lies!
Japanese soldiers who freed Asia from the dark colonial rule of scheming white powers were admirable!”

“The liberation of Asia was in truth thanks to the Japanese army!”
Masayuki Takayama (WAC, 930 yen)

The following is from page 109.

Emphasis in the text is mine.

At the point when the twentieth century began, Asia—except for Japan, Thailand, and China—had been divided among the great powers as colonies.

According to the Asahi Shimbun, Japan is also said to have made Taiwan and Korea its “colonies.”

Certainly, the Cairo Declaration of the last war refers to the “enslaved state of the Korean Peninsula,” but this is an exaggeration.

A colony was characterized by the imposition of poll taxes, liquor taxes, and salt taxes, the suppression of literacy rates, and the thorough crushing of resistance to the suzerain power.

Put simply, colonialism meant turning an entire country into a slave plantation.

For example, in French Indochina, in addition to the taxes mentioned above, marriage, funerals, and even moving house were taxed, and opium—prohibited by law in the home country—was made a state monopoly (régie d’opium) and allocated to every village.

If it made money, they even became drug dealers.

This was the French view of colonial rule.

The literacy rate was just over one percent.

They did not build schools, but they built prisons in every city.

The famous prison island of Poulo Condore was already constructed at the end of the nineteenth century, soon after colonization began.

To be continued.