Identité et modernité, les voyageurs égyptiens au Japon (Identity and Modernity: Egyptian Travelers to Japan), Alain Roussillon, Paris: Actes sud, 2005. pp249 As its title indicates, Identité et modernité, les voyageurs égyptiens au Japon by French academic Alain Roussillon focuses on an aspect of Arab- Japanese relations only touched upon in the study by Bassam Tayara: the reports made by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Egyptian travelers to Japan and the meanings that they projected upon it. While some of these travelers are mentioned in Tayara's account, among them Ali Ahmed al-Jirjawi and Ahmed Fadli in the early 1900s, Roussillon undertakes a more detailed examination of Egyptian writings on Japan from the late nineteenth century on, showing how for many of the writers considered Japan stood in for a more perfect Egypt and one that had been able successfully to resist European incursions and achieve harmonious modernisation and development. Thus, Roussillon presents valuable research on early twentieth-century Egyptian travelers to Japan, describing the nature of their interest in the country and the ways in which they perceived it and presented it to Egyptian and Arab readers. For al-Jirjawi, for example, who described himself as "the first Egyptian to have set foot [in Japan] since the earliest times", Japan's success in defeating Russia in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war was cause enough to pique the interest of all those threatened by European depredations, especially since Russia was one of the European powers at the time and an historical enemy of the Ottoman Empire. A follower of Muslim reformers such as Jamal al-Afghani and Mohamed Abdu, as well as a pan- Islamist and supporter of the Ottoman Empire, al-Jirjawi even raised the possibility of Japan's conversion to Islam, thus adding to its geographical dominance across Central and South Asia and uniting this broad area under a single civilisation. Other Egyptian travelers to Japan from this period considered by Roussillon include Prince Mohamed Ali Pasha, brother of the Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, who visited Japan in 1909 and left a record of his visit in a volume entitled Al-Rihla al-yabaniyya (Japanese Journey), published in 1910, and Mohamed Thabit, a teacher and the author of travel books to Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Australia, among other places, whose Jawla fi ruba' asya bayn misr wal-yaban (Journey in the Lands of Asia, Egypt and Japan) appeared in 1931. For the prince, a seasoned first-class traveler, Japan's interest was chiefly ethnographic, though he also focuses on Japanese military strength and the colonial role that the country might be expected to play in the rest of Asia. For Thabit, on the other hand, Japan's interest to the Egyptian traveler was more explicitly one of a case study of successful modernisation and development, from which lessons might be learned. Indeed, from the "oriental, Egyptian point of view," Thabit writes, one might draw lessons "from what I have seen concerning their awakening or their stagnation in the hope that we can draw inspiration from tried and tested recipes." One should also, he continues, "take into account the defeats that they have suffered, in order to place ourselves on guard against the difficulties that threaten nations at the dawn of their awakening and at different stages of their development." As Roussillon points out, Thabit's interest in Japan goes far beyond that of al-Jirjawi, interested in combating Christian evangelism in Asia by converting the country to Islam, and that of Prince Mohamed Ali Pasha, whose eye was drawn to the fittings of first-class hotels and to the country's military prowess. Instead, Thabit broaches questions at the heart of Roussillon's study: how successfully to modernise while remaining fully oneself, and how to introduce foreign ideas and expertise without undermining native independence or distorting local development? None of the writers under review doubt the need for such modernisation or question Europe's role in providing modern ideas. The point was that whereas Egypt, following striking initial successes under Mohamed Ali, had ended under European administration, its modernisation in the hands of a colonial power, Japan had apparently not only managed its development without mortgaging its future to international finance, but had also managed to retain its independence and remain fully itself throughout a period of breakneck political and social change. Roussillon is particularly good at bringing out the full meaning of the Japanese example for the Egyptian writers he considers, particularly since the consequences of ill- managed change could be so devastating: not only was there the humiliation of foreign control to contend with, but there was also the long-term distortion of national society and its separation into "modern" sectors, being those influenced by foreign ideas, and "traditional" ones, wedded to a different conception of self and sometimes hardening their resistance to modern ideas with every foreign-inspired innovation. These distortions, too, Japan seemed to have avoided, remaining self-confidently itself despite its transformation and able to enter modernity as one society, not two. Roussillon departs from his script half-way through the book by considering not just Egyptian travelers to Japan but also notable writings by Egyptians on Japan, whether or not their authors had ever set foot outside Egypt. In a final section he also considers contemporary Egyptian writers on Japan, among them well-known figures such as Anouar Abdel-Malek and Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, both of whom have commented on Japan's post-1945 reconstruction and global role under American, and no longer European, hegemony. This departure allows him to discuss the writings on Japan of Mustapha Kamil, one of the most important Egyptian nationalists, placing them in company with the works of Ahmed Fadli also mentioned by Tayara. While Fadli, author of the kitab sirr taqaddum al-yaban (The Secret of Japanese Progress, 1911), eventually settled near Tokyo having married a Japanese bride, Kamil became fascinated by the Japanese example without ever visiting the country. Yet, both authors were equally interested in what they saw as Japan's successful passage to modernity and particularly in the country's national form, the development of national consciousness being, according to different formulations, either a consequence of modernity or a pre-requisite for it. How nationally minded were the Japanese, and what might Egyptian nationalism learn from them? According to Kamil in his work Soleil levant (Rising Sun), published in 1904 and, he says, "the first work on Japan published in Egypt", cultural features of Japanese society are worth dwelling on and possibly trying to emulate. For example, whereas both Egyptians and Japanese are keen to learn from Europe and have equal intellect and talent, scope for advancement in Egypt is limited, leading to a bureaucratic and passive attitude and poisoning the country's development. The Japanese, on the other hand, "know that they are educating themselves in order to lead their nation, rise above the Europeans and impose their authority on whites and Asians without distinction." The Japanese elites, responsible for the country's development, seem to have been motivated by a genuinely nationalist attitude at a crucial period, voluntarily "putting their goods and privileges in the hands of the Mikado (Emperor)" at the Meiji Restoration and ending feudalism. Compare the "activity and energy" of Japanese ministers, who receive a token salary and have "advanced their country to the front rank of states and kingdoms", with the attitudes of "our ministers, who sit about doing nothing", Kamil writes. The greatest difference, he concludes, is probably the self- confidence of the Japanese, fruit of their having been able to resist European control and manage their own development. Roussillon concludes his wide-ranging and interesting study by considering contemporary materials, from comparative work on the historical experiences of Egypt and Japan undertaken by historian Raouf Abbas, to more speculative writings by Anouar Abdel-Malek and Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid. All of this is of the greatest interest, and Roussillon includes a notable vignette by Abu Zaid on the Japanese accommodation of tradition and modernity, which is still lacking, he feels, in Egypt. "Go into a Japanese house," Abu Zaid writes, "and observe how its owner behaves. Dressed in a kimono, he sits on a tatami and sleeps on the floor on a futon once he has had a traditional bath. This same Japanese citizen uses the most modern and complicated technology ... but this is designed to simplify his life, [unlike with us] where technology consists of objects of prestige, acquired to be shown off." Roussillon is sceptical about this domestic idyll, even as he notes how Japanese private life is figured as still fully authentic and intact, whatever change might have brought to the public sphere. However, perhaps the explanation for this Japanese citizen's behaviour is more banal than Abu Zaid realises: Japanese success in producing technological knick-knacks, which have no scarcity value in Japan, might be enough to explain Japanese reluctance to signal status through them. Reviewed by David Tresilian By David Tresilian
