가고시마현과 메이지 150년

Kagoshima Prefecture and 150th Years of the Meiji Restoration : Focusing on Memory of Saigo Takamori

Kagoshima Prefecture is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration, promoting “All Kagoshima” as a banner and pushes ahead with various events. The basic concept is “Kagoshima-shi, a hometown of a restoration that exposes the history and utilizes it for the future”, and Kagoshima Prefecture aims at the regional revitalization. A coherent view of the Meiji Restoration and the local people which was published by Kagoshima city, is that Satsuma, in an unique historical and geographical environment, made various reforms in the early days of the modernization with its tradition, and it was the important factor to the leading role of the Meiji Resotration. Saigo Takamori, the main character of the NHK TV drama Segodon , which has been on air since the beginning of this year, has been a tourism resource as the main product of Kagoshima Prefecture. The interest in Saigo Takamori has remained so far from that time up to now. The reason of high interest in Japanese people is strongly influenced by the high rations of the modern enlightenment intellectuals such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and Uchimura Kan three and the famous writer Shiba Ryotaro. Although all of them are slightly different in context, they estimate Saigo Takamori very highly as a representative Japanese having a pure soul and embodying in himself the spirit of true Bushido a way of samurai. Many previous researches comment about the relation between Saigo Takamori and the doctrines of Wang Yangming. What an important point is that the study of Yangmingism as a practical philosophy is a flow of history of Japanese philosophy, which is the ideological foundation for the Meiji Restoration. It is also discussed in terms of the mental characteristics of Japanese people. The story of Saigo, which Kagoshima preaches, inherits the image of a hero who accomplished the brilliant task of the Meiji Restoration and a samurai with a true Japanese soul. Maybe this has become a Nostalgia that the Japanese want to regain now. The history of the loser was erased in the Meiji Restoration. It had to be for the bright modern era or the bright Meiji. It may concern that the commemoration project of the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration contains a strong desire to return to the past that was gorgeous. Is not it also erasing the memory of defeat in the World War Ⅱ? The Bold Journey for peaceful settlement of the Korean Peninsula has just began in this year. At the same time the Abe government that won the election is still powerful. If they feel the strong Korean peninsula based on peace as a threat, or if the internal anxiety expand into complaints, then they may call out again Saigo Takamori as an Advocate of a punitive expedition to Korea. Who knows?