FROM DECEMBER 7 TO SEPTEMBER 11
An Interview with Ron Takaki

By Steven Boyd Saum,
Editor-in-Chief, The Commonwealth

On the morning after the International Relations section of The Commonwealth Club hosted Ron Takaki, terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial aircraft and killed thousands of Americans and citizens of dozens of other countries. The brazen assault on American soil brought many to make comparisons to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 (though at the time Hawaii was a territory of the U.S., not a state). The subsequent mobilizing of public support for a war on terrorism has also been likened repeatedly to Americans rallying together to fight in World War II.

Since Takaki had spoken here specifically on World War II, in December 2001 I met with him to discuss what he would say had he spoken the day after the terrorist attacks, instead of the day before.

"Already at that point," Takaki said, "pundits in the media as well as politicians, made references and comparisons to an earlier day of infamy...and how in both cases the attacks were surprise attacks."

Beyond that similarity, Takaki drew some important distinctions between World War II and the war on terrorism. "With World War II, the wars had been underway in Asia as well as Europe before December 7, but the American people were reluctant to become involved in the wars of the world. In fact, just before Pearl Harbor, 70 percent of the people polled said that we should stay out the war. Roosevelt of course had to heed the polls. But then when the news was broadcast about Pearl Harbor, the American people came together as one people ready to go to war."

With September 11, however, Takaki noted that "already it was obvious to us that it was not that easy to identify the attackers, whereas on December 7 the enemy planes had the insignia of the rising sun. It was a nation that had attacked us. Roosevelt could go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war against Japan. That led to a declaration of war from Germany against the U.S. and swept us into the war in Europe as well as the war in Asia.

"In this case, Bush could not go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war. We did not know who the enemy was on September 11. Even today, we've identified the enemy as the terrorists, Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden. But there has been no formal declaration of war, even against Afghanistan. Nevertheless the White House has been using the phrase 'war against terrorism.' And Bush has been invoking war powers to pursue the war against terrorism.

"That would have been just the surface difference between December 7 and September 11," Takaki said, "that there was not an enemy nation. At the deeper, more fearful level: With December 7, the solution was fairly straightforward. The solution was a military solution. It depended upon the armed forces of the U.S., and also the economic power of the U.S. It was certain that the U.S. would win this war."

In contrast, Takaki said, "September 11 had and continues to have an uncertain future. Even today, although this could not have been predicted on the evening of September 11, today we're not sure where this war is taking us. We've destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan, but we don't know whether or not we've damaged the Al Qaeda and the network.

"There's another difference between World War II and the new war, the first war of the 21st century. At the beginning of World War II we did not have a weapon that would threaten the life of the earth itself. But World War II ended with the invention and unleashing of this weapon.... Right now, as we speak, Pakistan and India have weapons of mass destruction pointed at each other."

With the proliferation of nuclear weapons over the past half century, Takaki noted, "I think this is the real horror that we face: not terrorism, but the horror of nuclear war. Of course it is rooted in terrorism, but that's the difference between December 7 and September 11."

A Racialized War

Takaki also noted that the war in the Pacific was a racialized war on both sides. I commented on the fact that the U.S. has tried to resist allowing the war to be defined in terms of race or culture, making it a war against Islam or a war against all Arabs. The early slip by President Bush in using the term "crusade" acknowledged, Takaki also expressed concern that Bush said "that we represent 'civilization' as opposed to 'evil.' It's almost the language of Samuel P. Huntington at that point." Huntington, Takaki explained, "has identified the clash of civilizations and the threat of 'Muslim civilization' - Islam - as a military and cultural threat to the West. But Bush, to his credit, has said that this is not a war against Islam; this is a war against terrorism. Now he's careful not to say 'Islamic terrorism,' just 'terrorism.' There are reasons why he's doing it, of course. We are so dependent upon Arab nations as allies, so strategically we have to be careful with our language and the way we define the enemy. Domestically, there was a rash of hate crimes directed against Muslim Americans; there was even a murder in Mesa, Arizona. After Bush used the term 'crusade' and was criticized by American Muslims, he did visit the mosque, and did acknowledge that there are millions of Americans who embrace Islam as a faith, and that Islam is an American religion, as well as Judaism and Christianity."

Civil Liberties Under Threat

In addition to some hate crimes in the U.S., many have expressed concern over encroachments upon civil liberties in the U.S. - and again comparisons have been drawn with World War II and the internment of Japanese Americans. But here again Takaki was careful not to blur differences. "The federal government is racially profiling Muslims," he said. "But that would not be racism; I think that would be ethnocentrism. Which is different than what happened to Japanese Americans. The internment of Japanese Americans was based on race. General Jack DeWitt, who was commander of the West Coast defense, made that infamous statement - 'A Jap is a Jap is a Jap' - meaning that it doesn't matter what generation you belong to, if you're Japanese you inherit loyalty to the emperor. And I think, especially after the Redress and Reparations Act, our government had the courage to apologize to Japanese Americans and to offer them reparations. We have learned our lesson not to violate the constitutional rights of people during a time of war crisis. So, I don't think there was any possibility that Arab Americans would be interned on a mass basis. But nevertheless, we do have the federal government denying the rights of habeas corpus and due process to individuals.

"In the case of World War II, we did challenge the violation of constitutional rights with Korematsu, who took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld the incarceration of Korematsu for violation of the curfew and also the evacuation orders, saying that this was a military necessity. But notice what has happened with the Korematsu case. Evidence was later uncovered that showed the War Department actually withheld information from the Supreme Court that would have shown there was no military necessity to intern Japanese Americans, so the Supreme Court made its decision with information withheld from it."

Talking with the Vets

Takaki mentioned that he enjoyed the opportunity to speak at The Commonwealth Club in part because it gave him the chance to talk with veterans of World War II. Several years ago, Takaki was invited to speak at the opening conference for the D-Day Museum in New Orleans, where he spoke to a crowd of some 4,000 veterans, crowded into three ballrooms at the Hilton. In terms of why he valued speaking at The Commonwealth Club on this topic, he explained, "I think veterans still nurture this view of the way the war ended, with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as a reason why they're still alive. Many of them were preparing for the invasion of Japan. Their fear at that time is understandable. They carried their fear forward into the present: that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to an end, avoided an invasion, and saved their lives. I thought that the opportunity to speak at The Commonwealth Club with veterans present would give me a chance at least to present some facts, and that's all I wanted to do as a historian.

"I didn't want to get into an argument about whether or not the atomic bomb was moral or immoral, I just wanted to present some facts from declassified military documents, and to show responsible and respected military leaders themselves did not believe there was a military necessity to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima."

Honoring the Code Talkers

Since Takaki completed Double Victory, one positive development has been the honoring of the Navajo Code Talkers by Congress. First in July 2001, President Bush presented the five living original code talkers and relatives of 24 others with the Congressional Gold Medal. Then in November, some 300 Congressional Silver Medals were presented to the surviving code talkers who joined later in the war effort. After the November ceremony, AP quoted 76 year-old veteran Samuel Smith who said, "I think I finally became an American."

"For a long time," Takaki said, the Navajo code talkers "were not even allowed to make public what they had done in the Pacific War, because they were given instructions that their conduct in the war was top secret. It might have to be used against Russia or China." In fact, their role was kept secret up until 1968. In 1992, code talkers were recognized in a ceremony at the Pentagon, but the Congressional recognition this year was felt to be long overdue by many.
A movie about the Navajo code talkers, Windtalkers, is also in the works, starring Nicholas Cage, directed by John Woo (MI2 and Face/Off) and slated for release in June 2002. According to CNN, the Marines already dispute accuracy of one aspect of the film, which shows that fellow Marines guarding the code talkers were told to kill them "in case of imminent capture by the enemy."

While acknowledging he wasn't following development of the film closely, Takaki expressed interest and skepticism with what would happen with history in the hands of Hollywood. "It'll probably turn out to be a love story," he said, and laughed. "Like Pearl Harbor."

Back to California

As we were wrapping up, I asked Takaki what was in the works for him now in terms of scholarship. "They say, if you're a Berkeley professor, you're always working on a book. So, I am working on a book: a multicultural people's history of California, which should interest members of The Commonwealth Club. What I want to do with this book is offer a sweeping study of the history of California from a multicultural perspective, from pre-contact times with the original inhabitants of California, to post-9/11 California.

"I devote a lot of time to writing, especially to the revision stage of a book, because I want to write a book that is scholarly but also readable, accessible to the general public. What's driving me to write this book is the census 2000. The census 2000 reported that California has reached a turning point in terms of the population of the state. Every person in California belongs to a minority group; there's not one majority in California. And you know, this means that you can look at the future pretty optimistically. We are all minorities in California."