早くも万緑の初夏に入りました。
今日はイスラエル独立記念日66周年。66という数字に何か思い当たる節は？黙示録は「666」でしたよね？さてさて、中東動向は今後いかに...。
夢のように充実していた4月半ばの約二週間のアメリカ東海岸旅行（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20140425）と、このゴールデンウィーク前半の五日間の東北初旅行（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20140502）の思い出記録は、おいおい綴っていくことにします。
とりあえず、今日のところは私にとって身近なマレーシアの飛行機行方不明問題（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20140318）と、お隣の韓国の大型船沈没問題を両論併記した英文記事を。いずれも、アメリカ滞在中、毎日のように大きくテレビで報じられていた事件でした。
悪いけれど、もうマレーシア航空機は利用しません（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20130214）。1986年3月に初めて英国・オランダ・西ドイツに計一ヶ月のホームステイをした時に往復初乗りしたのがマレーシア航空。1990年4月のマレーシア赴任の際にも、東京からクアラルンプールまでマレーシア航空夜行便に乗りましたし、以後、シンガポール航空よりも利用回数は多いほどなのですが、今後一切ご遠慮いたします。WAWASAN2020の展望も、残念ですが、これで相当の傷が入ってしまいました（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20090820）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20101008）。むしろ、ナジブ政権の対応のまずさこそが、表向きの経済的繁栄とは異なった、あるがままの現在のマレーシアの姿を反映していると私は考えています。
以下の記事について一言コメントを。両事件を機に韓国とマレーシアを比較するなら、韓国の対応に軍配が上がるのは当然過ぎること。ただし、日本の側から見れば、本件にせよ、その他の諸問題にせよ、韓国にも相当の内部問題が蓄積されているようだと言っても差し支えないのではないでしょうか？特に日本にとっては、イスラーム要因を除けば、マレーシア人の方が韓国人よりもやや「従順」だという点で、反応が異なってきます。
フランシス・フクヤマ氏（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20071026）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20130828）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20131004）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20131210）の昨年の日本記者クラブでの発言を思い出します（http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHRT1yzjpVc&feature=em-uploademail）。韓国に招待されたフクヤマ氏がおっしゃったには、「表面的には繁栄して恵まれた国のように見えるが、興味深いことに、人々の話を聞いてみると、社会制度に対して不信感を持っており、相互不満が蔓延しているようだ」と。こういうことは、恐らく韓国人の口から直接日本人に対して発せられることのない発言でしょうから、やはり日系アメリカ人の知的リーダーが間を取り持ってくださっていることも、意味なしとはしません。
これに関しても、後日、小さな考察を記せればと願っております。
"Japan Times"（http://www.japantimes.co.jp）
Malaysia’s jet, Korea’s ferry tell larger stories, 5 May 2014
by William Pesek
There are no ideologues in a financial crisis, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke once said. Clearly the same doesn’t hold true for political crises, as a comparison of Malaysia and South Korea very quickly reveals.
Tragedy has struck both nations in recent weeks, their travails played out in horrifying detail on the world’s television screens. Fairly or unfairly, the hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner and the desperate attempt to rescue and now recover victims from the sunken Sewol ferry are being viewed as tests of the governments in Kuala Lumpur and Seoul, if not of Malaysian and South Korean societies. The grades so far? I’d give South Korea an A-, Malaysia a D.
In the two weeks since the Sewol tipped over and sank — almost certainly killing 302 passengers, most of them high school students — South Korea has been gripped by a paroxysm of self-questioning, shame and official penitence. President Park Geun-hye issued a dramatic and heartfelt apology. Her No. 2, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won, resigned outright. Prosecutors hauled in the ship’s entire crew and raided the offices of its owners and shipping regulators. Citizens and the media are demanding speedy convictions and long-term reforms.
And Malaysia, 55 days after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished? Nothing. No officials have quit.
Prime Minister Najib Razak seems more defiant than contrite. The docile local news media has focused more on international criticism of Malaysia’s leaders rather than on any missteps by those leaders themselves.
Both countries are democracies — Malaysia’s even older than South Korea’s. The key difference, though, is the relative openness of their political systems. One party has dominated Malaysia since independence, while South Korea, for all its growing pains and occasional tumultuousness, has seen several peaceful transfers of power over the past quarter-century. Unused to having to answer critics, Malaysia’s government has responded defensively.
Korean officials, on the other hand, are reflecting, addressing the anger of citizens, and delving into what went wrong with the shipping industry’s regulatory checks and balances.
That’s why South Korea is likely to come out of this crisis stronger than ever, unlike Malaysia. The two nations responded similarly after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, too. Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad sought to prove Bernanke’s axiom wrong, bizarrely blaming some shadowy Jewish cabal headed by George Soros for the ringgit’s plunge. Malaysia didn’t internalize what had gone wrong or look in the mirror. It didn’t admit it had been using capital inflows unproductively and that coddling state champions — including Malaysia Airlines — was killing competitiveness.
Never did the ruling United Malays National Organization consider it might be part of the problem.
Contrast that with South Korea’s response to 1997. The government forced weak companies and banks to fail, accepting tens of thousands of job losses. Authorities clamped down on reckless investing and lending and addressed moral hazard head-on. Koreans felt such shame that millions lined up to donate gold, jewelry, art and other heirlooms to the national treasury.
South Korea’s response wasn’t perfect. I worry, for example, that the family-run conglomerates, or chaebol, that helped precipitate the crisis are still too dominant a decade and a half later. But the country’s economic performance since then speaks for itself.
Now as then, South Korea’s open and accountable system is forcing its leaders to look beyond an immediate crisis. Ordinary Koreans are calling for a national catharsis that will reshape society and its attitude toward safety. Park’s government has no choice but to respond.
Malaysia’s government, on the other hand, appears to be lost in its own propaganda. To the outside world, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein performed dismally as a government spokesman: He was combative, defensive and so opaque that even China complained.
Yet Hishammuddin is now seen as prime-minister material for standing up to pesky foreign journalists and their rude questions. The government seems intent on ensuring that nothing changes as a result of this tragedy.
As hard as it seems now, South Korea will move past this tragedy, rejuvenated. Malaysia? I’m not so sure.
・William Pesek (wpesek@bloomberg.net) is a Bloomberg View columnist in Tokyo.
（End）
