窓ツイッターからみえる言説たち
毎日海外メディアの評論が窓ツイッターに向かって流れて来ますが、最近は非常に読みやすい字数になっていますね。日本の大新聞から消えた(？)書評も読めます。The Holy Roman Empire: not a failed nation-state, but a successful multi-ethnic empire 帝国EUと西欧の現代をとらえるためには、その先行形態である神聖ローマ帝国との同一性とその差異を理解する必要があるようです。が、そもそも神聖ローマ帝国は何であったのかというところからピンと来ないのですが、封建主義でも民主主義でもなく、また連邦制でも州権制でもない神聖ローマ帝国は、歴史の教科書に記述しているようには近代国家の到来する時代に消滅しきったのではなく、近代の裁判の制度に継承されることになったという説があるのですね。さて、その西欧にイスラム世界は抵抗するのはなぜなのか？Pourquoi le monde musulman résiste à l’Occident ? Le succès du modèle historique musulman この評論を読むと、西欧世界の読者がこれを読み解くためには、現代イスラムの在り方を現代中国とインドとの比較が前提条件。とはいえ、現代中国とインドから理解するというのは、どうしてなのかと？なぜ、西欧世界からは地理的に隣接しているイスラム世界を媒介なくしては見えないような遠い世界として現れているのだろうか？日本人からすると不思議ですが、考えてみると、グローバル資本主義を分割する四つの帝国、すなわち帝国EU、帝国アメリカ、帝国ロシア、帝国中国は、ヨーロッパの近代を前提にしていますが、そのヨーロッパ近代はイスラム世界を排除してしか成り立つことができなかった体制なのですね。イスラムは過去に帝国としての多様な経験と大きな歴史を持ちながらも、グローバル資本主義の分割としての所謂帝国イスラムを形成することがない本質的理由がここにあるようにみえます。だけれど中国の近代から中国資本主義が形成されたと理論化されてきたように、これから、イスラムの近代からイスラム資本主義の帝国アイデンティティのことが対抗的にいわれてくるかもしれませんよ。ただそのためにはイスラム世界には拠り所とする世俗的制度が必要とされるでしょう、例えば帝国ロシアにとっての皇帝的一国社会主義のような枠組みが。が、現在のところ宗教を利用していますが、限界があるかもしれません。窓ツイッターからみえる言説は、現代世界の関心がもっぱら帝国にたいする抵抗としてのイスラム世界の意味はなにであろうかということに集中しているようであります。
ON A map, the Holy Roman Empire resembles something closer to a Jackson Pollock painting than an empire. Splattered across the lands of central Europe are countless territories overseen by an emperor who shared power with a hierarchy spanning princes, bishops and dukes, down to abbots, knights and city councils. Territory sizes ranged from the vast kingdom of Prussia to the tiny Free Imperial City of Zell am Harmersbach, half the size of San Marino. By its maturity the empire had evolved into a “mixed monarchy” that was neither feudal nor democratic, federal nor unitary. Instead it was a combination of all of them.
To the modern reader, this may seem chaotic to the point of inefficiency. But Peter Wilson of Oxford University argues that we have been conditioned to see the empire this way. From the 19th century, nationalist historians rewrote European state history as a progression towards centralised, ethnic nation-states. Thus the idea of the Holy Roman Empire as a failed nation-state (as opposed to a successful multiethnic empire) has prevailed since—even Hitler condemned this era of his beloved Germany.
In his masterly retelling, Mr Wilson paints a more nuanced picture of the empire as a stable and unique entity that protected the weak. An empire with rulers such as Conrad II—who stopped to hear pleas from a serf, a widow and an orphan despite being late for his coronation in 1027—could only be an empire dedicated to “peace through consensus” between rulers (very much plural) and ruled.
Consensus, achieved by distributing power, made the empire’s decentralised structure an advantage rather than a weakness. The result was multiple strands of governing hierarchies rooted in the feudal system, each level able to make its own decisions while being subservient to those higher up. Local bodies such as peasant communes could make decisions about their land while obeying an imperial prince, who in turn obeyed imperial institutions that acted as a check.
Supreme imperial power was initially vested in the emperor himself, but by the 15th century had evolved into structures never before seen in European history. The imperial parliament (“Reichstag”) sat permanently beginning in 1663 (Britain’s “Mother of Parliaments” was permanently in session only decades later). The Reichstag decided questions affecting the whole empire, and its college of electors chose the emperor. The highest court of appeal displayed remarkable similarities to modern judiciaries, with justices chosen by the court itself, giving independent rulings that could favour the humblest plaintiff against the most regal defendant.
Mr Wilson argues that inhabitants of the empire were loyal to this system—it emphasised local identities and freedoms, with citizenship based on political allegiance rather than culture or creed. Quite astounding paradoxes could result—Counter-Reformation bishops who enjoyed “absolute” rule could only fume quietly over their Jewish or Protestant populations, free to practise their religion under imperial protection.
However, political systems that work on paper do not always work in practice. Serfdom and the rise of princely absolutism are rehabilitated by Mr Wilson as tools for consensus, without discussion of their frequent abuse. Take the prince of Hildburghausen, who was known to keep two pistols and a hunting-knife on his table while listening to advisers. They knew he was within his absolutist rights to use them if they dared “advise” too freely.
Briefly looking to the future, Mr Wilson notes new, post-modern distortions. European Union politicians have celebrated Charlemagne’s empire as an early form of transnational co-operation, despite the fact Charlemagne had no “nations” to make co-operate. Any comparisons with the EU must allow for the fact that the empire treated its subjects and member-states hierarchically, in contrast to EU’s principles of democratic equality. Mr Wilson rightly believes that the empire should be seen as a unique entity, rather than a blueprint for modern Europe.
