MR. ABEND INSULTS THE ASIATICS

...Abend's program becomes manifest when he turns from such subject areas and takes up two nations—the Filipinos and the Thais— who stand second only to the Chinese in respect to their capacity for self-government and their right to independence...

...But to the other millions of eastern and southern Asia and of the adjacent archipelagoes he holds out only the privilege of exchanging Japanese tyranny for an indefinite period of "tutelage" by a western world which, on close examination, usually proves to be America...

...In between these widely separated passages, however, the East Asian reader will find ample material to confirm deepest forebodings...

...In his brief chapter on Thailand Mr...

...Comment upon these three charges seems almost superfluous...

...When he sets up for Thailand, for the Philippines, for Korea or for any other Asiatic nation standards which do not equally apply to Denmark, Finland, Poland and other small European countries, every East Asian reader will suspect and will have good reason to suspect the pattern of his proposed post-war settlement...

...His gratuitous attacks upon the character and self-respect of these two peoples—with both of whom our country has a long and honorable record for fair dealing—display a deeply rooted contempt for "Asiatics," as such, and an apparent determination not to allow any "soft sentimentalism" to hamper the American-led West in exploiting the fruits of victory...

...For the Chinese people, whose stubborn heroism has held in check during the past six years the Japanese war machine, he appears to have developed a healthy—albeit somewhat belated—respect...

...Ignorant of their history and culture, contemptuous of their institutions and aspirations, he regards them all as "backward" Asiatics who must be taught to pursue our purposes according to our methods before they can properly be regarded as "ready for self-government...

...Abend seems to show some appreciation of the need for a statement of purposes in terms which will rally the East Asian peoples to the cause of the United Nations...

...What government can escape condemnation on the charge of having appeased and even aided the aggressors up to the time when it became itself the victim of attack...

...Realism demands frank recognition of the fact that some, at least, of these peoples are poorly prepared to assume .responsibility for managing the affairs of mddern government...

...What state—including Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States—now believes itself capable of standing alone against the armed forces of totalitarian aggression...

...For Mr...

...second, that the Thai government, during the years before Pearl Harbor, had cordial relations with Japan...

...Abend, when he turns from broad generalizations to the consideration of specific problems, displays a much keener interest in "Our Destiny in Asia" than in the evolution of a charter of liberties for the "several hundred million Asiatics" upon whose mass support our hopes of victory depend...

...Abend's denial of Thai rights to national status isbased upon three charges: first, that the country could not hope to maintain its independence without foreign aid...

...If the same criteria were given universal application, what country could maintain before an impartial jury the rights which Mr...

...The real nature of Mr...

...Abend sets forth a few specific charges and a larger number of insinuations, upon which he bases the conclusion that the Thai people are "illiterate," "lazy," "undemocratic," and "utterly unfit for self-government...

...Abend has done a serious disservice to the cause of unity among the United Nations...

...Abend's criteria are not valid because they are not universal...

...In Korea, after the annexation of that unhappy country in 1910 by Japan, the Japanese made every effort to eradicate national sentiment and to check the development of political thinking...

...Mere anti-Japanism does not, in itself, endow a writer with the qualifications needed for drafting a "charter" to govern the fate of half of the human race...

...Stripped of its inaccuracies and frivolities, Mr...

...for, among the many recent publications dealing with the present war, I can recall no single volume that is more certain to arouse suspicion and ill-will between the United States and the peoples of Eastern Asia...

...Yet even for these areas a genuine "Pacific Charter" would envisage such aid and assistance as will enable the peoples concerned to evolve a social order satisfactory to their own needs rather than such tutelage as will impress upon them the politico-economic pattern of the West...

...Abend so glibly denies to Thailand...

...What nation, after being attacked, has been without its ap-peasers and "fifth columnists...

...In a few passages near the beginning and the end of his work Mr...

...and third, that certain Thai officials are now collaborating with the conquering Japanese...

...and the potential evil in this book derives from the fact that its author approached his task in a spirit of racial superiority hardly different from that of his former Japanese friends whom he now so bitterly detests...

...To China, therefore, he is now willing to accord complete and immediate sovereignty and full membership in the community of nations...

...Much the same situation has prevailed under the somewhat less oppressive foreign rule of the French in Indo-China, of the British in Malaya, and of the Dutch in the Netherlands Indies...