Guardian UK on GAIJIN HANZAI Mag

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Hi Blog. Fruition. Debito

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Magazine plays to Japanese xenophobia

Available in mainstream bookstores, magazine targets Iranians, Chinese, Koreans and US servicemen

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Friday February 2, 2007

Guardian Unlimited (UK) newspaper online

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2004645,00.html

PHOTO:Human rights activists say the magazine is indicative of the climate of fear of foreigners created by conservative newspapers and politicians

The recent release of a glossy magazine devoted to the foreign-led crime wave supposedly gripping Japan has raised fears of a backlash against the country’s foreign community, just as experts are calling for a relaxation of immigration laws to counter rapid population decline.

Secret Files of Foreigners’ Crimes, published by Eichi, contains more than 100 pages of photographs, animation and articles that, if taken at face value, would make most people think twice about venturing out into the mean streets of Tokyo.

The magazine, which is available in mainstream bookstores and from Amazon Japan, makes liberal use of racial epithets and provocative headlines directed mainly at favourite targets of Japanese xenophobes: Iranians, Chinese, Koreans and US servicemen.

Human rights activists said the magazine was indicative of the climate of fear of foreigners created by conservative newspapers and politicians, notably the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara.

“It goes beyond being puerile and into the realm of encouraging hatred of foreigners,” Debito Arudou, a naturalised Japanese citizen, told the Guardian. “The fact that this is available in major bookstores is a definite cause of concern. It would be tantamount to hate speech in some societies.”

One section is devoted to the alleged tricks foreign-run brothels use to fleece inebriated Japanese salarymen, while another features a comic strip retelling, in graphic detail, the murders of four members of a Japanese family by three Chinese men in 2003.

An “Alien Criminal Worst 10” lists notorious crimes involving foreigners from recent years, including the case of Anita Alvarado, the “Chilean geisha” blamed by some for forcing her bureaucrat husband, Yuji Chida, to embezzle an estimated 800m yen from a local government. Mr Chida, who is Japanese, is serving a 13-year prison sentence.

The magazine’s writers are equally disturbed by the apparent success foreign men have with Japanese women: hence a double-page spread of long-lens photographs of multinational couples in mildly compromising, but apparently consensual, positions.

Mr Arudou accused the mainstream press of exploiting the supposed rise in foreign crime by failing to challenge official police figures. Although the actual number of crimes has risen, he said, so has the size of the foreign population.

“The portrayal [of foreign criminals] is not one of a neutral tone,” he said. “They don’t put any of the statistics into perspective and they don’t report drops in certain crimes.”

The magazine’s publication coincides with warnings more foreigners should be encouraged to live and work in Japan to counter the economic effects of population decline and the greying society.

The current population of 127 million is expected to drop to below 100 million by 2050, when more than a third of Japanese will be aged over 64.

“I think we are entering an age of revolutionary change,” Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute and an advocate of greater immigration, said in a recent interview.

“Our views on how the nation should be and our views on foreigners need to change in order to maintain our society.”

ENDS

2 comments on “Guardian UK on GAIJIN HANZAI Mag

  • At first, I thought it was important that the foreign press get involved, and also perhaps some sort of economic action taken against those that are selling this magainze. However, I keep looking for something to come up in the Japanese language press. Nothing, so far.

    If, as Hidenori Sakanaka says, that Japan is undergoing some sort of revolutionary change in its relations to members of Japanese society who are not ethnically Japanese, then this is a debate that needs to be done in Japanese in Japan.

    If all that happens in this debate is that a few articles are published in English, and some foreigners boycott a convience store, but no public debate occurs in Japan in Japanese, is what we are doing here any good . . .

    AS I PUT UP MOST RECENTLY ON MY BLOG, I HAVE POSTED MY JAPANESE LISTS TO INFORM THEM ABOUT THIS ISSUE. LET’S WAIT AND SEE IF THEY TAKE IT UP. SOMETIMES THINGS LIKE THIS TAKE A LITTLE TIME TO CATCH ON. –DEBITO

    Reply

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