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Visible Minorities 31: Shintaro Ishihara: Good Riddance to an Evil Man
Shingetsu News Agency, February 21, 2022
By Debito Arudou (abridged)
Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who died February 1, was an evil man. Any honest obituary would admit as such. Unfortunately, the media’s retrospectives have tended to eulogize him, using weasel words so as to not speak ill of the dead.
But that’s the wrong reflex. Evil should never be whitewashed, especially when it comes to a person as evil as Ishihara, and by doing so they are complicit in historical revisionism. I will try to rectify that with this column by recounting Ishihara’s actual record…
A hateful man who poured his hate into concrete policies, Ishihara eventually found himself in a position of real power, elected multiple times to the governorship of the world’s largest and richest city. Ishihara installed Japan’s first neighborhood surveillance cameras specifically in areas of Tokyo he claimed were “hotbeds of foreign crime,” and went on TV at regular intervals to propagandize that Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, and Roppongi at night were no longer Japan.
He also said that Japanese politicians who support more civil and human rights for foreign residents must have “foreign ancestors” themselves, and abetted political witch hunts and loyalty tests to root out politicians with international connections.
Essentially, Ishihara was trying to ethnically cleanse Japan, undoing the “internationalization” phase of the 1980s and 1990s of openness and tolerance. In its place, he sponsored overt racism and normalized xenophobia.
And it worked. To this day, entire political parties, candidates, and hate groups publicly rally for the expulsion of foreigners and the extermination of Koreans. That’s why current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can’t easily lift the world’s longest, most draconian and unscientific Covid border policies–because polls say 57% of the fearful Japanese public want them kept…
Full article at https://shingetsunewsagency.com/2022/02/21/visible-minorities-good-riddance-to-an-evil-man/
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6 comments on “My SNA Visible Minorities 31: “Shintaro Ishihara: Good Riddance to an Evil Man”, an honest obituary. Feb 20, 2022”
Some people credit Ishihara for being tough on yakuza, in that they left central Tokyo and moved to the suburbs of Machida, Kawaguchi, Kashiwa and Fujisawa. Why they did relocate I wonder.
Perfect. I like it so much, I’ll read it again tomorrow. Like I said in a previous post, progress is made one funeral at a time.
Anonymous said “Like I said in a previous post, progress is made one funeral at a time.”
I don’t see it that way. I wanted to believe that but it actually doesn’t work that way. The elite nationalists don’t promote younger free thinkers they promote younger nationalists. The system preserves itself.
Ishihara was a symptom of the public thirst for such a person, he wasn’t the cause. The public will find another one like him.
@TJJ
Thats an interesting conclusion, and one that I would agree with except the times have changed allot since Ishis reign as mayor. During his time, revisionist nationalism was a new conversation with a nostalgia for the past and other ” interesting” ideas. With Koike as mayor, and PM changes, I dont see such extreme positions now. A modern day Ishi would not really fit the times we are in, but was perfect during those past years. Now is a semi post COVID time, a shortage of labor and other current events.
@Mike Nostalgia for an old Japan that never existed is still prevalent today. Modern Japan isn’t willing to join the rest of the world in the condemnation of racism but instead gets a kick from it. You saw Moteki talk down to the non Japanese reporter didn’t you? Even some Japanese thought it was disgusting, but he is still in power. And others like him run the show. Most of the government is in Nippon Kaigi. In my 26 years here (credibility inserted) I think its getting worse not better.
“isn’t willing to join the rest of the world in the condemnation of racism but instead gets a kick from it”
Agreed and that will never change, and the oyaji who you mention will always be there. What I meant was, with instant social media developments I dont think a “leader” like Ishi would become so powerful without international condemnation, which Japan abhors. Also there arent many still around who had the post war experience that Ish experienced, so its hard to follow a revisionist without that level of credibility. Even many Japanese I met thought Ish was kooky but he did live through the post war occupation. I still see lots of bizarre revisionist stories still being pushed around; what their objective is who knows but I think its fringe.
I cant deny your conclusion that Japan will never change however, as those of us who have been here a long time usually come to the same agreement!