{"id":15942,"date":"2020-02-15T12:57:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T20:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15942"},"modified":"2021-10-30T12:20:27","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T19:20:27","slug":"my-sna-visible-minorities-column-7-japans-botched-response-to-the-diamond-princess-coronavirus-isnt-racism-its-stupidity-feb-17-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15942","title":{"rendered":"My SNA Visible Minorities column 7: “Japan’s Botched Response to the Diamond Princess Coronavirus isn’t Racism; it’s Stupidity”, Feb 17, 2020 (full text)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. The Diamond Princess cruise ship case (which has been discussed extensively on Debito.org this past week<\/a>) fell within my SNA monthly column window this time, so here’s my take on it. Enjoy. Debito Arudou Ph.D.<\/p>\n

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Visible Minorities: Japan’s Botched Response to the Coronavirus<\/strong>
\nBy Debito Arudou, Shingetsu News Agency<\/strong>, Feb 17, 2020<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/02\/17\/visible-minorities-japans-botched-response-to-the-coronavirus\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 The drama of cruise ship Diamond Princess, currently moored at Yokohama and quarantined by Japan\u2019s Health Ministry due to some of the 3,700 passengers and crew testing positive for the coronavirus, is a human rights crisis.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Covid-19 outbreak that originated in China has killed more than 1,700 people and sickened tens of thousands.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my take: Surprise! I\u2019m not going to argue that the prison-ship conditions are due to racism, but more a matter of official stupidity.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Racist would be what happened in Japan during the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003<\/a> and the H1N1 swine flu<\/a> in 2009. Back then, some hotels and other businesses refused entry not only to all \u201cChinese,\u201d but also to all foreigners (and it happened to me, even though I\u2019m not a foreigner<\/a>). Racist was the idea that the contagion was a foreign thing, and Japanese (who by that time had also been infected) were somehow immune.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To be sure, exclusions like that are indeed happening again here and in other countries, as public fears outrun the coronavirus\u2019s infection rate. But to see the Diamond Princess fiasco in the same light would miss the point: It\u2019s more Japan\u2019s germophobia<\/a> than xenophobia.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember that Japan is a place where face masks are fashion, and even bokin (bacteria-resistant) bicycle handlebar grips<\/a> are marketable. Even after definitive science on the non-contagiousness of Hansen\u2019s Disease was known, Japan was one of the last countries to abolish its leper colonies<\/a>. Japan\u2019s over-prescription of antibiotics has created medicine-resistant superbugs<\/a>. Indeed, cleanliness has reached the point of becoming impossibly antiseptic.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Given this aversion to germs, it\u2019s no wonder Japan\u2019s knee-jerk reaction was to make the Diamond Princess into a lazaret<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Japanese government botched it. The right thing, as Italy<\/a> and Hong Kong<\/a> did with their cruise ships, would have been to immediately test everyone on the ship and then quarantine those certifiably infected, or to quarantine everyone off-ship in hotel rooms for the two-week period. There should have been enough hotel rooms for 3,700 people considering the preparations for the Olympics this summer.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, they kept everyone on board, dubiously citing insufficient testing kits, and converted the ship into an incubator\u2014thus ensuring that more people would infect each other. The Diamond Princess has become the largest coronavirus outbreak outside of China.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why? Here\u2019s where the stupid comes in: authorities just didn\u2019t want Japan\u2019s infection statistics to go up.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If passengers had deboarded, they would have officially entered the country, and anyone testing positive would have to be added to Japan\u2019s official numbers of infected. This would embarrass Japan\u2019s leaders, who are suffused with the chauvinism that \u201crich, developed Japan is not like China or the rest of Asia.\u201d Many a statistic that might dent national pride (such as Japan\u2019s celebrated, but artificially-low unemployment rates) are routinely fudged. Sure enough, according to the Johns Hopkins Department of Civil and Systems Engineering website<\/a>, the 355 confirmed cases on the Diamond Princess remain uncounted by any country.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But again, this stone-headedness is not a matter of racism, because the largest nationality on board (1281 passengers, about a third<\/a>), are in fact Japanese. They\u2019ve been caught up in the stupid and not getting any exceptional treatment. They\u2019ll just have to stay on board and gaman (persevere) like everyone else.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s another thing the Japanese government botched: the willingness of all the passengers to simply gaman the stupid. The Diamond Princess is an international ship, and passengers from other countries aren\u2019t going to do what\u2019s expected by Japanese authorities. They are not going to quietly do as they\u2019re told.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, many people with different historical touchstones about being quarantined might object to being trapped on a Kalaupapa<\/a>, a Swinburne Island<\/a>, a Poveglia<\/a>, or a wartime \u201chell ship<\/a>.\u201d So they did something about it. Passengers and crew have internet access, and they complained loudly to their respective governments and media about the increasingly intolerable conditions they have been subjected to.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Viral videos and interviews have turned the Diamond Princess into a much bigger embarrassment than some statistical infection rate blip. Instead of looking like Asia\u2019s foremost modern, clean, and civilized country, Japan has only managed to look unprepared to handle international standards of disease control, or for that matter the international tourism Japan wants so badly.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, the Diamond Princess isn\u2019t just another case of Japan\u2019s ham-fisted handling of international issues that usually goes unnoticed by the outside world. People might actually die from the official incompetence this time.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This sore lack of viable emergency plans, despite all the prior waves of epidemics, is once again due to Japan\u2019s vestigial self-image of being an isolated island chain, and how that fact somehow keeps it safe and immune from problems plaguing the rest of the world.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At this point, all the Japanese government can hope for is the disease will run its course in a few weeks, and everyone will just get sick, recover, and go home. But if somebody dies on this modern-day \u201chell ship\u201d they\u2019ve created, that\u2019s not a blameless Act of God; that\u2019s on them.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for Japan to stop reverting to type. It\u2019s time to realize that freaking out and shutting out the outside world, then expecting the public to gaman no matter what mistakes the short-sighted bureaucrats make, is no longer viable public policy. Overcome the stupid national pride, and learn some lessons from how other countries manage crises.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For breaking news, follow on Twitter @ShingetsuNews<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Diamond Princess cruise ship case (which has been discussed extensively on Debito.org this past week) fell within my SNA monthly column window this time, so here’s my take on it:<\/p>\n

Visible Minorities: Japan’s Botched Response to the Coronavirus
\nBy Debito Arudou, Shingetsu News Agency, Feb 17, 2020<\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) — The drama of cruise ship Diamond Princess, currently moored at Yokohama and quarantined by Japan\u2019s Health Ministry due to some of the 3,700 passengers and crew testing positive for the coronavirus, is a human rights crisis.<\/p>\n

The Covid-19 outbreak that originated in China has killed more than 1700 people and sickened tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my take: Surprise! I\u2019m not going to argue that the prison-ship conditions are due to racism, but more a matter of official stupidity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,18,36,22,34,50,5,26,4,13,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pinprick-protests","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-gaiatsu","category-human-rights","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-media","category-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16863,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15942\/revisions\/16863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}