{"id":15978,"date":"2020-03-16T09:19:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T16:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15978"},"modified":"2022-06-02T14:17:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-02T21:17:14","slug":"sna-visible-minorities-8-no-free-pass-for-japans-shirking-responsibility-mar-16-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15978","title":{"rendered":"Debito’s SNA Visible Minorities column 8: “No Free Pass for Japan’s Shirking Responsibility”, Mar 16, 2020 (full text archived)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Books, eBooks, and more from Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (click on icon):
\n\"Guidebookcover.jpg\"<\/a>\"japaneseonlyebookcovertext\"<\/a>\"Handbook<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>\"FodorsJapan2014cover\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
\n“LIKE” US on Facebook at http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/debitoorg<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embeddedrcsmJapan<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/handbookimmigrants<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JapaneseOnlyTheBook<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BookInAppropriate<\/a>
\nIf you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:
\n\"Donate<\/a>
\nAll donations go towards website costs only. Thanks for your support!<\/i><\/p>\n

Hi Blog. I know everyone’s talking about the Coronavirus (and I do here too, for a bit). But my latest column backs the lens up to see this all in a larger context of Japan’s perpetual bad habits, and how they get a “free pass” even when those habits have adverse effects on the rest of the world. Especially when Japan is being held up as a model by many as a system that helps the powerful evade responsibility and transfer blame. Have a read.<\/p>\n

One more note: Nowhere else in Japan but an independent news press like the Shingetsu News Agency<\/a> would publish an article like this. This article will be behind a paywall in a few days, so please chip in $5 a month (I pay more) at the venue for access. \u00a0Debito Arudou, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Visible Minorities: No Free Pass for Shirking Responsibility<\/strong>
\nSHINGETSU NEWS AGENCY, VISIBLE MINORITIES COLUMN 8<\/strong>
\nMARCH 16, 2020 by DEBITO ARUDOU<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/03\/16\/visible-minorities-no-free-pass-for-shirking-responsibility\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 There\u2019s an oft-used expression in Japanese: sekinin tenka<\/a>. Best translated as \u201cpassing the buck,\u201d it\u2019s a reflex of dodging blame for one\u2019s own actions by transferring responsibility to others. For too long, Japan has done so on the world stage with impunity\u2014even when it affects the world adversely.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with, since it\u2019s timely, the 3.11 Fukushima nuclear meltdown that took place nine years ago this month. While the earthquake and tsunami are not Japan\u2019s fault, situating a nuclear power plant so perilously close to the coastline is; as is the perpetually-botched<\/a> response of containment and leakage<\/a> (even the willful dumping<\/a>) of irradiated water into the Pacific Ocean.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Contrast that with the attention and criticism (and even a TV series) Russia got for Chernobyl, where the situation has finally been contained in a sarcophagus. In Japan, officials instead blamed world standards of safe radiation levels for being alarmist (adjusting them upwards for domestic political purposes<\/a>) and declared Fukushima produce safe for consumption<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even more timely is how sekinin tenka influenced Japan\u2019s COVID-19 response.\u00a0 I mentioned last column the cruise ship Diamond Princess<\/a>, still docked at Yokohama harbor, where thousands of passengers are quarantined in what became a fast-breeder petri dish for Coronavirus.\u00a0 Official dithering and silo-ing resulted in unsafe containment conditions (and the silencing of a medical-specialist whistleblower), exacerbating an international incident.\u00a0 It got so out of control that respective governments had to swoop in and extract their citizens.\u00a0 So far, seven passengers have died from these bureaucratic games.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But still responsibility has been evaded.\u00a0 To this day, the Japan is the only country to exclude cruise ship passengers (many if not mostly Japanese citizens) from its national patient tallies.\u00a0 It\u2019s been inspiration to some: \u00a0Trump tried to get away with the same thing when another cruise ship recently docked in Oakland, California, when he decried, \u201cI like the numbers being where they are.\u00a0 I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Japan, sekinin tenka is normalized enough to be a reflex, and it has a long history.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider Japan\u2019s attitude towards its colonialism.\u00a0 Despite two generations occupying and exploiting other Asian countries, it eschews any special ties that other colonists, such as Great Britain and the Commonwealth, have.\u00a0 In fact, Japan so disavows any responsibility for its past that it classifies former Japanese citizens of empire (the Zainichi, whose ancestors worked, fought, and died for Japan) as \u201cforeigners\u201d even though their descendants have been born in raised in Japan for generations.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is legitimized by Japan\u2019s academia and intelligentsia.\u00a0 Japan is the only modern former imperial power that has essentially evaded the self-reflections of postcolonialism<\/a>, never truly coming to terms with its role as occupier and aggressor in two world wars.\u00a0 Instead you get Japan\u2019s narrative of self-exoneration and victimhood\u2014so strong that some quarters even blame America for allegedly forcing Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.\u00a0 This unchecked historical revisionism and denialism perpetually angers Japan\u2019s neighbors and remains a destabilizing narrative in the region.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, sekinin tenka approaches the absurd when you look at Japan\u2019s race relations.\u00a0 To this day, educators and opinion leaders (including even many overseas academics) see Japan\u2019s racism as something exogenous, adopted from \u201cWestern concepts of race<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 Their argument runs that Japan was just mimicking other Western Imperialists, meaning the onus is somehow on Westerners for inspiring Japan.\u00a0 Even today, Japan\u2019s clearest examples of racism are excused with the logic that Japan\u2019s discrimination can\u2019t be \u201cracial in the Western sense\u201d because Japan apparently has no other races.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But this is no accident.\u00a0 Japan\u2019s education system still teaches the concept of racial discrimination as something that only happens elsewhere, such as in the American South under Jim Crow or South Africa under Apartheid.\u00a0 Result:\u00a0 A society that won\u2019t see and can\u2019t address its own racism, and furthermore gets defensive when pointed out.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, some might say, so what?\u00a0 Who cares what Japan does as China becomes Asia\u2019s leader?\u00a0 But that overlooks how Japan\u2019s bad habits continue to affect the world.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How about Japan\u2019s head start on global warming, after decades of unsustainable deforestation<\/a> of other parts of Asia (such as Indonesia and The Philippines) for the sake of the continued practice of cosmetic overwrapping of products and disposable chopsticks?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How about Japan\u2019s overmedication practices that spawned antibiotic-resistant superbugs<\/a> that plague hospitals worldwide?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How about Japan\u2019s sponsorship of overseas university Japan Studies departments (now mimicked by China\u2019s Confucius Institutes) as a means to blunt critical analysis of Japan<\/a>?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How about Japan\u2019s creation of unfettered anonymous internet forums (such as 2-channel<\/a>) that have inspired online troll factories and bullying worldwide, to the point where they now polarize societies and influence elections?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And most importantly, how about Japan being used as a template for creating viable \u201cethnostates\u201d worldwide, inspiring radical conservatives and xenophobes (most famously Steve Bannon and Trump<\/a>)?\u00a0 Japan has demonstrated how to keep a country racially \u201cpure\u201d by curbing immigration and blaming foreigners for multiple social ills (while happily importing foreigners as cheap disposable labor with few civil or political rights).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, what\u2019s been happening in the United States for the past three years has been happening in Japan for decades.\u00a0 Japan\u2019s ruling-elite kakistocracy has led the current \u201cpopulism\u201d wave undermining liberal democracies worldwide.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ironic is that whenever China<\/a> or Russia do the things that Japan does, they are quickly vilified as untrustworthy and antithetical to the values of liberal societies.\u00a0 And rightly so.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But even a generation after the end of the Cold War, Japan is still getting a \u201cfree pass\u201d under the legacy of anticommunism, what with Japan being the unshakable Asian ally of the \u201cfree world\u201d.\u00a0 Even President Obama\u2019s \u201cPivot to East Asia<\/a>\u201d strategy chose to overlook Shinzo Abe\u2019s revisionism and willful remilitarization of Japan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, some might say, it really doesn\u2019t matter. \u00a0Karma\u2019s a bitch.\u00a0 Senescent Japan will get theirs as students worldwide study China instead, and Japanese Studies fades into the sweetmeat pursuits of observing a soft-power superpower.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That would be a mistake.\u00a0 Japan\u2019s free pass on its bad habits is still hurting the world.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is incumbent on people who still know a lot about Japan, such as our generation of scholars from the 1980s-1990s who studied Japan as an economic powerhouse (not an anime factory), to keep pointing out the bad habits.\u00a0 How Japan is poisoning not only the oceans but also international relations in Asia.\u00a0 How it is offering succor to xenophobes and megaphoning their intolerance.\u00a0 And how it is fostering political systems where unaccountability is normal and shifting responsibility to others is a viable practice.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Allowing Japan to show the world how things are done will in fact help undermine liberal societies and democracies.\u00a0 Let\u2019s keep an eye on that.\u00a0 Call out the sekinin tenka.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 There\u2019s an oft-used expression in Japanese: sekinin tenka. Best translated as \u201cpassing the buck,\u201d it\u2019s a reflex of dodging blame for one\u2019s own actions by transferring responsibility to others. For too long, Japan has done so on the world stage with impunity\u2014even when it affects the world adversely.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with, since it\u2019s timely, the 3.11 Fukushima nuclear meltdown that took place nine years ago this month. While the earthquake and tsunami are not Japan\u2019s fault, situating a nuclear power plant so perilously close to the coastline is; as is the perpetually-botched response of containment and leakage (even the willful dumping) of irradiated water into the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

Contrast that with the attention and criticism (and even a TV series) Russia got for Chernobyl, where the situation has finally been contained in a sarcophagus. In Japan, officials instead blamed world standards of safe radiation levels for being alarmist (adjusting them upwards for domestic political purposes) and declared Fukushima produce safe for consumption.<\/p>\n

Even more timely is how sekinin tenka influenced Japan\u2019s Covid-19 response…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,18,36,22,19,34,50,20,5,12,26,73,4,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-education","category-exclusionism","category-gaiatsu","category-history","category-human-rights","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japans-blame-game","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-labor-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978","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=15978"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17060,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions\/17060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}