The Japanese don’t like foreigners. As far as they can, as much as possible, they want to keep their country looking ethnically homogenous. Now there may be moral and, apparently more importantly, economic reasons which make this xenophobia very silly. The very words they use are telling: “foreigners,” not immigrants. But I have a simple question, knowing that the Japanese do not like foreigners, why force yourself on them and then face discrimination?
I posed this question on the blog of a known Japan-busybody, Debito Arudou, after he posted the news that a recent survey of Japanese found that a whopping 65% preferred to live in a poorer country than accept foreigners to boost the economy (26% were for the idea). For those that don’t know of him, Debito-san (as he likes to be called) is a foreigner who has taken Japanese citizenship. He spends most of his time moaning about, denigrating, and insulting his new adoptive country. Many of his criticisms, though based on factual injustices and prejudices of Japanese against non-Japanese, descend into a juvenile cacophony of narcissim and hyperbole.
Here is the question I asked, as a comment on this blog entry.
I have a simple question: if the majority of Japanese do not want immigration, even if that means they and their country will be poorer as a result, why bother trying to push immigration on them? If they want to be “pure” then let them. Forcing yourself into their country, and then complaining that Japanese don’t like you because you are foreign, is just stupid: they openly told you and the world that they would prefer it if you don’t live there.
Let me be clear, I don’t mean that if you get married and want to live in Japan with your Japanese wife, that you shouldn’t do so just because most people don’t like foreigners. I mean immigrants in terms of a worker who comes to work from a poorer country and later tries to bring his whole family there, or even well off people who try to make a “new life” in Japan. They don’t want foreigners, so don’t go there!
However, the respondents are talking with 60 years of development and wealth behind them, wealth which for the moment, is still with them. I wonder if attitudes such as “we don’t want foreigners even if it makes us poorer” will change once the real effects of empoverishment due to a shrinking economy hit the country and its people. Until they change their minds, foreigners/immigrants are not welcome, so why subject yourself to discrimination and despisement?
And his response? A deletion of my question. How ironic that he would do the very thing which he accuses the Japanese government and media of doing (not least at the opening of the very blog entry in question!): stifling debate on immigration. He decires the “taboo” status that immigration has been given in Japan, while hypocritically extending that taboo onto his own website. This is a fundamental issue: if they don’t want immigrants, only you yourself are to blame for any mistreatment you receive as you invade their country.
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