Share this Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Slashdot Furl Yahoo Blogmarks Technorati Newsvine Googlize this Facebook Wikio Export PDF Print E-mail Tags president monkey entertain obsessed geisha jingoist

by Shirzad Azad

The Japanese political establishment has once again mobilized an army of spin doctors to clean up a new foreign policy mess. Contrary to the recent media and press coverage in Tokyo, Japan was pretty preoccupied to make sure whether Republican Senator McCain could successfully capture the helm of the White House. There were even some rumors that Japan contributed, either directly or through its corporate warlords, a significant amount of money to McCain in the course of his presidential campaigns. This is yet to be acknowledged by either side or be investigated by a third party.

It was quite understandable why Tokyo's conservative leaders badly worried about a possible democrat winner replace their conservative comrades in Washington. Not only have Japan's old guards been in difficulty with American democrat leaders in recent decades, their ad hoc tango with the republican neo-cons during the past eight years came at a big price tag.

For example, Japan gambled its contemporary perplexing reputation and image in the world for going along with Bush's radical policies culminating in its staunch and unquestionable support for the Iraq War which has so far resulted in a million human lives and so much other negative ramifications to be seen in the future.

But it turned out to be President Black Obama, a hardcore liberal whose Asian foreign policy does not appeal the Japanese in the same way they benefited from Bush's Asian foreign ignorance. During his presidential campaigns, Obama repeatedly voiced his disappointment with the United States' long-term huge trade deficit vis-à-vis Japan and promised to fix the problem. Even the Japan-friendly Bush had serious problems in penetrating American beef into the Japanese markets.

Contrary to Obama's liberal mindset, Japan has so far distorted liberalism as a mere tool to sell all kinds of Japanese goods in any corner of the word while keeping its own markets closed to foreign competitors. From a Japanese perspective, this political and economic ideology has been nothing more than an instrument for buying off international institutions, being a permanent non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, exploiting foreign laborers, trafficking Asian babes into Tokyo's bars, a big no to refugees and asylum-seekers, Sayonara to Taishō democracy at home symbolized by one party rule for almost six decades, and the list just goes on.

Having said this, we really doubt if it is Obama's mission to teach Japan the real concept of liberalism. After all, he is neither Barak Delano Roosevelt to trick the Japanese into attacking Pearl Shanghai nor he is General Douglas MacObama to assure Japan's LDP old guards to keep ruling as usual but make sure to change the party's emblem.

With Obama in power come other challenges for Japan. While the American people voted to have a black president, the Japanese people still stubbornly resist white immigrants. For a country that desperately needs foreign workforce to maintain its economic growth and social order on track, having the son of an immigrant to climb to the highest office is something more than a taboo. In the case that person is a Kokujin Gaijin (black foreigner) the problem simply doubles.

The crux of the problem is that black people have long been the major victim of the Japanese standoffish attitudes toward foreigners. Japan has a very black record of discrimination against foreigners and the Kokujin Gaijin have been the main target among them as the least respected ones. The discriminatory behavior of these nominal "Honorary Arians" (as Hitler called them) go far to question the human nature of the black people calling them Saru (monkey). Of course Japan is enough rich to bribe many human rights organizations not to publicize the way it has long treated foreigners and black people in particular. Its an open secret that some of such agencies do exist with the under-the-counter payments come from Japan giving them enough motivation to whitewash any human rights violation carried out at the hand of the Japanese.

While electing a Saru Daitōryō (president monkey) in the United States may encourage more Japanese women to choose a black boyfriend, it hardly may change the Japanese white and black mentality toward the black foreigners in particular and other foreigners in general. On top of that, the majority of black people in Japan come from some poor African countries the people whose voices are never heard and their minimal wrongdoings there are intentionally and skillfully highlighted by the Japanese corporate media for many political and social purposes not that difficult to comprehend. Not only it is impossible for the son of a black or white immigrant to occupy the office of prime minister in Japan, even ordinary Japanese themselves hardly can dream to getting that position one day. In the Japanese aristocratic system you must come from a well-known blue blood family if you wish to become a top politician or only a middle rank statesman.

This is quite easy to understand when you look at the profile of the people who form the body of the Diet (Japanese parliament) and the cabinet of prime minister. Where it comes to the chief patrician politician, the story of a Japanese prime minister is not much different from the country's hereditary imperial system. For obvious reasons we can call it a hereditary premiership.

For instance, in September 2006 Junichiro Koizumi (son of a former minister) handed over the power to the grandson of an ex-prime minister (Shinzo Abe). After one year serving as prime minister, Abe was replaced by Yasuo Fokuda, the son of a former prime minister. Fokuda just left the office last October when Taro Aso, another grandson of an ex-premier, was selected as the new boss of the Japanese oligarchy. Just look at the Aso's cabinet and you see tons of such noble sons and grandsons who are waiting to replace him one after another.

This goes beyond to become a comic story like those funny Manga which Prime Minister Aso read a lot, twelve volumes per week. When Aso was serving as foreign minister in Abe's government, he proclaimed to incorporating democratic values in Japan's foreign policy making a trilateral alliance with Australia and India at the expense of a rising China. We are still waiting the day Prime Minister Taro Aso explains us how he makes a cogent connection between the Japanese aristocracy with that of Australian and Indian democratic systems?

Shirzad Azad is an East Asian researcher currently living in Seoul (South Korea) to work on a research project. He has also a more than three years research experience in Japan.