Tag: Shinzo Abe

Vanmorgen las ik een artikel op ICH (International Clearing House) over Japan. Zoals ik op deze plek al een paar keer heb aangegeven, wordt ook in dit artikel gewezen op het afglijden van Japan van nationalisme naar ronduit fascisme.

Het artikel is in het Engels gesteld, voor een vertaling kan u onderaan het artikel klikken (‘dutch’), houdt u dan wel rekening met een lange downloadtijd en een fiks aantal fouten. Hier het artikel van Andre Vltchek, o.a. onderzoeksjournalist en documentairemaker:

Abe’s Japan – Fascist and Falling

By Andre Vltchek

September 27,
2015 “Information
Clearing House”
– “teleSur“- 
How fast can a country
deteriorate? How promptly can it lose its culture, its
soul?

Japan was my home for many years. I
was running there from countless war zones, to get some
rest, to enjoy beautiful nature and its ancient, deep
culture.

I learned all about its legends and
fairytales, I knew its creeks and peaks, villages lost
in time.

I came here to think and to write, on
board those marvelous high-speed trains, Shinkansens.

But in just a few years, things have
gone to the dogs: first slowly, gradually, and then more
and more rapidly.

Several “care-free” generations,
obsessed with pleasure, entertainment,
individualism –  generations fully influenced by the
West – have finally broken the Japanese spirit, turning
it into a bizarre hybrid.

The surface still remains intact, but
there is hardly any depth underneath: A train conductor
bows humbly to the passengers when leaving the car, but
an old lady with heavy shopping bags will not get her
seat from an aggressive-looking high school girl,
yelling “kuso” (shit!) after every second word.

*

Japan of the right wing Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe is bellicose, racist, discriminative but also
confused and full of complexes.

It is suddenly not such a great place
to be, particularly if you are looking for harmony and
social justice.

Only recently, Japan had the most
equal distribution of wealth on earth, much better than
Europe or Australia. It was easy to spot an MP eating in
the same ramen noodle shop as a cleaning lady, if the
ramen was good.

Now North American bad habits are
infiltrating Japan: life-time employment guarantee is
melting away, day by day, and unprotected millions are
joining workforce as part-time or contract workers.

There are tens of thousand of homeless
people in all major cities – something unthinkable in
mainland China or Vietnam.

Just recently, Abe managed to pass a
law allowing Japan to participate in combats abroad.

Of course,
Abe’s so-called “nationalism” has nothing to do with the
aristocratic patriotism of people like Yukio Mishima
(one of the greatest modern writers, who publicly
committed hara-kiri as a protest against the shameful
Japanese collaboration with the United States).

The nationalism of Abe is
nothing less than collaboration: a betrayal of both his
own nation and his own continent – Asia.

Japan is now firmly on the side of
oppressors.

It is openly antagonistic to both
Russia and China, and it is tightening cooperation with
all right wing, oppressive regimes in Asia, from
Indonesia to the Philippines and Thailand.

A legendary Australian historian,
Geoffrey Gunn, told me recently in Nagasaki: “Well, the
fact of the matter is that China is indignant at its
encirclement. China is indignant that Washington backs
Japan, that Washington is ready to support Japan’s
non-negotiation policy over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
So we see, in this situation, a clearly indignant China,
and Japan that is taking a basically aggressive position
in relation to so-called territorial integrity. So
Pacific Asia is increasingly becoming more belligerent,
more conflict-prone East Asia.”

Japan has gone mad. It has sacrificed
its pride; and it has thrown its might behind the
Western aggressors. In the past, its Western handlers
allowed it to get rich through the blood spilled by
Korean, 

Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian
people –  during the U.S. beastly invasions and
carpet-bombing campaigns. Japan supported all of these
genocides, and it was making huge amount of money.

But still, it lost! Korea now has
higher Human Development Index (HDI) than Japan,
while communist China has bigger economy, faster running
trains and greater cultural centers.

All this selling itself to the
Westerners did not pay off.

And so comes hate! So came wounded
pride.

“Most Japanese people now feel
antagonistic towards both Chinese and Korean people,” my
film editor in Osaka told me.

Instead of changing course, Japan is
plunging deeper and deeper, in fact all the way, into
unsavory annals of collaboration.

It discriminates. It treats foreigners
like shit. It does not even pretend to be polite,
anymore.

Come to Abe’s Japan! Land at Kansai
Airport and if you are a foreigner, you will be
humiliated. Yesterday, I stood 63 minutes in line and
observed how some deranged senior citizens armed with
bit of power were yelling and bossing shocked
passengers. From landing to collecting my luggage it
took a full 90 minutes. Including time to
be fingerprinted and photographed. It used to take 20
minutes before bloody Abe.

Today I went to Travelex, to pick up
some cash sent to me by a magazine in Moscow. Again,
humiliation, tons of papers, refusal, by some rude,
little aggressive individual called Maki Sekiguchi … I
wrote to Russia and received a prompt reply from the
Chief Editor: “I have the impression that they have some
secret instruction in place to make all transfers from
Russia to be as painful as they could possibly be,
authors are complaining about that.”

*

Instead of turning its back on the
West, Japan is now subverting young Asian intellectuals,
through grants it is giving, and through the
brainwashing it calls “education”.

Japan does not have any independent
media. I worked for their newspapers, and I know,
precisely, that everything that is printed has to be
approved. Quality of the Japanese media outlets is
disgusting.

As one of the leading mainstream
Western journalists based in Tokyo recently confirmed:
“The NHK or any other Japanese channel would never dare
to air any idea that was not previously broadcasted by
the CNN, BBC or FOX TV.”

But Japan “educates” tens of thousands
of Southeast Asians, and “communications” is one of the
most popular subjects.

“Japan does not have its own foreign
policy”, David McNeill, Professor at prestigious Sofia
University in Tokyo, told me.

But it feels fit to educate Southeast
Asian students in such fields as political science! One
wonders, what exactly would those students learn? How to
collaborate, how to bend forward, and how to kiss
backsides of the West?

*

It is all truly shameful, pathetic end
of Japan’s “glory”.

Ruling elites and their
nationalism … Not Japanese nationalism, but Western!

No wonder, the U.S. occupation was
based on the scrubbing and polishing of the old Japanese
imperialist, fascist cadres, and putting them back to
the top of the hierarchy. After all, the U.S. and
Japanese imperialism have always had plenty in common.

But could any country survive, stand
for decades on such disgraceful foundations!

*

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania - a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/bloggers/Abes-Japan---Fascist-and-Falling-20150925-0001.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

 

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist,
filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and
conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are:

Exposing Lies of the Empire, and

Fighting Against Western Imperialism, Discussion with Noam
Chomsky:
On
Western Terrorism,

Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel.
Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His
provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia
– The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR of
Venezuela and Press TV of Iran. After living for many years in Latin
America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East
Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his
website or his
Twitter account.

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