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- COMMON SENSE ISSUES
- By:John S. Davis
- The UMJ Volume3.4 (Opinion)
- By:John S. Davis
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Up to now, United for a multicultural Japan has concerned itself with a number of political and social issues for which it is not so difficult to obtain a consensus among its members. Indeed, they are, practically speaking, common sense issues; for example, that one's spouse should be included in the residence registry, regardless of the nationality of that spouse. Is not a spouse a spouse regardless of ethnic origin or affiliation? Out of sight out of mind; out of record; out of statistics. Who says the Japanese are of one race? The residence registry, that's who! One cannot help but wonder what the real statistics may be?! Residence registry for "foreigners" and residence registry for Japanese citizens. Never the twain shall meet! How many people were needed to make you? Two were. How many people were needed to make those two? Four were. Although modern technology may change that law of nature for the future, it has yet to mark the past. One has only to go back 27 generations to come up with 180,406,538 direct linear relatives, 28 generations to come up with 360,813,076 of them, and so on. I wonder what the population of Japan was back then? Back when? Well, if one assumes 25 years per generation, 28 generations ago would put us back only 700 years. Certainly the population was far less than it is now, but look how many relatives we each have! Yes, folks, we are all cousins, if not brothers and sisters! Let us celebrate that fact instead of burying it in a myth of racial or cultural uniformity. At some point we are all related to Princess Diana --not just Monica Lewinsky (as a genealogist recently discovered)! |
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