A World that can say “No”

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A World that can say “No”
By: Jeff Yamada
THE UMJ Volume 5.1

Imagine Tiger Woods teeing off at a golf course that didn’t admit blacks as members. Difficult to picture, isn’t it? First off, no organization in America could operate with such a membership policy. Further, if a golf club were revealed to have even a tendency to discriminate against blacks (or Jews, or Hispanics), it is highly unlikely that Woods would even consider an invitation to play on their course. Finally, if for whatever reason Woods did show up at this imagined golf club to play a round, the American media would be there in a flash, and with their words would slice Woods’ storybook career into the big sand trap of public condemnation faster than you could say “John Rocker.”

Ah, the fifth estate!

The above came to mind as I was thinking about the recent comments made by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara. Mori referred to Japan as a divine nation and used language reminiscent of the country’s militant nationalism of the early 20^th century, a vocabulary not out of step with Nazi master race rhetoric. The remarks came on the heels of a divisive decree from Ishihara, who ordered the Japanese army to target foreigners in the event of a breakdown in social order. In doing so Ishihara used the old racist term, “sangokujin.” This would be something like the Mayor of Minneapolis telling his police corps to “Shoot the niggers.” Again, imagine how the American media would jump that sort of thing.

In the case of Mori and Ishihara’s comments, the media were quick to respond. It was the wording of the foreign reports that struck me. Reuters on the Japanese Prime Minister: “Mori has repeatedly put his foot in his mouth with comments that betray a nostalgia for Japan’s imperialist past.” Mori is further described as having “goofed” with his “verbal blunders.” Ishihara, meanwhile, is characterized by Reuters as “feisty” and ”controversial.”

Two words, “right-wing” and “populist,” used by Reuters in reference to Ishihara, were also employed by the news service earlier this year to describe the leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, Joerg Haider. But with Haider, Reuters didn’t stop there: Quoting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, they warned that, “The rise of the extreme right must set off alarm bells among all the people of the free world who still recall the horrors of
the Second World War.”

Nowhere did the coverage suggest that Haider’s comments about Austria’s wartime past or immigration policies were “mistakes,” or “gaffes.” Haider was not colored as a clumsy speaker who had put his foot in his mouth, but rather as the racist that his words suggested he was. Why, one might ask, are Japanese leaders given the opposite treatment and excused for making the same kinds of comments that get an Austrian leader denounced? Of course the media takes some of its cues from public opinion. In February, more than 150,000 people protested the new Austrian coalition in Vienna, and about 9,000 demonstrated in Paris. Soon afterward, the media roared, the US reduced diplomatic contacts with Austria, and European statesmen all but shut the nation of 8 million out of their community.

In the wake of the Ishihara remarks, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that only a few hundred people had called their switchboard, and almost half had done so in support of the Governor’s position. As it happens, I was watching television a few weeks ago when Mori replaced Ishihara as Japan’s Political Xenophobe of the Month. And it was shortly thereafter, while channel-surfing, that I came across a commercial featuring Tiger Woods.

And that’s how Ishihara and Mori came to make me muse on the media and Tiger Woods and discrimination. And then on from there. How absurd, I thought in reference to the 24 year-old golfing sensation, whose father is African-American and mother is Asian-American, that here in Japan the likes of Ishihara and Mori would dismiss Woods as a “half.” Here is man who has worked his way to the top of a competitive, traditionally white sport. A “half”? I had to laugh, but I also had to feel proud and privileged to have grown up in a multicultural environment.

After the Tiger Woods commercial, the singer Whitney Houston appeared on my television screen as the star of a commercial for Nishin, a finance company. I am sure Houston is quite unaware of this, but Nishin, like most all Japanese banks and loan companies, routinely denies loans to Americans (and other non-Japanese) who are living and working in Japan.

In this increasingly international world, how different, really, is Houston’s endorsement of Nishin from the unimaginable image of Woods patronizing a golf club that has a discriminatory membership policy? In the end, this is the question that may undo our Ishiharas and Moris. The international media has been affording Japanese leaders a forgiving ride so far this year. Eventually, the world will say “No.”