- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense.
Sanseito, while still a minor party, made big gains in July’s parliamentary election, and Kamiya’s “Japanese First” platform of anti-globalism, anti-immigration and anti-liberalism is gaining broader traction ahead of a ruling party vote Saturday that will choose the likely next prime minister.
It’s actually scary how quick they’re rising. I live in Japan, and I once heard them at a intersection nearby on a car giving a speech. I hated how they speak. They sounded like they were heavily appealing to the emotion and used a lot of sentence final particles like ne, in a tone that sounded half-aggressive and also… very conservative in a way. They were talking some shit about how Japanese people should come first and that we should “protect Japan”, as if there was some sort of foreign force trying to tear Japan down to pieces. What’s worse was that there were actually people cheering for them. I actually wanted to go downstairs to shout at them but I restrained myself from doing that. I still sort of regret not going there to shout at them.
They’re scared. If you believe the info out there, population collapse is imminent. Someone shouting out patriotism, rallying the people, is probably a comforting thought to them. They need someone to blame, the outsiders are easiest.
When people don’t feel they can afford the time and money to have kids, populations break and noone is addressing it. The world could probably stand to have some population regulation back down from 8bil, but this isn’t the way :(
The first sign of a feeble mind.
Alas, it’s so ubiquitous :(
It’s absolutely horrifying how effective it is to stand in front of a group of people, name their fears and then suggest ill-concieved solutions to the fears. They’re so desperate for someone to come along and solve their problems that they don’t want to think critically about what is being said. Humanity as a whole is just so easy to control.
Their society will collapse from this racism in a generation or so. No point in correcting people who can’t see the writing on the wall. As much as the current regime tries to deny it, immigrants have been the strength of the US.
That party is minority. So yeah, fuck them. But what about the rest of the people in the country? There are many well intentioned folks in Japan, some of them have some xenophobic beliefs, but that doesn’t mean they’ll all never learn.