Culture Matters

” thinking only other people speak with an accent”

When I lived for a while in the US, people asked if my (then) baby son would grow up speaking with an accent. My response was that we’d be going home before he could pick one up.

Peter Ramus is wise to “look skeptically”; IMO the article in the Times is a crude appeal to Western stereotypes of the exotic Japanese mind-set. (The author of the article has a Japanese name, but he is obviously not immune to the unfortunate tendency of the media to play to people’s expectations.) The negative reaction to the hostages is real, but it is far from as universal as the article implies. I would also note that in large part the criticism is of an alleged failure on their part to take “individual responsibility” (jiko sekinin), the idea being that the hostages were irresponsible in heading of to strife-torn Iraq, whence they had to be rescued by others. As far as I can see, “hierarchical ties that have governed this island nation for centuries” have absolutely nothing do do with this case.

(I’ve lived in Tokyo for 31 years, watch Japanese TV, read Japanese newspapers, etc. That doesn’t mean I understand everything that goes on here, but all in all it strikes me as less exotic/bizarre than a lot of what I read about my native US.)

FWIW

Can you explain that first paragraph?

An interesting detail to me was that the returning hostages looked ashamed in the footage shown on CNN. I can’t read Japanese indicators, but there was profuse bowing at the airport, and a young woman bowing to the ground with an older woman, with an expression I’d have called shame on her face.
Vanunu OTOH left the prison with the Nixon salute.

I don’t share the “they got what they deserved” reactions, certainly not the strongest ones, and I do feel very sorry for those people and what they went through. But it seems people are mostly angry at the fact they did “ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq”, and did create a lot of problems for Japan. So… I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem too strange to me, or needing to be explained in terms of oddities of different cultures or whatever. What Powell says about the Japanese needing to be proud sounds more off-key to my ears in the context of what happened.

Currently there’s still Italian hostages in the hands of terrorists and the Italian government is negotiating with them (even though it’s denying it’s doing so). Four people who work for a security company, went of their own decision, not against orders or advisories, but for work. Some call them “mercenaries”, technically, they belong to that kind of business. They get tons of money, because it’s a risky job. And they know it beforehand. If it wasn’t that risky, they wouldn’t be making that much money. It’s a totally private business, nothing to do with the army or government. Then all of a sudden when the risks materialise, it’s the government and the entire nation’s responsibility? a government has to enter into negotiations with criminals on behalf of the families of four individuals who knew well what kind of risks they were taking? I think that’s the outrageous idea. I find the Japanese attitude much more coherent and responsible by comparison. I wouldn’t go to the lenghts of humiliating the hostages like that but I wouldn’t even talk about “pride” and “heroism” when it’s a matter of individual private decisions can create so many political problems to a whole nation.

I’d understand if it had been political or military personnel being kidnapped. But not private citizens, they have to manage the risks on their own.

There was an almost identical case involving an Australian woman (an opponent of the war) briefly kidnapped near Fallujah. The hostile reactions, led by our PM, were very similar to those reported in Japan.

Just a small complaint, the link to the paper on ” Politics, Institutional Structures and the Rise of Economics.” doesnt’ seem to be functioning.

conrad barwa-
The Fourcade-Gourinchas page will lead you to an entirely lengthy pdf.

I guess I’m always prepared to take my Antigones as I find them, however disposed the details leading to their equally tragic end.

Shorter Peter Ramus: My whole argument is crappy but if I lay on the postmodernism thick enough maybe no one will notice.

Slightly longer, then.

I make a concordance between the acts of these young women and the archetype as set by Antigone; she’s the one famously responsible for her own doom in going against the edicts of authority.

All these stories lead back to the same doomed woman, and serve as my own preferred framing device, in spite of the okami recommended by the New York Times.

The Japanese are right. These hostages risked a major inernational incident to get journalistic goodies for themselves and engage in sentimental do-good work.

We’re the fools. We lionize anyone who gets into trouble, from Rodney King, a chronic alchololic whose subsequent run-ins with the cops regularly get into the papers, to Baby Jessica who won fame and fortune by falling down a well at the age of 18 months. No one asked Baby Jessica’s parents why they happened to have an open shaft in their back yard or why they let her play in the area without supervision and no one worried about the cost of pulling her out and Rodney King’s mot, “Why can’t we all get along” has entered the popular wisdom literature.

The Japanese are right. These hostages risked a major inernational incident to get journalistic goodies for themselves and engage in sentimental do-good work.

We’re the fools. We lionize anyone who gets into trouble,

I had no idea there were so many terrible people in the world. These hostages were taking huge personal risks to help total strangers in dire need. Furthermore, they were aiding us in a cause that many on the right (including presumably the goverment of Japan) assure us is the most important effort in the defeat of terrorism.

It is especially disgusting when partisans of the war party – themselves totally unwilling to take personal risks for the cause – belittle the selflessness of these hostages.
Almost makes you wish there was a hell.

Kendall,

I’d be more convinced of your opinions of Rachel Corrie if you used evidence that wasn’t from a pro-Zionist website. Obviously, they have some vested interests as far as protestors in Israel go.

And further, I don’t care what kind of flag she burned or what sort of protest she engaged in–I see no evidence she ever committed or advocated violence against anyone. She did nothing to deserve her violent death.

Docg,

The photos of Rachel Corrie burning the Stars and Stripes are available at numerous sites on the Internet, some pro- and some anti-Israel. I picked the link that offered two photos at a single url and which had relatively large and clear reproductions? Are you suggesting that the photos aren’t genuine? They were shot by an Arab photographer for AP and were published by Yahoo News, which is where I first saw them. They no longer seem to be (publicly) available on Yahoo (perhaps they may still be, via their archives, for a fee), but they can be readily viewed at a wide variety of pro-Palestinian sites. You would do well to do your homework before embarking on any Indymedia-style conspiracy mongering.

Personally, I am a moderate leftwinger with great sympathy for the Palestinian national cause. But I also support Israel’s right to exist (does that make me “pro-Zionist”?) and I have nothing but contempt for naive ISM “peace activists” who have often ended up “shielding” the homes of terrorists (not to mention their apologists among weblog commenters).

Pepi,

I sympathize with some of the Japanese ex-hostages. One (an 18-year-old!) was simply there to help Iraqi street kids but at least some of the others (in all, five were abducted in two groups) were apparently there for purely political (anti-war) reasons. Did they expect their abductors to be rational and welcome them as supporters? They were all quite naive.

As was Rachel Corrie. Her correspondence reveals her to be a young woman with at least some of her heart in the right place but her head clearly elsewhere. Like many of the other ISMers, she regarded the Israeli Army as “the enemy” but figured that young IDF soldiers would defer to “westerners” in any confrontation. She never entertained the thought that her actions might encourage terrorists (at least a couple of foreign suicide bombers did use the ISM as cover to enter Israel), and while she and her fellow ISMers liked to call themselves “peace activists”, it is obvious that were little more than anti-Israel agitators. In no way does this justify her death (which apparently was an accident), but nor does it make her any sort of martyr.

while she and her fellow ISMers liked to call themselves “peace activists”, it is obvious that were little more than anti-Israel agitators. In no way does this justify her death (which apparently was an accident), but nor does it make her any sort of martyr.

kendall, what I don’t understand is why she has to be made into either a martyr or a treacherous and dangerous anti-Israel agitator. She burned a US flag, so what? she was anti-Israel, so what? She didn’t kill anybody or committed any crimes, apparently, otherwise, she’d have been arrested, no?

If it was an accident it was simply an accident and Corrie is neither a martyr nor a traitor but a victim of an accident, end of story. I can’t imagine the IDF would consider her such a danger that they would set out to purposefully kill her. Clearly there are people who think that. Clearly, by logic, from that premise, they must think her killing was a murder. I don’t share such view, nor have time for any martyr-building of any sort, but neither do I appreciate that people who want to object to that murder theory and martyrification would stoop so low as to consider her as criminal as a terrorist just because of the ideas she supported or expressed!

Both extremes belong to the very same fanatical thinking.

Hostages are another matter. Yes the Japanese may have been naive. That’s a bit different from implying they staged their kidnapping, isn’t it? or that they got what they deserved? or asked for it? why on earth would you say “Did they expect their abductors to be rational and welcome them as supporters?“? They didn’t expect a thing because they didn’t expect to be kidnapped, doh! There’s many companies and individuals who went to Iraq with various jobs. I understand the Japanese government had dissuaded people from going there. But that’s not equal to saying “if you go there, expect to be tortured and don’t make a fuss about it”.

On the other hand, I can partly understand the Japanese reactions of anger at that hostage situation because, even unwillingly, even if their only fault was naivete, the kidnapping caused problems to the government, yes. But again, I don’t see any comparison to Corrie. Corrie went to a war zone with a specific political intent and specific role as an activist. Everybody has political opinions so of course it’s likely some of the Japanese hostages had their own too. So what? Is that enough to compare them? Being kidnapped while doing your job – journalist, NGO worker, film-maker – and being killed during an activist protest are something quite different. I see no crime in either choice, though. That’s the one thing those situations have in common.