Chomper Higgot

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793653970/Embedded-Racism-Japan’s-Visible-Minorities-and-Racial-Discrimination-Second-Edition And a bit about the author: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debito_Arudou

While I don’t assign much weight to ‘anecdotes’ for the reasons I have frequently explained, I will describe a sequence of events from my own experience that is bang on topic. In the spring of 1997 I received my first posting to Japan I arrived in the middle of May to live and work in Kobe. As I’m sure you are aware it was an opportunity not to be missed. I was treated very well in the work place, and assigned a delightful young lady PA, who told me her job was to help me settle in. That was a good start. Then it got weird. On day 2 she came see me with a rather concerned look on her face. I was to be taken to see the company’s lawyer. After checking my passport and asking some questions about were I was staying he said we must go to the police station. I assumed it to be work permit/foreign resident registration issue. No, it was serious. It was a murder inquiry. At police station my documents were examined, I was asked the same questions about were I was staying and if I had any additional evidence of not being in Japan on May 16th. I had arrived late on the 17th. Also at the police station were half a dozen other foreigners, all looking just as concerned as I obviously looked. The cause of this was a schoolboy had been murdered at a nearby school and his severed head left outside the school gate. My alibi was solid so back to work I went. Just over a week later I was again taken back to the police station with lawyer by my side. Again question, again my same solid alibi and again other foreigners queuing for the same treatment. I did not known to me at the time, letters written in Japanese weee arriving at newspaper publishers claiming responsibility. But the police were looking for a foreigner as the culprit. Parents with children were acting with clear fear around me and my foreign colleagues when out and about in town and I was on more than one occasion refused entry to shopping centers. A month or so later the police caught the culprit, a Japanese school boy. To me an experience which perfectly encapsulates the xenophobic attitudes in Japanese society - heinous crime, it must have been a foreigner. The denial of xenophobia in Japanese society is very clearly nonsense. There are xenophobes everywhere, Japan has more than its fair share.

You did read the link I posted? Oh and there’s this: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/02/minister-sorry-as-veterans-find-id-card-not-valid-for-english-elections

Maybe this is more to your liking: https://cers.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/97/2016/04/The-myth-of-“Nihonjinron”-homogeneity-of-Japan-and-its-influence-on-the-society-Kana-Yamamoto.pdf

Laws once on the statute books have a habit of having long term impacts. The norms of Government behavior today are very different than even a decade ago, who knows what the future will bring.

Amongst the testimony Daniels might give is her account of her and her family being threatened for giving testimony against Trump.

When did I ever say there are countries where you can go and participate in National Elections? I did not. Feel free to go back and check.

I believe Rachel’s wife has spoken on how proud she is of Rachel and their marriage. They seem like a very happy couple.

I’m not convinced the positives outweigh the negatives. There is issue of Governments being in control of what becomes an essential means to obtain essential services. I have on a number of occasions lived and worked in countries in which ID cards are mandated. The period between applying and texting ID is very special kind of purgatory in which the applicant is essentially a ‘non-person’, unable to access bank facilities, rent accommodation, access medical care or even simple things like obtaining a phone SIM card or buy a rail season ticket. I’m sure the idea of such restrictions on immigrants would appeal to our resident racists and xenophobes but at a society level they inevitably lead to abuse of immigrants and increases in crime by people who are excluded. I like the idea of the citizens choosing the Government rather than citizenship being something that Governments can withhold by refusing to issue or by canceling an ID card.

Nope, I didn’t say that at all. Feel free to go back and check.

He’s already setting up his excuses for November, including putting the justification for violence if he doesn’t win,

Did I say that? Was life in Thailand even the topic of discussion?

The fact you wish to frame the issue in terms of your own personal views on immigration is not addressing xenophobia in Japan. I could do a you say I say counter argument offering up my own anecdotal accounts from having lived and worked in Japan, I choose rather to go to the research: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368363544_Racism_in_Japan_Critical_Analysis_on_Japan's_Xenophobia_and_Racial_Discrimination

How does that address the allegation of xenophobia?

Xenophobia as an argument in favor of Japanese xenophobia. That’s probably not new.

He’s not going to ever admit to being beneath the law.

It’s clearly not fake news if the veteran card was not accepted.

Correct. And the ‘acceptable’ documents are heavily weighted in favor of those commonly used by demographic groups who tend to vote Tory, while similar documents commonly carried by demographic groups who tend not to vote Tory are not acceptable. It’s gerrymandering, clear and simple.

I just gave an example.

Japan is struggling with a collapsing population unable to care for the millions of old. It’s not the idyl you imagine. How you got from Biden, through Japan to Islington is a mystery.

He’s right.

The Victorians, those people who rocked up in boats in other places around the world demanding a warm welcome and free access to what ever riches they found there? There is little evidence that the (western) Roman Empire was ‘rotten’ at its the time of its fall.

As do a number of eastern countries too.

It’s not. Things are simply changing, like they always have, like they always will.

This end of civilization as we know it thing isn’t actually a thing.