Racist, sexist Japanese politicians

* To be honest with you, I don't like tarnishing the image of Japan, because I love the culture of respect people have towards each other here. Where this respect crosses the line into refined hypocrisy is sometimes difficult to tell, but that quality is unfortunately not globally restricted to Japan or the peoples that inhabit this island. But the way the upper echelons of the people's elected representatives (called "politicians") are reacting to this whole emperor succession business has gone too far. These people are blatantly sexist and racist, and no-one raises a finger. Remember, this is a constitutional monarchy-cum-democracy. You not only have the right to criticise, but a duty to advance your society by pointing things out that are wrong.


* There has been a debate over changing the male-dominated emperor succession tree to allow the enthroning of a female Empress. Considering no men have been born into the royal family since the 60s, a major debate has been going on about reversing this very traditionalist way of thinking. Politicians are bitterly opposed to it, as pointed out in today's Washington Post (reporting something accurately, for a change) reporting a comment by ex-minister and ruling party strongman Hiranuma who put things in context very succinctly:

" "If Aiko becomes the reigning empress, and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may be the emperor," Takeo Hiranuma, a top member of Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and head of a bloc of politicians opposed to female monarchs, said last week. "We should never let that happen." ". More here.

Never did it cross their mind that a male emperor could marry a blue-eyed half-Russian girl from Eastern Russia, and their child may be the emperor. This unveils the good old myth that Japanese women are pathologically vulnerable to blue-eyed "foreigner" deception (good thing all non-Japanese have blue eyes, including the Chinese and the Sudanese), but it also shows the gulf of perception as compared to inter-country royal marriages that have a long tradition in Europe.


* I can understand posturing on issues of territoriality (such as what we have also from as close as China or Korea) coming from nationalists such as Tokyo governor Ishihara. I can also understand the age-old idea that a foreigner is easy to pick out and be inherently dismissed from the conversation, even though most "foreigners" in Japan are full-blooded Asians.

But another question begs to be answered: what would happen if a future Japanese emperor/empress married a Chinese girl/guy? Now that would be something. Such a terrible mix-breed also "may be an emperor"! Stop boring me with details: you are just plain sexist and racist. This has nothing to do with succession. Like with endangered species, if a lineage is doomed with extinction, human communities revert to survival, and to maintain the succession unbroken is priority no.1.

Stop fooling around with what amounts to the world's longest ruling imperial dynasty... open up the possibility book and continue this proud lineage without partisan politics. That is the true hallmark of cultural respect and preservation, for the future generation of Japanese. As representatives of the Japanese nation, legislate accordingly, or step aside now.