Japan: our brotherly neighbours?

You will hear about Japan’s declining population more over the next two-plus decades.

I just hope they do not decide to push for a baby boom like they did in the post-war. That is not the solution.

As an isolated nation, cultural identity has been a main point of contention. To allow immigration is something that is fiercely avoided and looks to continue so for a long time to come. This won’t help in their path to “re-”population of course, but neither should panic.

In this day and age isolation should not be an option. Borders should be deleted. The planet hasn’t literally gotten smaller, but rather “getting around” has been a lot easier and so people (people often said to be of an-other culture) on the opposite of the world are no longer strangers but should be seen as our neighbours.

If Japan is to play its part in the international arena then it must also learn to accept that opening up its borders is not only brotherly but also practical. Japan needs to learn to see themselves as part of the global family. Any kind of physical isolation or call for genetic purity amounts to racial segregation, something not tolerated today but nonetheless still exists.

The question therefore is one of whether there is ethnicity or is this a fallacy. The process of “mixing” in the real sense is a problem that we ask now but must be answered by the next few generations. In today’s political climate where religion is separating us we must ask whether the gods really intended to be this way.

We must also believe we are all brothers and sisters on this planet we call home. Otherwise we are doomed to conflict and intolerance. And this has gone on for far too long already.

Australia, Nature and CO2

I once used to decontruct (macro-)discourses with vigour. But that was until I was attacked by one particular reader who took offence to her nation being the target.

I had no intention of singling out her country, of course. It just so happened her country had a particular policy that uses a phrase I thought quite dangerous, influencing the way others think – with-in and with-out. The Buddhist side in me also agrees. For right speech (in Buddhist terms) is quite difficult. One must always be careful what they say for its consequences, now and in the future.

Anyway, I had never intended to single out her country only. To prove this I will now criticize a nation that I have called home for more than half my life – Australia.

This recent article highlights the fact that Australia, a country which prides itself of its nature shows just how hypocritical and blind they really are. Like all developed nations their high-consumption lifestyle simply does not match their national discourse.

The fact that Australia and the US, only two nations which did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, are respectively (but without respect) Number One and Two on this list of worst emitters should not be surprising.

For me the Australian discourse on nature is one where we have it (it own) and will take advantage of it for gain. Continuing on about respect, it is a lack of respect which seems to mark their discourse. But they are not the only ones. America (I am using the term to mean American discourse) also seems to be without true respect.

Respect for something ultimately means not taking advantage of something. To cut to the chase, ownership is a big question – who exactly owns nature? The things that are lying around is not exactly “ours” since we did not “acquire” it. And how do you acquire it in the first place? What is to say that tree the logger just cut down isn’t “owned” by the creatures that use it for food, shelter and livelihood.

No, what is out there belongs to everything and not to any one person. The way we share the space with other life – let alone with other people – is something which seriously needs to be looked at, whether practically or philosophically.

Sure, Australia by the physical location had been isolated enough to escape human influence for most of history (not human history but time). And the lack of migration (by accident, design or both) has meant they can still call themselves “The Lucky Country”.

But exactly for how long?

If Australia’s ecological blindness to carbon is any indication that self-designated title may soon be gone.