Quote:
Originally Posted by cranks
From the sociological view, Religion IS culture. And I totally agree with you. We should be able to discuss about it. I think Christianity and Muslim are A LOT more unforgiving, though they have a lot of good quality too, but the talk of religion is forbidden on this forum so I won't go into that.
Japanese beliefs are not explicitly expressed as a faith, but people are actually pretty religious in their own way. I just want some respect. Not to me, but to other Japanese people. Really. I BEG you to respect other cultures. It's hard, I know. But unless we try, there is only war.
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I just can't believe where you are taking this debate. What is happening in Taiji is not about culture it's about good old simple greed. Some local fisherman have worked out a way to help protect their fish stocks by killing off a whole lot predators that eat fish and to make some money off selling the meat. I personally don't have any big problem with this at all. Good on them!
One thing this is not is some huge cultural issue. What you don't seem to get cranks is that Japan is intricately part of the international community. Japan, even in it's own country, can't just do anything it wants without criticism. No country can. Countries all over the world come under criticism all the time for things they do in their own countries.
During the previous government in Australia, a very conservative government, they cracked down massively on asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat. I personally was appalled at their policies and so were many in the international community. Some Australians claimed other countries had no right to tell us how we should manage our borders. I disagreed, we needed to be told we were doing the wrong thing as good sense seem to have left many of the Australian public after years of quite effective government propaganda. One thing they never claimed though was that the attacks on the policies from other countries were racist!
I'm not saying the Taiji issue is some major international issue for Japan because in reality it's not. It's only some very vocal and well organised animal rights groups making a lot of noise. I haven't exactly heard of any foreign governments putting any pressure on Japan over the issue. Yes there has been pressure to drop the whaling outside of Japanese waters but that's a whole other issue.
The thing I see from the somewhat ridiculous arguments you are putting forward though is an incredible defensiveness and intolerance to any criticism from anyone outside of Japan or anyone who is not Japanese. And using cultural excuses and the racism card to deflect the criticism away from the actual issue, the slaughter of dolphins, and try and make into something else. If you think there is something so incredibly special about Japanese culture and the Japanese people that make it and them immune from criticism then it is you who seems to have the superiority complex. Being part of an international community means you will be criticised now and again, for gods sake get used to it and stop being so defensive about it!
And trying to discredit my views because I'm not fluent in the language well look I've lived here almost 7 years. I do speak a reasonable amount of Japanese and I do have lots of very good Japanese and western friends who are completely fluent in speaking, reading and writing in English and Japanese. I don't live in an information vacuum because of my lack of fluency and I don't just get one side of the story. And I certainly didn't just get my information on Taiji from The Cove. I haven't even seen the movie!
