Sakoku Japan racist?

[lethargic_man]

I was at "the first picnic of the year" today, hosted by Sam WinoLJoDW. At one point we were talking about the history of Japan, and in particular the period in which Japan was a closed country, with no foreigners permitted in it, and the only westerners allowed to trade with it the Dutch, who were confined to a small island off the south coast. Someone, I forget who, described this policy as racist. I hadn't thought of it that way. Given that this was long before the invention of the concept of a multicultural society, and that no one had any automatic right to enter another country, and that, being an island nation, Japan was not susceptible to the mixing of peoples that happen in countries with land borders, I don't really see this policy as racist provided it was not accompanied by a concept of ethnic elitism.^* (One could argue that lack of exposure to the other allows the demonisation of that other, but I don't think Britain at the time had large numbers of foreigners in it.)

* Hmm, I can see the seeds here of talking myself out of my previous stance...

What do you think?

Comments

[ewx]

The status of the Ainu and expatriot Japanese (if there were any) at the time might be useful distinguishers, if a clear idea of the motivation isn’t available.

[hairyears]

The status of the Ainu - the aboriginal inhabitants of the Home Islands, who are now largely confined to Hokkaido - is of expendable subhumans, useful as undocumented labour in nuclear power stations: inexpensive to employ without film badges, records, or medical care.

That's the scandal we *know* about. Their use in other industries and the death rate by cancer is undocumented, unknown, and a matter of complete indifference to the government and people of Japan.

Those who are considered people.

Lots of people who look Japanese, speak Japanese, have lived and worked for generations in Japan, are known to their co-workers and their neighbours and employers AS Japanese, carry an unutterable secret: they're not really Japanese, they are Korean. They can be deported to Korea, without appeal, at any time: there are reasons why trade union penetration in the low-rent end of Japan's industrial supply-chain is effectively nonexistent. 'Japanese Citizenship' is a racially-defined identity that is not conferred by birth and residence.

It goes very deep. Japan's a country segregated by race and by caste, and severe prejudices still exist: there are reasons why Google streetmap and geoweb data are extremely sensitive matters in Japan - an address or a local family history in a former tannery district disbars you from managerial positions, for reasons you can Google using the search term 'Eta'.

This is now, and people of our own generation: best not to mention the war. Postwar Japanese have got pacifism, and are all the better for it: but there has been no self-examination, no confronting the truth, no change in attitudes, and they are still the same people who committed the atrocities.

So when you ask: 'Are the Japanese racist?' you are going to get some deeply disturbing answers.

The period in history in this LJ post - pre 'black ships', with the Nagasaki Cantonment still in operation - represented a period of consolidation of the caste system, and it might be argued that there was less overt racism; but that's a very difficult argument to sustain.

Me, I like the Japanese people I know in England; but I am well aware of the fact that this small sample of people are living and working *here*, not there. The handful of visiting technicians and managers that I've worked with have been a varied bunch: some of them have, in unguarded moments, revealed shocking attitudes towards the Chinese and Koreans.

[lethargic_man]

Thank you; this is all new to me.

The context of the conversation had been that I was saying the West ought to take more responsibility, by opening Japan up at gunpoint to foreign trade, and then setting it an example for how "civilised" nations treat others, insofar as how Britain, Germany, Russia etc were treating China at the time, for turning Japan from the peaceful society it had been before Commodore Perry arrived on the scene to the monster it became in the first half of the twentieth century.

Your comments shed new light on this.