> So "should not be taken seriously" doesn't sit right with me.
If you're a Japanese citizen, of course you should take them seriously. However, none of us are Japanese citizens. We can afford to not take them seriously because there is quite literally nothing we can do about it.
My claim that they should not be taken seriously is more in the context of our own media. They tend to take what those fringe right-wingers say as representative of the entire country. They do it all the time in fact. You'll hear things like "Japan is racist", they haven't apologized for WW2, or that they're trying to rewrite their history.
No, they're not. None of those things are even remotely true. Their right-wing fringe would like some of those things to happen but they're not even close to being successful in their attempts.
And as far as ignoring their war crimes go, their history text books actually the least nationalistic in Asia, and even less nationalistic than Americas. For proof, see this study done by Stanford University: http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00703/
All that history revisionism nonsense is just that, nonsense. But the fact remains that you have major news organizations reporting the views of these right wingers and portraying them as something that's common in Japan. It's not remotely close to reality. In my experience (from living in Japan for a brief stint), it would be like the BBC interviewing and taking the KKK seriously, then trying to portray America as racist.
It's actually a pretty huge issue that I think needs to be addressed (the way western media portrays "wacky Japan") and I've been thinking about doing a piece on it myself.
If you're a Japanese citizen, of course you should take them seriously. However, none of us are Japanese citizens. We can afford to not take them seriously because there is quite literally nothing we can do about it.
My claim that they should not be taken seriously is more in the context of our own media. They tend to take what those fringe right-wingers say as representative of the entire country. They do it all the time in fact. You'll hear things like "Japan is racist", they haven't apologized for WW2, or that they're trying to rewrite their history.
No, they're not. None of those things are even remotely true. Their right-wing fringe would like some of those things to happen but they're not even close to being successful in their attempts.
See here for how Japan is actually one of the top 20 least racist countries in the world: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...
And as far as ignoring their war crimes go, their history text books actually the least nationalistic in Asia, and even less nationalistic than Americas. For proof, see this study done by Stanford University: http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00703/
All that history revisionism nonsense is just that, nonsense. But the fact remains that you have major news organizations reporting the views of these right wingers and portraying them as something that's common in Japan. It's not remotely close to reality. In my experience (from living in Japan for a brief stint), it would be like the BBC interviewing and taking the KKK seriously, then trying to portray America as racist.
It's actually a pretty huge issue that I think needs to be addressed (the way western media portrays "wacky Japan") and I've been thinking about doing a piece on it myself.