Anti-anti-racism and Japan.

Among the anti-immigration crowd and their anti-anti-racism fellow travellers, there's a particular argument that strikes me as rather weak even for them. This one is a regular favourite of our old friend Mr. Woods, who usually hits somebody with it every month or two because he doesn't have that many talking points to cycle through.

It goes something like this: somebody denounces nativist ideology as racist (because it is). To which the retort is offered: Oh yeah? What about Japan? Are you calling Japan racist?

I suppose the gotcha is supposed to be that Japan can't be racist because they're not white. But of course that's absurd. There are volumes of commentary on how deeply ingrained a sort of racialist supremacy mindset is in Japanese culture, to the point of widespread discrimination and hostility even against non-ethnic Japanese who've lived there for generations, such as ethnic Koreans and the indigenous Ainu on Hokkaido. By modern Western standards, Japan is pretty damn racist.

But there's a deeper point at play here: ethno-nationalists love to cite Japan as their model to aspire to, both on immigration and economic policy. As Dr. Phil would say: how's that working out for them? They're being bankrupted by an ageing and shrinking population, and their economy has been so stagnant under the weight of rampant corporate cronyism and protectionism that the term "Lost Decade" was coined to describe it. A term which you increasingly see used in the plural.

My point is not just to dump on Japan; there are certainly plenty of nice things about the country and its people which one could admire. But the idea that policies promoted by the alt-right have been successful there is hogwash. Yes, Japan has pursued ethno-nationalist and "economic nationalist" policies, and the results have been terrible. "Let's be more like Japan" is a ridiculous argument, and "Japan isn't racist" is a just plain ignorant argument.

Then again, it's also not the first time advocates of a blood-and-soil ideology have thought they have an exemplary ally in Tokyo.