A response to the Gaijin Ura Crime File publisher’s editorial on why he published it
Metropolis/Japan Today have been kind enough to provide Shigeki Sakai, the editor at Eichi Publishing Company who was responsible for the publication of Foreigner Underground Crime File, with some space to respond to his critics. As one of the bloggers that led a response to mr. Sakai’s magazine, I feel that I should respond to his editorial:
If you’re a regular reader of Metropolis, you’ll notice something unusual about this “Last Word” article: there is no photo of me, the author. That’s because ever since publishing a magazine called Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu (Foreigner Underground Crime File) last month, I have been subject to a campaign of harassment. In particular, some emails I’ve received have been quite vicious—and have included threats to my life.
I have to admit that, although the ferocity of this reaction has surprised me, the basic emotions have not. The topic of foreigner crime is taboo in Japan, with people on both sides of the issue distorting the facts and letting their feelings get the better of them.
Mr. Sakai, I really hope you went to the police about those alleged threats on your life, and that they are looking for those responsible. Death threats against you are totally uncalled for, and I hope that the people who sent these threats [if they exist] do not get away with their illegal actions.
I can’t speak for others who opposed your magazine’s sale in konbinis, but I don’t think I’ve been overly emotional in my postings about your magazine. If there are any facts that I have distorted in my postings about your magazine, please feel free to contact me and let me know exactly what they are, so that I can correct them.
On the Japanese side, the “foreign criminal” is a beast who lurks everywhere and wants nothing more than to destroy Japanese people and their way of life. Whether it’s a North Korean agent kidnapping our daughters or a Chinese thief invading our homes, many Japanese are convinced that foreigners should be treated with suspicion and fear. This attitude makes it impossible to have an informed conversation about where real foreign criminals come from, or the reason they commit their crimes. In fact, one of my goals in publishing Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu was to help begin a frank discussion of the issue.
If you wanted to promote informed conversation or frank discussion, you could have chosen a more serious format for your magazine. Instead you put evil-looking foreign caricatures on its cover along with the phrase “Are Gaijin devasting Japan?” The overall tone of your magazine is sensationalist, and it is laughable to think you were trying to promote balanced and informed conversation on the issue of crime by non-Japanese.
On the other side, many foreigners consider any suggestion that they engage in lewd or criminal behavior to be an unacceptable insult. This can be seen quite clearly in the reaction our magazine elicited in the Western media, and especially in the online community. The army of bloggers who bullied Family Mart convenience stores into removing Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu from their shelves have decided for everyone else that this book is so dangerous that it cannot be read. Yet I wonder how many of these puroshimin, or “professional civilians,” have read—or even seen—the magazine. I suppose the same right to free speech they claim for themselves should not extend to those who might want to buy and read our publication.
I have never called this book dangerous, nor have I said that people should have not the right to read it. I support the stocking of this publication on large online retailers like Amazon.co.jp, since you have a right to publish whatever you want and sell it through retailers that have a policy of promoting freedom of speech by selling any legal materials. You might have a right to publish sensationalist xenophobic magazines, but that doesn’t obligate stores such as FamilyMart to include such magazines in their very limited offering of literature.
Personally, I doubt more than a few dozen people contacted FamilyMart and Circle K Sunkus about the magazine and complained. Under normal circumstances, it would be very rare for such a small number of complaints to warrant the yanking of a magazine from the shelves of hundreds of stores. It seems to me that many of the convenience stores were not fully aware of just how sickening your magazine’s contents were, and once they were informed of these contents, they were quite willing to pull your magazine.
What these people are ignoring is a simple truth: there are no lies, distortions or racist sentiments expressed in Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu. All the statistics about rising crime rates are accurate, and all the photographs show incidents that actually occurred.
Nobody has denied that the photographs are real or that the statistics you mention are fabcricated. The main objection is with the sensational manner in which you present them.
For instance, it is true that on June 19, 2003, three Chinese nationals murdered a Japanese family—a mother, father and two children aged 8 and 11—and dumped their bodies into a canal in Fukushima. It’s true that Brazilians and Chinese account for over half of the crimes committed by foreigners in Japan. It’s true that American guys grope their Japanese girlfriends daily on the streets of Tokyo.
Guess what? Japanese people commit crimes too! Can you believe it? Did you also know that Brazilians and Chinese also account for a huge percentage of Japan’s foreign population? How stunning it must be to find out that Brazilians and Chinese are also responsible for a large percentage of the crimes committed by foreigners!
About the groping thing: Could you please collect some statistics about the number of incidents involving American/Japanese couples engaging in consentual groping in public vs. consentual groping between consenting Japanese couples? Better yet, how about some statistics on the chikan problem. Maybe you could ge the deputy director of Tokyo University to speak on the issue of how foreigners should be singled out for groping.
That’s not to say that some of the criticism leveled at Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu is unreasonable. Bloggers have called attention to a few of our crime scene photographs, in which we have blurred the faces of Japanese people but not those of foreigners. Let me respond by saying that, if we had covered up the foreigners’ faces, the reader wouldn’t be able to recognize them as foreign, and the illustrative power of the image would be lost.
Nothing says “illustrative power of the image” better than protecting the identities of all the Japanese people in a photo, but not doing the same for the foreigners.
Another criticism I have heard involves our use of the term niga, which appears in the caption of a photo showing a black man feeling up his Japanese girlfriend on the street. I would like to stress that this term has none of the emotive power in Japanese that the N-word does in English—and to translate it as such is unfair. Instead, “niga” is Japanese street slang, just like the language used in the other captions on the same page.
As David pointed out this morning, you are completely ignoring the context in which “niga” was used. It seems pretty clear from your comments on the use of the N-word that you are completely clueless about this particular detail, so there really isn’t much point in trying to convince you that it’s not unoffensive “street slang” to use the word “niga” when addressing a black man and telling him to stop consentually touching the butt of a Japanese girl.
Finally, some critics point to the absence of advertisements in Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu as evidence that we are financed by a powerful and rich organization. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason there are no ads in the magazine is because we couldn’t find any sponsors who wanted to be part of such a controversial project. However, in one way I wish we did have the backing of such an influential group: I would feel a lot safer if I could count on them for security!
I have never made such suggestions. I completely accept your explanation that no ads were run in the magazine because no sponsors wanted to have their ads alongside your content.
Having been given this opportunity to share a message with Tokyo’s foreign community, I would like to stress three points.
First, before foreigners rush to accuse me and my staff of racism, or to label our publication a typical example of Japanese xenophobia, I would ask that they consider how quick their own culture is to view the Japanese as subhuman. In World War II you labeled us “monkeys,” and in the Bubble years you considered us “economic predators.”
I haven’t labeled your publication as a typical example of anything. Bringing up the historical examples of anti-Japanese feeling in America is ridiculous, and it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Second, as our country becomes increasingly globalized and more foreigners come here to live and work, the Japanese will be forced to confront the challenges of a pluralistic society. Only by honestly discussing this issue and all it entails can we prepare our culture for this radical change.
Finally, if we can manage to openly discuss the issue of foreign crime in Japan, we will have the opportunity to address our own problems as well. Sure, we could continue to run away from the topic and remove books from shelves, but in doing so we are losing the chance to become more self-aware. What we need to understand is that by having a conversation about violent and illegal behavior, we’re really talking about ourselves—not as “Japanese” or “foreigners,” but as human beings.
I completely agree that the Japanese are being forced to confront the challenges of a pluralistic society as globalization becomes a reality. However, I don’t see how a for-profit magazine full of sensationalist images and articles is a good example of furthering debate on this issue. It would be great if your magazine could have focused on the idea of human beings in general commiting crimes, but you clearly singled out foreign criminals, and added ridiculous and racist pictures for “illustrative power.”
It was a nice attempt to transform yourself from an editor trying to profit off xenophobic sentiment with a sensationalist magazine to a bullied champion of freedom of speech and intelligent debate, but I don’t think it worked, man.
For other good responses to Sakai’s editorial:
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An encounter with the Foreigner Crime File in Fukuoka |
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“Bringing up the historical examples of anti-Japanese feeling in America is ridiculous, and it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.”
Excuse me? Is that all you can say about that? Do you mind telling me how in hell anti-Japanese feeling in America thoughout the history has nothing to do with the issue at hand? Isn’t the issue at hand about Japanese racism?
So lemme get this: it’s okay to qualify as a cause for boycott the selling of a racist magazine, but ridiculous to bring into discussion the issue of anti-Japanese feeling on a much larger scale, might I add, in the US? No, my dear James, the only one being ridiculous here, I’m afraid, is you.
bakachan:
The issue at hand is about a Japanese publication that singles out and sensationalizes crime by foreigners. The racism shown by Americans towards Japan during WW2, while horrible and worthy of condemnation, happened over 60 years ago. Our grandfathers may have thought that the Japanese are subhuman savage monkeys, but I hardly see how you can use that to negate criticism of racism and xenophobia that is going on today.
He also seemed to tie the fears of Japanese economic power during the bubble era into the whole idea of thinking the Japanese are subhuman. As far as I know, most of that movement had more to do about trying to protect under-performing domestic businesses from being defeated or bought out by Japanese firms than it did with any racism.
Of course there is racism in America. There is racism in every country on this planet. America has a lot of race issues, but I guarantee you that no national convenience store would ever be able to stock a magazine with the sole purpose of singling out and sensationalizing crimes by foreigners living in the USA without catching some serious flak from the media and consumers. It’s up to people living in America, including foreigners in America, to work to improve race relations in America. As I have moved to Japan and as far as I can tell it will remain my home for the foreseeable future, I am trying to help improve this country.
You’re absolutely right, James.
While I have a deep affection for Japan and its history, there are a couple of points that need to be made here.
First, it is true that there was extreme racism against the Japanese in the US during and shortly after WWII and this was wrong. The US has apologized for the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during the War and the US has been very open about its racism. You’ll notice, Bakachan, that it is quite easy to engage Americans on the subject of American racism and that, almost to a man, they agree that the US has race problems and a history of racism.
However, the US and Japan were engaged in a total war. The largest war human history has seen. Japan’s depictions of Americans at the time were remarkably similar to American depictions of the Japanese. The only real differences seem to be that the Japanese were portrayed as small, nefarious monkeys, whereas Americans were portrayed as big, hairy, womanizing apes.
Unlike the US, Japan has neither apologized for nor confronted this issue.
Second, James is absolutely correct in pointing out that the issue of 外人犯罪裏ファイル is a separate issue.
The issue at hand is a current, not an historical one. America’s racism of the WWII era no more justifies Mr. Sakai’s abject racism today than Japan’s treatment of POWs during the war would justify American torture, starvation, or murder today.
There are many things to admire about Japan, but tolerance is not one of them. If the strawman if hyopcritical comparison is to be drawn up, Japan would do well to keep as quiet as possible. There’s no way Japan is going to come out on top in such a comparison vis a vis any Western country.
RACISM is everywhere in every country and only the ignorant, lazy, uninformed, and “mean” people would promote it in ANY form! and I have to find that link again, but, there is a USA name attached to this publication … and that manga was/is just VULGAR! from any angle … it does not promote ANYTHING useful! Even if it was about native nihonjin! Shame on Japan mangaka for such … gonna say it .. CRAP!
I really want to get a copy of this magazine now!
Someone should make a “Nihonjin Crime File” for laughs.
@bakachan:
The “so do you” distraction is a lame and ineffective counterargument. Where racism exists in America, let all those who live there challenge it and fight against it. The fact that some Americans are racist does not disqualify an American resident in Japan from speaking out against racism in Japan. Likewise, the fact that some Japanese bigot published this comic and that some Japanese enjoy reading such trash does not disqualify Japanese people from speaking out against racism elsewhere.
BTW, bakachan, why do you use a fake blog address? I doubt that you are photographer who speaks Romanian and has lived in Romania. We’re all friends here. No need to hide behind fake addresses.
Garrett
I agree with you most of parts. In particular I think Japan should confront racial issue before it is going to serious. The eariler the better.
“However, the US and Japan were engaged in a total war. The largest war human history has seen. Japan’s depictions of Americans at the time were remarkably similar to American depictions of the Japanese. The only real differences seem to be that the Japanese were portrayed as small, nefarious monkeys, whereas Americans were portrayed as big, hairy, womanizing apes.”
I agree.
“Unlike the US, Japan has neither apologized for nor confronted this issue.”
But here I am not sure what you are trying to compare.
I know the amercians pows were mistreated (And I think you know the fate of some Japanese pows.)But did Japananese government intern American-Japanese in Japan at the time?
James,
Have you actually read you issue of Gaijin Hanzai Ura File? I mean beyond the cover and a few sentences or words here and there. I think while you might have good intentions, you have completely missed the point of the magazine.
This might be hard for you to believe, but Gaijin Hanzai Ura File is funny. I’m dead serious. It’s actually a comedy. Some people might find this style of comedy to be tasteless, but all comedians have their critics.
Lets look at Ali G’s character Borat. We can all agree that he is a bigoted racist. He constantly makes fun of Jews and Gypsies saying horrible things about them, and people laugh. Not all people laugh though. Some just don’t like it and some only watch a minute or so of his act and decide they need to write letters to governments, boycott shows, ect. Sound familiar?
But you still don’t believe me about the mad do you? Well let’s look at some of the pages together. First, how about that cover. If that’s not an intro to a serious piece about gaijin crime I don’t know what is. All the goofy faces and big scary fonts, it may as well be MAD magazine.
Everyone, next please turn to page 102, my favorite. Oh no! It’s delinquent foreigners kissing girls in public! What is the world coming to?! The caption in the bottom right corner says, “Damn- he’s a good kisser!”, and on the next page you find phrases like “This is the Emperor’s park” with pic of a guy with his shirt off, and a great one that says “Hey, hey hey, would you please stop fingering girls on the street”.
Yeah, this all sounds pretty serious J Have you ever heard of sarcasm. If you can’t laugh at that, then I guess this magazine is not directed at you.
Yes, he is taking the piss out foreigners, but he’s also taking the piss out of you. He’s getting hate mail and death threats from FOREIGNERS because of this. Are you still missing the irony? The interview in Metropolis is funny too because the guy doesn’t try to defend it as comedy, he plays it cool, and lets guys like you get all worked up and promote his work for him. You are creating a buzz, not him. You know I wouldn’t have even looked at the thing if it hadn’t been for all this bullshit. You need to lighten up and learn to laugh a bit. But thanks for turning me on to a good magazine.
This is the crazy rhetoric that we as foreigners face every day. It is not only this Nazi magazine that is causing us harm. It is the everyday discriminiation that we face. In our work and in our everyday lives.
We need to form a group that has politcal power. Not extremist like the jack asses in the black vans but a group that will protect us from discrimination. You can see what we can achieve by peaceful protest in numbers. We need to have a place or a group that we can rely on when these types of issues arise.
We need an advocate that can request peacefully that we as a minority recieve equal rights and equal protection. There are anti-discrimination laws in Japan but they are over looked and ignored. I feel that it is time that we make a voice for ourselves.
Any ideas out there on what we can do to organize?
Jeremy
It might be a good idea that you make a film for an educational purpose in which you depict your sadness—-this is important because, IMO, it is not anger that appeals to Japanese but sadness that impresses Japanese—–at the time when you faced the everyday descriminations in Japan.
I would like to respond to a few of the comments above. While I think that Nanpa actually makes a point that has some validity–the comic intention of the mook had not been discussed at this site or sites to which Japan Probe refers on this issue before Nanpa made the comment–I also think that the action on the part of those who protested the mook was warranted. This is because not all derisive and insulting humor is of the same fabric, and the sort of which Gaijin Hanzai File is stitched together is, unlike the presumably analogous cases of Ali G and Mad Magazine, presented vigorously as factual, constructive, social documentation and criminology. Then again, the action of those who protested was successful already as concerns the one publication and, as Nanpa suggests, one risks taking the matter too far. Think only of the lawsuit by the Fox Network against Al Franken that made Franken’s book soar in popularity before it was even available for sale,
I am not as convinced as Debito that the action was successful because of the threat of the boycott. While not dismissing that factor altogether, I would give more weight to another point he made, which is that the magazine’s hatefulness was in clear evidence to those who inspected it, and that, since they had no financial loss to fear for rejecting it, they were able to act on their conscience. But they also likely acted out of concern for a perceived threat of bad publicity, which is likely a more powerful persuader than the threat of boycott by a very small minority and should therefore be tendered alongside threats of boycotting. Since, as Jeremy says interestingly enough, Japanese do not respond well to anger, and since no one can presume that they will respond any more cheerfully to sick jokes had at the expense of a presumably homogeneous group any more than most of you have done, I think Roaf’s comment, where he says, “Someone should make a “Nihonjin Crime File” for laughs,” misses an important point, which is this: to do that would be to give the mook magazine credit for what it is not, which is to say, a work of criminology or constructive social debate. The proper antinomy for “gaijin hanzai” is NOT “nihonjin hanzai.” Those two notions are not symmetrical. The abnormality that Mr. Saka rages against is not, in fact, actual crime or crime statistics, it is the abnormality that all paranoid right-wingers rage against: the crime of being different from a perceived majority. For Mr. Saka and people who share his pathology, being “gaijin” is already an execrable state–one that is akin to criminality (as all criminality is by nature asocial). That is why Mr. Saka consistently shows himself to be unable to identify with the perspective of anyone who is “gajin.” Doing so is what keeps him “pure” and keeps “gaijin” by definition menacing and terrifying. This pathology is in evidence despite the comic exaggeration of many parts of the magazine Mr. Saka tries to justify.
In conclusion, a truly balanced (and constructive) reply to the evocation of “gaijin hanzai” would be a magazine that, making no reference to “gaijin hanzai” or to magazines that exploit that notion for the sake of profit, focuses on positive things foreign-born residents do in Japan. Showing that “gaijin” are not in fact outside of society and its norms is the proper response. And that is the kind of focus that needs to enter Japanese press more often, in my opinion. When a foreigner in Japan commits a heinous crime, note that the news organizations feel no compunction at immediately linking the crime to the question of immigration (as if “immigration” could explain the nature or cause of the crime in question). However, how often have you seen on Japanese media of whatever type the story of a foreigner having done a good deed or contributed to society be linked to “the question of immigration”? My assessment is that it doesn’t happen. It would be interesting, precisely for that reason, if it did happen. That, I feel, would be a constructive way of replying to Gaijin Hanzai File and to the mentality that it exemplifies and promotes. In short, a constructive reply would not mimic the stupidity of the mook, nor take too small a target (a single editor of a single magazine) at the risk of awarding it with profit and public interest, but would counteract the mentality that shapes it.
Ponta,
I am already thinking of doing that. On Youtube there are several films like that. I would like to do a documentary or something in that fashion showing this kind of attitude to the world.
I read fun fact in a seperate article about this magazine. It was that because there were no advertisers in the magazine, that the publisher paid for it out of his pocket. So Mr. Saka is out about 25 million yen, according to the article. That is a very expensive lesson for him to learn. Also if they are dropping this kind of coin into a magazine, you must assume that the money had to come from some kind of Right Wing group or something.
Ohhhhh… Mr. Saka you have a lot of explaining to do.
Jermy
Thanks
“I would like to do a documentary or something in that fashion showing this kind of attitude to the world.”
I hope at least you try to show it to Japanese first.
The point is not to make Japanese people shamed by the world—that would make it hard for Japanese to get the understanding— , but to make them critically think there are issues, and Japanese society would be much better society without whatever attitudes you will depict.
I am impressed by terrette’s insight.
sorry to say this but shigeki sakai has every right to publish his magazine as long as there is nothing illegal about what he says (free speech means freedom to say anything) and the system works well cos we get the chance to have our say. Of course it would be better to publish a magazine that shows the positive contribution that the non japanese population to japan make but thats up to you or whoever to do. But you have to remember this is the country that has had the Minister of Health say that women are baby making machines and the Minister of Education say that human rights is like fatty foods, too much is not good. In a free society you say what you want, but be prepared to face the consequences of what you say.