Environmental or nationalist?

 
An article in Japan Today concerning protests against the horrendous slaughter of dolphins in Japan highlights how such issues can divide environmentalists and nationalists.  Environmentalists are motivated by universalism and a concern for the earth as a whole.  It brings people together in a common cause.  Nationalism see things from a narrow-minded viewpoint predicated on cultural values and national interests.  It’s characterised by division and conflict.

Since the Meiji ‘construction’ of Shinto as a tool of state, the religion has been considered by some as ‘a religion of Japaneseness’.  For that reason it often lines up on the wrong side of environmental issues, such as whaling, dolphins and the nuclear issue.  This is hard to understand for those who see the religion as simply nature worship.

As the environmental crisis worsens in the twenty-first century, Shinto will have to choose between a backward-looking nationalism and progressive environmentalism.  Borders have little meaning in a global age, and neither dolphins nor nuclear radiation pay any attention to them.  With the spread of Shinto to the West, it’s the green side of Shinto that will prevail, and hopefully within Japan too a new generation will shrug off the ugly associations of the past.

(Protests against the Taiji slaughter are being organised worldwide, including London, Sao Paulo, Vancouver and across the United States,)

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Activists rally in Tokyo against dolphin hunt
NATIONAL SEP. 01, 2013   AFP  TOKYO —

Environmentalists staged a rally in Tokyo Saturday to protest the start of Japan’s annual dolphin hunt, which was made infamous by an Academy Award-winning documentary.

The rally organizer, Action for Marine Mammals, said it was one a number of demonstrations taking place around the world this weekend ahead of the season’s hunt in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji.

About 50 activists gathered in central Tokyo carrying banners that read: “Stop the slaughter.”

“Japanese people are responsible for stopping our country’s barbarian dolphin hunt,” said Toshiaki Morioka, head of the group, adding that some of his members planned to travel Taiji later.

The village drew global attention after “The Cove”, a hard-hitting film about the annual dolphin hunt, won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2010.

Fishermen corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay, select a few dozen for sale to aquariums and slaughter the rest for meat. The dolphin hunt takes place over a period of months.

Marching side by side with the environmentalists, a dozen Japanese nationalists shouted through loudhailers: “Get out of Japan! Hypocrites!”

The nationalists accused the environmentalists of undermining Japanese culture and traditions, labeling the demonstrators as “environmental terrorists”.

Some tried to break up the march, but police separated them from the procession to avoid a possible skirmish.

Japanese rightwing activists have recently increased their presence, stirring nationalistic sentiment amid territorial disputes with China and South Korea.