State Of The Union(s)

Emmanuel MACRON: 'Please don't go'
Angela MERKEL: 'You know I don't need translation when you talk to me that way'
Donald TRUMP: 'I should build a wall between these two. Maybe Russia will pay for it, I'll ask Vlad'
Melania TRUMP: 'Did I pick the right vert-de-gris color? The mustard of my pollution mask matched so well, but after the colonial helmet disaster in Kenya, my staff advised against keeping it on'
...

This great shot (by François MORI / AP) tells a lot about how differently close two couples can be, even when each member is only one chair apart from their partner.

But don't get fooled. Merkel is on the way out, Macron remains dangerously low in the polls, and both are likely to receive major blows at the upcoming European elections. If Donald Trump lost the House, he did increase his control where it mattered most over the past few weeks: the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Without any moral leadership in sight (R.I.P. McCain, Flake, Corker), GOP lawmakers remain totally under his spell. They didn't lift a finger when Trump fired Jeff Sessions to illegally elevate to acting A.G. an open critic of Robert Mueller's Russia probe (Matt Whitaker), when Rod Rosenstein was supposed to get the position.

Democracy is losing ground to nationalism, extremism, hatred. And in this world of strongmen, the free world doesn't have any strong leader in sight. 

But we do see and hear swarms of them. We do see inspiring new faces taking a stand for human rights or gun control, strengthening diversity in Congress. We do hear powerful voices, that resonate even more when they're silenced (Anna Politkovskaya and Jamal Khashoggi had Vladimir Putin and MBS expose themselves as murdering despots).

And sometimes, we do see a majority of citizens cast a ballot against the destructive tide.

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Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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The Rising Sun Flag Brought Shame Upon Japan - Ban It

There is no debate whatsover about the Nazi flag in Germany: glorifying this symbol of abomination is a crime, as the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations".

Imperial Japan's Rising Sun flag is as infamous as the Nazi swastika, and yet there is no law to prevent its use. Worse: part of Japan's "Self-Defense Forces" - you know, the ones supposed to remain 'defensive' whatever happens - have been using a variant as their official flag for decades. Even worse: Imperial Japan's war crimes were never recognized by any Japanese institution and nowadays, praising Imperial Japan or denying its war crimes is not only tolerated, but the only way to succeed as a politician in Japan.

Of course, you cannot expect the fascist clique that controls this peaceful nation and tries very hard to reverse the constitution back to Imperial Japan's bellicose mode, the government that just unveiled a "destroyer" flying the dreaded colors, to ban this Rising Sun flag.

The parade followed the controversial South Korea - Japan soccer game where Japanese nationalists waved the Rising Sun and Korean nationalists the portrait of a resistant to Imperial Japan, and a banner stating in Korean "The nation that forgets history has no future", a direct reference to the incredible revisionist tsunami washing over the archipelago*. Infuriated, the Japanese extreme right confirmed its full support to the flag**.

So what the international community must do is to expose the abomination, and to ask the peaceful people of Japan to rise against the true enemies of their nation, to refuse Shinzo Abe's agenda (see "The main threat against Japan? Its own leader"), and to demand a ban of the Rising Sun flag.

The Rising Sun flag and the Nazi Swastika - These flags brought shame upon Japan and Germany, destruction across the World - Ban them


What could be worse than Shinzo Abe taking care of Japan? Shinzo Abe taking care of Japan AND Fukushima, maybe.



twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/365371757760245760




The Prime Minister decided to step in and help TEPCO deal with the mess because he had no choice: the risks are too high for his government to lose support for his key constitutional reform, he must appear as a strong leader, with a strategic vision.

And you cannot at the same time push as hard as you can in favor of militarism against dubious threats from overseas, and do nothing against massive radioactive leaks at home.

How much time does Shinzo Abe have before the mud hits the fan at the economic or at the environmental level? Hard to tell. Both Abenomics and the handling of the nuclear incidents in Daiichi are more and more criticized as further disasters in the making.

#ShinzoAbe takes a leak (#Fukushima's).
Boy, this man is truly radioactive. #abeignomics
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/365355493465669632

blogules 2013 Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French) NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)

* see previous episodes, particularly those featuring Shinzo Abe
** "世界に嘘つきまくる韓国の“奇妙”、横断幕事件でも稚拙な嘘、嘘…身のほどわきまえない“欲深さ”が理由" (Sankei Shimbun 20130808)

Dear Japan, Say No To Fascism

Dear Japan,

I wish you the best in your effort to regain positive dynamics, but I beg you, please don't let your government carry out its main agenda: the suicidal revival of your great country's darkest moments.

Don't get fooled by Abenomics: they're only Weapons of Mass Distraction. Your Prime Minister has been very clear about his priorities:

• Shinzo Abe is an outspoken revisionist and negationist who pledged to rewrite Japan's peace constitution, and to obliterate all records of Imperial Japan's war crimes.
• Shinzo Abe, who headed the Japaneses Society for History Textbook Reform, denies all universally recognized atrocities, from the Nankin massacre to sexual slavery (midly dubbed "comfort women"), and now even dares questioning the use of "invasion" to qualify that doomed regime's expansionism.
• Shinzo Abe insists on visiting Yasukuni Shrine, a place Emperor Hirohito himself refused to visit ever since it was made public that the remains of war criminals had been moved there, the place where Japanese die-hard fascists chose to invite all European extreme-right leaders in an infamous field trip.
• Shinzo Abe, who represents Japan and speaks in its name, refuses to consider war criminals as criminals, imperialists as imperialists, and Japan as a peaceful country. And if you think this man is not a fascist, what more do you need? The return of the "kill all, loot all, destroy all" policy? His portrait between that of Adolf and Benito?

PM Fumimaro Konoe between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. These images will only belong to the past when Japan sets the record clear about the Imperial regime that disgraced it decades ago.
PS: I didn't reach the Godwin point, Abe did. Imagine a German Chancelor saying what he said: they'd be impeached and face justice for such an ignominy.

The worst enemies are always the ones from within and right now, Shinzo Abe and the ultra-nationalist bureaucracy that corrupted Japan's entire political system are the worst enemies of Japan. They deliberately fuel mutual hatred across the region because they need other hatemongers to reach power to secure their own future. For the moment, they're not only alienating Korea, Japan, and America, but bringing friends of Japan closer together to denounce their imposture. You think they are irrelevant and that's true, but they are dangerous, and they want to reshape Japan into a nation where people like them are relevant. You think politics have nothing to do with you but it has to do with everything you do, and in order to survive as a democracy, you simply must reclaim it, and keep people like them away from politics.

If you love your country, act as true Japanese citizens, speak up, say no to Abeignomics, and reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism.


blogules 2013
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)


Add this page to your favorites

See all posts related to Japan,and particularly:
- "We reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism - for a Global Truth and Reconciliation Network"
- "Japan politics? No to Comfort women, yes to Political whoring"
- "Ad Nauseam: about Dark Tourism, the Blind Spots of Memory, and Free Thrashing Agreements"
- "Tokyo Sakura With Patriot Missiles (A Still Life)"
- "One Thousand Wednesdays" (also on my blogules blog in English "1,000th week of shame for Japan" and in French "Japon: regarde-toi, le monde te regarde" "also on Rue89"A Séoul, les « femmes de réconfort » de l'armée japonaise réclament justice"
- "L'extreme-droite Japonaise invite Le Pen... et les projecteurs" (also on Rue89 "La visite de Le Pen au Japon, coup de com pour l'extrême droite nippone")
- "Revisionist schoolbooks : change has not come to Japan"
- "A Common History" (NB: a too brief glimmer of hope)
- "Claiming Dokdo as Takeshima equals claiming Seoul as Gyeongseong"
- ...

The end of Japanese imperialism

Change has definitely come to Japan. As expected*, Yukio Hatoyama is trying to do the right thing by puting an end to all sick nationalist revivals. And the new P.M. seems to be willing to act quickly, going at the root.

Imperialist nostalgists claim Kuril Islands and Dokdo as theirs ? "An unidentified senior Japanese government official" releases the proof that they don't belong to Japan**.

In the midst of an APEC summit, Japan decides to set the record straight and lead the region the most noble way.

As Barack Obama tours the continent, Japan rejects as false the choice between its own History and its own ideals.

blogules
2009 - initially published on Seoul Village : "According to Japanese law, Dokdo is not Japanese".

* see "A Common History", a dramatic change since "Claiming Dokdo as Takeshima equals claiming Seoul as Gyeongseong"

** see "Japanese Document Shows Dokdo as Foreign Territory" (Chosun Ilbo 20091116) : "Japan's Ministry of Finance issued a notice document numbered 654 on Aug. 15, 1946, a year after Korean independence, that says Dokdo is foreign soil along with Korea, Taiwan, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and the South Sea Islands".

Lessons from Mumbai ?

This is vintage terror, classic asymetric warfare, and certainly nothing new under the Indian sun. Maybe more mediatic exposure because big networks don't have much fish to fry in this lame duck season - nobody cares for Congo and the audience is fed up with financial news.

There is no way to prevent 100% of such attacks from happening, but there is a way to make them look irrelevant, to undermine the undermining effect of terror.

The message from the Mumbai terrorists is : we want people to hate each other because we fundamentalists need war and hatred to survive, we want Hindis to go at Muslims, we want Jews to go at Muslims, and most of all we want moderate Muslims to be silenced and overwhelmed by fundamentalists. The masses will follow us because we will accurately claim that Muslims are once again the actual victims of the attacks.

The main target in the Mumbai attacks was Pakistan, the weaker link, and the democracy the most likely to fall for fundamentalism if the international community fails to help it help itself. Manmohan Singh must not finish the mission of the terrorists and blame Pakistan, but help fellow victim Asif Ali Zardari win over enemies from within, and together they must expose the fundamentalists' agenda which as always is only about politics, not religion.

The best way and the only way to tackle terror is to go at its roots : to recognize the existence of unfairness and to start doing something about poverty, to denounce fundamentalism as foul politics masquerading as religion, and to let the moderates speak.

The opinion should be prepared for that, and the community bracing itself through positive and sound values, and neither through fear, nor nationalism. Let's not make the same mistakes as after 9/11, please.

The terrorist attack on Mumbai clearly echoes Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" because both are proposing the same imposture : this clash of civilizations, these religious wars are artificial, man-made, and deliberately fueled by people who want them to happen. No wonder Huntington's book is a bible for the neocons and theocons who sold the invasion of Iraq and dream of provoking a war between Israel and Iran. Fundamentalist in Chief George W. Bush offered the worst answer to the 9/11 attacks, but the best ones from the terrorists' point of view.

The worst answer to the Mumbai would be for India to retaliate against Pakistan.

Afghanistan was not guilty for 9/11 : the World let it fall into the wrong hands. Pakistan is not guilty for the Mumbai attacks : the World must prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

The World, united, must declare its independence from fundamentalism.

Taro Aso after Tzipi Livni and before... ?

Hardliners have become so mainstream in Israel that Tzipi Livni passes for a moderate in Tel Aviv. She succeeds Ehud Olmert, who decided to leave on a positive and almost dovish note (yes, I resign because I'm not a perfect man, but Israel didn't behave that well either). Yet, make no mistake : we'll get more of the same.

Ultranationalists have become so influent in Japan that they easily crowned Taro Aso as the "new" Prime Minister. He succeeds Yasuo Fukuda, whose fate was sealed last summer : after understanding that he couldn't run the country without the old Imperialist clique, Fukuda ignited a new controversy with former colony Korea, and he almost won the day when revisionist lobbyists had the Library of Congress change "Dokdo" for "Takeshima" or "Sea of Japan islands" in their labelling systems. But then George W. Bush and Lee Myung-bak went down on their knees, prayed, and put Dokdo back on the US maps*. With Taro Aso, both China and Korea know exactly what to expect from day one : more of the same.

The Israeli, Palestinian, and Japanese people didn't chose their "new" leaders : Kadima and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decided for them.

Ditto in South Africa : the African National Congress (ANC) picked Kgalema Motlanthe as the interim "leader" between "found guilty of corruption" Thabo Mbeki (who also resigned) and "not found guilty of corruption" Jacob Zuma. When the 2010 World Cup starts, many South Africans may be wishing they'd had more of the same instead of Zuma.

George W. Bush won't resign. But if Americans let the GOP chose his successor, they should know what they will get...


* see "Korea on the Rocks Part II" (Seoul Village, following "Save Dokdo = save Japan! "), or "Le Japon décide de recoloniser Dokdo" (blogules VF)

White, red and pink blogules to the World in 2020

The CER (Centre for European Reform ) and Accenture recently waged a debate about the World in 2020, partly fueled by Mark Leonard's essay "Divided world: The struggle for supremacy". The democracy vs autocracy divide sounds a little bit white vs black to me, and I may add a few other key structural changes within :
- America enjoying good demography dynamics but becoming more monolithic, more focused on itself, welcoming fewer influences from abroad. Growing old a different way.
- At the opposite of this Mainland Amerika, China is embracing its own diversity. Chinese imperialism is no more about spreading a unique monolithic model but about a much smarter pervasiveness, leveraging on all minorities instead of crushing cultural diversity (ie China intends to build the core of Koreanhood on its very soil, claims the Koguryo cultural heritage, and position the Korean peninsula as a motherland's satellite).
- What I call "Asianitude" keeps growing. Asian countries developping intra-asian relationships beyond the traditional bilateral relationships with Western countries, students and executives moving from places to places, a common ground and cultural identity, a sense of belonging to the same community at the individuals level...
- The Korean moment. Surrounded by ambitious giants (and a Japan dangerously returning to ultra nationalism and Showa-style fascism), seen as the herald of cultural diversity for other Asian nations, Korea has to cope with the collapse of North Korea. In what I call the Albania scenario, the people who used to live in a quasi sect are totally unprepared for a market economy : con men and gurus get the bulk of the values they received as a kick start in a new world.
- The turn of the millenium rise of fundamentalism (Christian in the US and Eastern Europe, Jewish in Eretz Israel and Islamist everywhere) may last if democracies keep electing leaders who put religion at the top of their not so hidden agendas (the collapse of Iraq, the rise of Iran as the regional threat, and the boost to fundamentalists across the globe were not collateral damage but the very aim of Bush's game). And while terrorists trained in Iraq blossom on new urban and suburban playgrounds, al Qaeda survivors and wannabes focus on rural Asia, Africa and South America.

Discussion - 3 challenges for Korea

(my answer to a question regarding the critical challenges Korea will face in the 10 years to come)

I were to select 3 challenges, I would pick :
- one that policies can solve but are addressing counterproductively nowadays (the Brain Drain / Capital Drain),
- another one that policies are having a difficult time tackling (China and regional competitivity), and
- yet another one, utterly unpredictable (North Korea).
The fourth challenge (Demographics) could partly find, in the previous 3, solutions more sustainable than today's massive imports of South East Asian wives for the rural poor.

The most vital challenge is NK. I'm not worrying about nukes but about a brutal social / political / economical collapse, and I keep warning my Korean friends about what I call a "Albania Scenario" : they only benchmark with Germany's reunification, but they should also consider post-Hoxja's Albania, the only case vaguely similar to Kim Il-seung / Kim Jong-il's Xanadu (a country run like a sect, a people unable to live in a democracy, nor to survive in a free market).
=> Worst case scenario : a third Bush-Cheney term, with Shinzo Abe's neofascist clique to wrap it up.
=> Best case scenario : Beijing manages to coerce Pyongyang into tougher reforms (at last)

The Brain Drain / Capital Drain issue could prove more critical than it seems - the golden youth of the country is switching continents and it starts showing.
=> Worst case scenario : Korea's "undeclared emigrants" (the name I give to those who have a home and spend quite a lot in Korea but have other homes, passports and niceties overseas) reduce dramatically the time and budget they devote to their country (ie after the burst of the real estate bubble). Korea is left with a few wealthy people, an impoverished middle class and an ever increasing poverty. Even top chaebols could change nationalities (individuals as well as companies).
=> Best case scenario : Seoul decides to leverage on its diaspora (ie a "coming out / coming home" - more transparency vs less taxes and a lighter military service) to strengthen its links with the US, the Middle East and even Europe. Korea must be loved by its own people again. It must also become the herald of cultural diversity in Asia far beyond the shameful exploitation of the international fad for its disposable celebs.

Regional competitivity remains a priority for this administration, but if Korea wants to become a hub, it will need much more focus (ie too much intranational competitivity and confusion). Especially with the return of ultranationalists in Japan and a much fiercer competition from China, whose revisionists have other ideas in mind : beyond the rewriting of Koguryo history, Beijing intends to create a new regional capital of Korea in China !
=> The system of regional clusters and the strengthening of partnerships with Europe could pay.

Gloomy, but Korea's main asset remains its people. That's one of the reasons why it shouldn't risk losing its most promising talents to the rest of Asia or to the US. Also : Korea should stop selling its soul for short term profits, exports and investments : that would be the best way to become a suburb of Shanghai.

"Kurdistan, the other Iraq"... or "Kurdistan, the other other Vietnam" ?

Iraq's Kurdistan region opened, through the Kurdistan Development Corporation, a lobbying office in Washington, DC*. Headed by Qubad al-Talabani, son of Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq as a whole (a black hole some may say), this unit officially promotes investments and tourism in the region. Autonomy and independance could be part of the discussions.

I do feel some sympathy for Kurds in general and I do wish them a peaceful future. Yet, I'm not so sure this is the way everybody wants it and even if Talabani were honest, other players would join the lobbying frenzy.

I remember the intense Iraqi lobbying between the two wars. Who could forget Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress ? Among the different approaches for the liberation of Iraq, US theocons deliberately favored the factions that were bound to cause maximum damage. The parting of Iraq and the strengthening of fundamentalists across the region (especially and Iran and Israel) was not only expected but planned from the start.

If I were a US fundamentalist, I surely wouldn't want a democratic and peaceful Kurdistan to emerge in the dead middle of my playground.

A failed proof of concept Kurdistan could not only strengthen radicals in Iran but also infuriate and exacerbate fundamentalists in Turkey. To the contrary, I would seize the opportunity to bring chaos in this relatively protected part of the country, and to exacerbate radicalism everywhere. I would especially infuriate Turkish nationalists and fundamentalists, because as anybody can see these days, the radicalization of Turkey is key to the revival of Christian fundamentalism in Europe.

Don't mistake this initiative as an attempt to put a lock on Kirkuk oil fields : the aim of the game is to get rid of secularism in Turkey.


* see CMD's "The "Other Iraq" Opens a DC Lobbying Office" (20070302)

Rewriting history (reloaded) - IHT Letters To The Editor

Praise the International Herald Tribune. First for publishing another blogule of mine (even if slightly edited* to fit a wider audience than this utterly incorrect blog), second for giving it a title I've been mantrazing for a few years.

Actually, I mentioned "Rewriting History" in one of the few blogules published by "Le Figaro" before Sarkozy became Editor in Chief. Back then, I noticed the irony in the way Dubya compared himself to Roosevelt and Churchill ("Reecriture de l'Histoire - GW Bush le nouveau FDR ?" - 20040607).

I guess "rewriting history" could be considered today's international pastime on steroids.

Anyway... For those who missed my latest ranting on Abe** and/or reached their newstands to late, here is the letter as published in today's IHT*** :

Rewriting History
Your Dec. 16 edition delivered two rather disheartening insights on the way history is being taught.
In "Confronting Holocaust denial" (Views), Ayaan Ali Hirsi reveals how the Holocaust is not only absent from textbooks in many Muslim countries but also still considered a great idea by many young people.
In the news report "Japan passes measure for patriotic education," an education reform is not only meant to keep the Japanese people in the dark regarding the terrible war crimes committed during Hirohito's reign, but also to revive ultranationalism.
Perhaps worst of all: None of this comes as a surprise. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is on a permanent revisionist road show, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has already declared his nationalist views.
I wonder what tomorrow's textbooks will tell the next generations about our time? In this sick medieval revival, even the president of the United States and the pope want to replace science and reason by an ultraconservative caricature of religion.

* let's say I elaborated a bit on "declared his nationalist views"

** see "Red blogule to Shinzo Abe - another revisionist leader" (20060926), or the unedited blog spill in French preceding my letter to the IHT : "Blogule rouge a Shinzo Abe - l'Empire contre attaque" (20061216)

*** see iht.com/articles/2006/12/19/news/edlet.php (20061220)

Red blogule to Korea's hubs - meanwhile, in China...

While Busan, Incheon and several Seoul areas compete to become Asia's next hub, China plays "baduk" at a much larger level in order to host the future center of Korea.

Claiming Korea's cultural heritage is not enough. Even if their army of revisionist historians don't succeed in putting Koguryo on the Map of China, Beijing's strategic planners will use their multitudes to build a Great Wall of Korea on Chinese soil.

This future "Korean triangle" is meant to become even more powerful than Shanghai. The bay around Dalian being safe from freezing winters, it can compete with both Incheon and Busan and become the ideal spot for the future Eurasian railways terminals - no need to bother completing these silly inter-korean lines boys, we're taking care of everything from Motherland. Look, the "Bay of Korea" bathes our shores, we're not like those naughty Japanese imperialists who renamed the Sea of Korea "Sea of Japan" or worse, called Dokdo "Takeshima" as a tribute to their colonial craft (they say "bamboo island" comes from the shapes of the rocks but we all know how bamboo grows : Takeshima doesn't describe this dust on the sea but celebrates the first implantation of the Empire on a foreign soil).

China's building the ideal home for Koreans, leveraging on its strong local ethnic minority and intending to lure natives from the Korean Peninsula : either from the North (escaping from Hell), or from the South (escaping from a country with the World's lowest fertility rate, an insane education system and fewer opportunities in general) in a XXIst Century wild West gold rush (by the way, while we're at it, why not have some drafting sessions in LA's Koreatown as well ?). Thats a serious threat for a country whose most valuable assets are intangible or related to the very character of its population.

To make it even worse, the recent politico-military deal clinched between Japan and the US further precipitates Seoul in the welcoming arms of Beijing. And Korea can't find much disinterested support from its other giant neighbor Russia. Kofi Annan won't be of much help to Roh Moo-hyun for a better respect of fair play in the region. Korea needs to federate other Asian nations worried about China's and Japan's neo-imperialism, become a herald of cultural, economical and political diversity in the region... without angering Beijing too much because it can't afford it.

Korea can become a hub after all. But only if its major cities play as a team instead of competing with each other.

Red blogule to Japan's neofascists - forget Takeshima and Mandchukuo

On April 31st, Young People's Comrades black trucks would cruise Tokyo, with mock missiles on their rooftops and loudspeakers blasting calls for young warriors to join the neo-fascist organisation, a member of the far-far-right Zen-Ai Kaigi alliance.
"Japan Youth" ? I could only see septuagenarians in those trucks ; the kind who long for the Showa era (not for the late Hirohito's granddaddy image but for the early Hirohito's imperialist spree), their don Corleone faces as animated as that of Leonid Brezhnev on his last May the 1st.
Meanwhile, the site of the MOFA (Ministry Of Foreign Affairs)* maintains its utterly revisionist position regarding the Korean islets of Dokdo :

"(1) Based on historical facts and international law, it is apparent that Takeshima is an integral part of Japan's sovereign territory.
(2) The occupation of Takeshima by the Republic of Korea is an illegal occupation undertaken with absolutely no basis whatsoever in international law. Any measures taken with regard to Takeshima by the Republic of Korea based on such an illegal occupation have no legal justification."

Here are the actual historical facts :
1) Indeed, Dokdo happened to be Japanese in the past, but only during occupation periods, each time Japan would aggress its peaceful neighbor. If Japan claims Dokdo, it must also claim the whole Korean peninsula.
2) Following a long tradition of eradication of anything Korean, Japan renamed Dokdo "Takeshima" in 1905. Like all the names changed during the occupation period ended with WWII, it was turned back to its original name at the Korean independance. Note that the "Sea of Japan" was never renamed "Sea of Korea".
3) Significantly enough, Dokdo means "remote island" in Korean, which reflects the difficulty for this country to defend this couple of rocks far away from its shores.
4) Significantly enough, Takeshima means "bamboo island" in Japanese, which seems absurd considering the fact not much can grow on these rocky islets but piles of guano. On the other hand, the name makes perfect sense if you know how bamboo reproduces : by its very name, "Takeshima", perfectly symbolizes the first implantation of imperial Japan on Korean soil during the 1905 wave (Dokdo was the first piece of land conquerred).

President Noh Moo-hyun asked PM Junichiro Koizumi to take his responsibilies and demanded the issue to be settled for good. I would love Mr Koizumi to be totally transparent : either he ends this sick fascist revival or he pleases the country's neo-imperialist lobbies and claims back the full Empire.
I'm sure Beijing (another expert in revisionism) will appreciate when Tokyo demands the liberation of Mandchukuo...

Red blogule to Junichiro Koizumi - Too right to be right

I did wish Japan's PM good luck for his 9/11 elections, provided he would actually seize the opportunity and get rid of the country's extremists. The fact is I'm not even surprised Koizumi nominated a few of them in his government, especially at such key positions as Foreign Affairs.
I actually finished that white blogule by a rather pessimistic "on the other hand, if he didn't seize such an opportunity, I wonder what could save Japan".
I can now complete this bright red blogule by a totally realistic Nothing can save Japan because Japan doesn't want to be saved.

White blogule to Japan's 9/11

Junichiro Koizumi pretends to be the last samurai, sending assassins to get rid of reformophobic politicians and lashing by himself the throats of the Empire's most dangerous thugs : the infamous postmen.
Well. The least one could say is I'm not a supporter of his, but I wish him luck.
If he loses, the old guard wins : even if the LDP ended up in shatters, nothing would change since the opposition is already welcoming hardliners and so called "rebels" on board.
If he wins, the old guard may still win. That is if Koizumi maintains his suicidal revisionist agenda.
What if Weirdo Hairdo Junichiro actually played the bad boy just to please Hirohito fanatics, and simply got rid of them after the elections ? What if his seppuku diplomacy were to end right after the 9/11 elections ? Imagine the winner over the ruins of the conservative fortress, asking the ultimate forgiveness for the crimes of a whole nation, accepting the past, enlightening the present and embracing the future...
On the other hand, if he didn't seize such an opportunity, I wonder what could save Japan.

Red blogule to Japan - No UN Council seat for an Unrepentant Nation

Japan shouldn't be offered a UN Council seat before they fully apologize for their past and moreover for their unacceptable present continuously devoted to revisionism (Dokdo, Yasukuni Shrine, Comfort Women, history textbooks, even archaeological hoaxes...).
Germany showed the way and can be proud of it. This is worthy of a great nation and a great people, both responsible and respectable.
Japan is simply wrong : just like Bush, Junichiro Koizumi keeps sending the wrong messages at the wrong places and the wrong moments. In order to please hardliners and prevent them from losing face he doesn't realise he actually has his whole country lose face in front of History and the rest of the world. Humility is their only way out of utter humiliation, but this is too disturbing a concept for such a stubborn bunch of fanatics.
I fully support the opposition to a permanent seat for Japan at the UN Council : the world should seize this opportunity and demand a true act of contrition (without the religious flavor, of course), which would be a genuine act of grandeur. Stephane MOT