Disclaimer: I am not trying to attack anyone. So, please do not take this personally. I am only trying to explain how I understand Japanese nationalism and I welcome criticism. After all, that's one of the reasons why some of these online communities exist. あと注意として日本語と英語が混ざってるって事。
以下本文
Certainly understandable that there are people on the right and on the left as well as in the middle. でもI just don't buy why people always associate a specific set of ideas and beliefs with a certain orientation (right, left, and etc...)
For example, one can be left and certainly be nationalistic. まあSemantic上の問題なんだけど、People do tend to want to have this bipolarized picture of political opinions. でもIt's just a model that helps you understand the overall structue, and it's not necessarily the true depiction of it. もちろん多くの人がそう思うという事は, it means that this model is somewhat reflective of the reality, but perhaps, not on certain levels or on certain issues.
In Japan, nationalism has a lot to do with the Japanese ethnicity. 国民国家という表現があるでしょ?Even though Japan is not as racially homogenous as some people might make it to be, Japan is more of a mononational-state like Sweden, Denmark, and etc...
nation=ethnic groupという考えに基づくと、
アメリカはMultinational state - it is a state with numerous nations. And Israel would be a binational state - Israelis, and the Palestinian citizens in Israel
そしてJapanese nationalismの問題点の一つは国民国家という考えが癒着している事だろう。It's not a citizenship-based nationalism, but it is a nationality-based or ethnicity-based natioanlism. もちろんこれはイスラエルのような国にとっても非常に大きな問題な訳だ。
日本国籍というものが日本民族と強くつながっている限り、Koreans in Japanの多くは日本国籍を取得するのに負い目を感じるだろう。国籍と民族がつながっているから、They are not allowed to embrace their Korean part of heritage. Have you ever wondered why there is no such thing as Korean-Japanese? 韓国系日本人という言い方はあまり使われない。なぜなら、世間的な考え方が日本人=Ethnic Japaneseであり、Ethnic subgroupという考え方とはalmost mutually exclusive だからだ。 これはハーフについても言える事だろう。Especially because most "haafus" are phenotypically different from most full-blooded Japanese.
TamuTamu>
Good point. I definitely left out some of it out.
I am advocating for Japan as a citizenship-based state rather than ethnicity-based state. And this, I believe, is a "natural" outcome of Japanese history and its colonialism as well as the illusion of "homogenous Japan". This would mean more civil rights and greater political involvement for the non-ethnic Japanese.
There are many alternatives when it comes to Japanese nationalism. Following these models are possible critique and questions.
1. Fusion of Multi-nationalism - similar to American multinationalism, which is often linked with and is obscured by American patriotism due to its immigration history and lack of tradition, although this seems to reflect white, middle America more than any other group. So far, Japan may not be racially diverse enough for this to have much effect.
2. Coexistence of Japanese nationalism and other nationalism - Nationalism of Koreans in Japanese exist, but the sad reality is that this often contradicts with the ideas and historical understanding of "radical" Japanese nationalism. Since the Japanese natiionality is almost mutually exclusive with the idea of hypenated Japanse (Korean Japanese), could there be Korean Japanese nationalism? Would that help the civil rights of Koreans in Japanese? And perhaps, other non-ethnic Japanese in Japan?
3. Reconstruction of Japanese nationalism itself - Japan itself is not becoming less of a mononational state. Is it perhaps possible to embrace the tradition and heritage of non-full Japanese (Koreans in Japan, Ainus, naturalized Japanese, haafus, and etc...) and help them assimilate? Or do they really want to assimilate?