日本の外国人党

Intervention in the streets of Tokyo. Modified political campaign poster on official election propaganda boards.  

Posters were placed on space no. 5 on official election propaganda boards in various locations around Kita-ku and Arakawa-ku between 5 and 6 AM and removed a few hours later. Lack of financial as well as human resources didn’t make a broader and potentially more effective intervention possible. Maybe next election? 

Japan is a country with a very little immigration flow. And yet in the Japanese society, the idea of too many immigrants arriving and settling in is taking hold. However, statistically, Japan hardly does get any immigration, especially when compared to the rest of the industrialized countries. The outcry towards the conservation of traditional values, supposedly threaten by foreigners coming to Japan, towards keeping Japan Japanese and for the Japanese is, in some cases, almost hysterical. The struggle of the most concerned, the right-wingers driving through Tokyo in Japanese flagged black vans, is undertaken in western black suits and western black ties, which makes it funny, almost surreal, if not pathetic.

The government contributes to the idea of the 'bad gaijin*' with laws that imply the foreigner is a potential criminal, i.e., picture and fingerprints taken at airports or third generation Koreans, descendants of those kidnapped and forced to come to Japan and work as slaves, not being considered citizens and therefore not being able to take part in any election process let alone vote. The media, collaborates with these laws either by not talking about them or endorsing them with passion. The police ask to show their ID to anyone who does not look Japanese in the streets when not rioting into student guest houses. All this adds up to the idea that Japan does not welcome foreigners, and yet, there’s a big contradiction, as many Japanese love anything foreign and Japanese society itself is most welcoming. At least at first.

The 日本の外国人党 (Nihon no Gaikokujin To or Japan’s Foreigners’ Party) does not exist, but it could very well do, as it may be necessary. Such a party is rare in other industrialised countries, true, but that’s maybe because it is perfectly legal there. If other industrialised countries would do the same Japan does with their foreign residents, there would be no Kurdish and Turkish MPs in the German Reichstag, no black ministers in France, no presidents with non-Basque and non-Catalan origins in Basqueland and Catalonia... There wouldn’t even be a Sarkozy, whose father is Hungarian!  Didn’t we all agree racism is bad? Isn’t it politically incorrect to be openly racist also in Japan? Well these laws are racist.

The日本の外国人党 does not exist then, but its candidate does. His name is Heinz-Christian Strache and he is the president of the openly racist neo-Nazi FPÖ (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs). Just thought it ironic that if for any reason someone like him would come to Japan, he would be in the very same situation he wants to put foreign people through in his country, Austria.

The message of this intervention is, as well as its staging, simple. The poster was taken from the original FPÖ campaign on their website, the original design maintained and new mottos related to Japan and its foreign residents were added. The almost childish in its evidence, populist if you want to and therefore not easy to contradict はい！外国人も人間です (Yes! Foreigners are also Human Beings), and the more political and related to the current injustice/tragedy people who are Japanese but not considered to be are living, (sometimes even by themselves): 平等な権利 (Equal Rights). The name of the candidate appears written in katakana.

 

*gaijin is slang for foreigner