Dogs and Demons - Alex Kerr On Being a Racist/Debito

[homesweethome]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20051025zg.htm

What kind of reaction did you get to Dogs and Demons?
I lot of people tell me that it is deeply disturbing, then after they read it they have this catharsis.

I'm (also) accused of being racist and all this stuff -- but you can't worry about that. It's very often people fresh off the boat; it's the newcomers who feel that way, (who) have come to make a new life in this exotic fabulous place.

I think of myself as coming from the inside. The reaction from the Japanese has been overwhelmingly positive. In the tourist industry (Dogs and Demons) is practically a bible at this point. I get constant requests to speak at Japanese tourist industry conventions. For the people who say, "how could he say this? Isn't this racist and terrible?" -- you have got to look at how the Japanese have responded.

The book is now in its 8th printing in Japanese. Ishihara Shintaro, of all people, has now given two press conferences holding the book up to the press and saying "why haven't you read this?"

In Dogs and Demons you argue that Japan has failed to internationalize. What do you think about the work of Debito Arudou and others to combat racial discrimination in Japan?

Well, somebody has to do it. I'm glad that there is a whistle-blower out there. But, I am doubtful whether in the long run it really helps. One would hope that he could do it another way. He's not doing it the Japanese way. He's being very gaijin in his openly combative attitude, and usually in Japan that approach fails.

I fear that his activities might tend to just confirm conservative Japanese in their belief that gaijin are difficult to deal with.

That said, perhaps we who live here are slow to stick our necks out when we sense an injustice, and quick to self-censor in order to get along smoothly in our communities.

To me the most interesting aspect of Arudou Debito is that, in taking on Japanese citizenship, he has brought the dialogue inside Japan. His activities reveal the fact that gaijin and their gaijin ways are now a part of the fabric of Japan's new society. A very small part of course, but a vocal and real part.

[Mulboyne]

Question - You are partly based in Bangkok now -- did move away partly out of frustration with what was happening in Japan?
Kerr - That's what everybody thinks.

That's probably because that's what he told people at the time.

[Cubed]

He's being very gaijin in his openly combative attitude, and usually in Japan that approach fails.

From the Japanese perspective, the best approach of course, is just to go about your business and not say anything about it.

[kamome]

I can't possibly fathom what could be considered "racist" in his book. The book is purely a critique of construction policies and their impact on the Japanese environment. I don't know how people make the leap from that kind of critique to racism, unless the act of critiquing another country's policies constitutes a per se racist critique.