An old man is tired of his country

Hidenori Sakanaka is an old man and a revolutionary. He wants the Japan that is to be no more. His solution to Japan's low fertility rate is to invite 10 million immigrants from around the world to become Japanese and to transform Japan into a utopian multiethnic community. He believes that Japan can do what others have failed to do and make this transition without friction.

The most relevant quote is this:

"A new Japanese civilization will realize a multi-ethnic community, which no nation has ever achieved, and, in due course, it will stand out as one of the main pillars of world civilization."

He is right that no nation has ever achieved it. Even the U.S., which is proud to call itself a "nation of immigrants," has never been free from racial and cultural frictions. He is right, too, to maintain that a Japan that does achieve it will be "new" — so new, in fact, that a reader might reasonably wonder: Will it still be Japan?

 

Here is where talk of revolution comes in. "In Japan in the age of population decline," Sakanaka writes, "there is a need for a social revolution equal to that of the Meiji Restoration" — the modernizing and Westernizing revolution that began in 1868. "The very fundamentals of our way of life, the ethnic composition of our country and our socio-economic system will have to be reconsidered and a new country constructed."

Sakanaka writes of his plan,

"This is a grandiose project that will transform the Japanese archipelago into a miniature of the world community," he declares, "a utopia to which people from all around the world dream of migrating."

This is sadly misguided. I have lived in Japan. It is its own unique society with its own distinct pulse. Who would want it to be razed to become yet another "miniature of the world community"?

Fortunately, Sakanaka's plan hasn't been embraced by politicians or intellectuals:

"I can't exactly say that the plan I've been advocating over the past three years has generated much enthusiasm." In fact, "Intellectuals and politicians basically ignore me."

I hope that continues to be the case. The worry is that Japan won't sort out the decline in its family culture. As I understand it, marriage is being delayed increasingly as is childbirth. Following almost inevitably from this, numbers of young men aren't seeing much of a reason to commit to adult male responsibilities.

There are all sorts of ways for traditions to be defeated. Long term family decline is one of them and it could prove to be Japan's fatal weakness.