Comment by oska
6 days ago
When xenophobia is a useful social defence :
> They were most successful in Japan, creating about 300,000 converts until their activities induced a wave of xenophobia and they were either expelled or killed.
I am immensely glad that Japan was not colonised early on like the Philippines to their south unfortunately was.
The peak of Japanese xenophobia in the 1930s however was conversely very unfortunate for everyone nearby.
I'm very aware, of course, of the horrific crimes that Japan carried out in China and other countries in the 1930s but that is not xenophobia. People going outside their country (to do whatever) are not affected by xenophobia. Xenophobia is a fear of people from outside the country, within that country.
Native cultures (however you want to define that) have always shown some curiousity and openness to visitors from outside the culture but that is balanced by some level of xenophobia too, that ramps up as people inside the culture feel that they are being overwhelmed. Both aspects of openness and shutting out are natural traits in any homogenous culture.
No xenophobia is “the fear or dislike of people who are perceived as being foreign or strange”. Thats just from the dictionary.
You could call the brutal repression of the Ainu and native Okinawans a kind of xenophobic/racist ultra nationalism. Also Japan’s crimes extend far beyond China, and were especially brutal in Korea were they practiced a horrific form of slavery.
The Japanese are so xenophobic they try to exclude the descendants of Korean slaves who have been living in Japan for a century, have Japanese names, and only speak Japanese. Their xenophobia is not laudable.
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