In contrast to the affluent roots of Shinzo and several other prominent Japanese politicians, Prime Minister Suga was raised by parents who were strawberry farmers in the country’s north. In a country familiar with bureaucratic leaders from influential families, some citizens see Suga as an anti-establishment political figure that can relate to the struggles of the common people, something they have explicitly called for in the last 60 years. 

The ongoing and evergreen struggle in Japan between its monarchical and historical political structure and its ever-growing modern citizenry is a common theme in many forms of art, entertainment and literature detailing the country’s sociopolitical environment.

However, there is perhaps no stronger allusion demonstrating these key themes dominating Japan’s current political scene than in the 2000 Japanese thriller film “Battle Royale.” The movie, created by Kunji Funkansuku, illustrates the desires of Japanese citizens to be heard by politicians and, through entertainment, represents the frustration many citizens feel toward the government, with themes of social deviance and government defiance permeating the film. 

The film begins with the Japanese government passing a law known as the “BR ACT” after a major economic recession. This act, designed to allow the government to contain and control the rebellious Japanese youth, forces a different class of 40 students to participate in an annual competition where they must fight to the death. 

Battle Royale was originally adapted from a best-selling novel by the same name and two Japanese films that told similar stories. The 1999 novel, written by Koushun Takami, was inspired by the author’s childhood in 1960s Japan when the All Campus Joint Struggle Committee, otherwise known as the Zenkyoto, protested the Japanese governmental and institutional push towards mirroring American capitalism in the Japanese collegiate system. The student organization, created in 1948, had different chapters at each university and targeted issues specific to each institution, with tuition fee reductions being their most significant objective. However, by the 1960s, Zenkyoto was calling for systemic changes in the way universities approached academics and how students and researchers operated. They believed that the education system was wrongly managed like a factory. The revolts of the Zenkyoto were met with strong resistance by the Japanese government. This only caused the protesters to become even more aggravated with the Japanese’s constant necessity for control, law and order. The repressive government portrayed in Battle Royale is a dystopian imitation of Japan’s management of the youth in the 1960s. The film is protest art, trying to unpack the oppression and the perceived misdirection of the Japanese government. 

Despite Suga framing himself as an outsider, which is a characteristic desired by some of Japan’s general public, his beliefs and actions are not aligned with any anti-establishment rhetoric. Rather, his undertakings are aligned with protecting the bureaucracy. 

When Japan descended into mass protests in the 1960s, Suga avoided the movement. After graduating from university, he served as a secretary for Hukosaburo Okonogi of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for 11 years. LDP is based on conservatism and nationalism and is frequently right of its opposition parties. The party’s platform includes export-based economic development, tax reform, privatization of state-owned industries and strong cooperation with the United States, which are direct contradictions to the stances of more left-wing ideologies.

In 1996, Suga became a member of parliament for the LDP. In this position, Suga became closer with soon-to-be prime minister Abe, also a member of the LDP. Abe appointed Suga to serve in his cabinet as Chief Cabinet Secretary. In this role, Suga had a record of trying to manage the bureaucracy. He brought more tourists and foreign workers into Japan, blocked and delayed information to the media at press conferences, and worked effortlessly to protect Abe’s image from criticism in various scandals. 

While many Japanese citizens desire a less bureaucratic and dynastic government, politicians like Suga do not try to change the damaging culture in Japan, which dominantly encourages silence in the face of oppression. As a common saying in Japan goes, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Contrary to the Western concept of individualism, conformity is appreciated and expected. The government’s push for conformity is a product of Japanese nationalism that rose to prominence in the Empire of Japan with the 1860s Meiji government. Confucian leaders ingrained the importance of loyalty to the state. In order to ensure adherence and uniformity, the government sent officials across the country to enforce patriotic behavior. Japan successfully created a centralized government where individual communities had no control over their jurisdiction or laws. Later, in the 1920s, the Taishō and Shōwa governments modernized the meaning of nationalism by competing with other countries for international and regional power; this was done with the intention of making their country more economically successful and therefore encouraging Japanese citizens more patriotic. 

Japanese nationalism was and continues to be an initiative of creating and maintaining a unified society by focusing on the unity of culture, politics and a shared understanding of Japan’s history and destiny. This is also a crucial part of the LDP’s mission. 

“Battle Royale” demonstrates that this kind of society does not work. Despite the government’s emphasis on togetherness, culturally and politically oppressing the Japanese people led to serious violence, as seen in the 1960s protests. Instead of confronting the political frustrations of the people, Suga, just like his predecessors, does not seem interested in dealing with the desired change.

Looking forward, Suga will have to run again in September of 2021 once his term comes to an end this summer. His success in this next election may depend more on how he deals with the coronavirus and its economic and social fallout, rather than an assessment of his ability to unite the nation after its decades-long social and political turmoil. 

With our world in such disarray, inclusion and diversity of ideas in Japan’s political arena is an overlooked issue. In spite of this, the issue of government oppression and strict bureaucracy in Japan is not any less relevant.

“Battle Royale” still serves as an ode to change today, despite being a response to Japanese political issues of sixty years ago. Clearly, modern reform and progress in Japan is stagnant, which begs the question: Will the desired systemic change in Japan ever really occur with Suga in charge? 

The post Out With the Old: What Japan’s New Prime Minister Can Learn from “Battle Royale” appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Ever since he gained global attention during his 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro has drawn international criticism for his inflammatory comments. His presidency has only solidified his reputation as a jingoist, authoritarian president who unabashedly promotes his controversial socially conservative opinions. As damaging as it can be to live under a president with a hefty record of sexist, racist, and downright insensitive comments (an experience not entirely foreign to other nations such as the U.S. and Great Britain who also recently elected controversial leaders), Bolsonaro’s policies unfortunately reflect his provocative political persona.

After a year in office, he has pursued policies that relax gun restrictions, cripple the federal environmental protection service, attempted to eliminate the federal indigenous health agency, and engaged in a lengthy list of other efforts to undermine the stability of vulnerable populations in Brazil. Within the first year of his term, deforestation has increased by 85 percent. His political agenda has left no demographic more exposed to disaster than indigenous populations, especially rural communities in the Amazon.

Unsurprisingly, these rural indigenous communities have suffered the repercussions of the COVID-19 outbreak and wildfire surges the most, without any meaningful support from their president.

Indigenous populations, which constitute around 13 percent of the population of Brazil, suffer from COVID-related deaths at a rate almost 250 percent higher than the general population. Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (APIB), the umbrella advocacy organization for indigenous communities in Brazil, estimates that Brazil’s 850,000 Indigenous people have endured 26,443 confirmed cases and around 700 deaths, as of late August 2020. An average of two indigenous Brazilians die as a result of COVID-19 every day. These are likely to be low estimates considering even the most capable agencies have difficulty developing accurate measurements of the virus among rural populations.

In Parque das Tribos, an indigenous neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital city of the Amazonas region, a lack of governmental support has forced community members to support themselves. Because local leaders are often older and more susceptible to symptoms of the virus, young professionals bear the brunt of the logistical aid to communities: forming grassroots networks of community support, driving neighbors to hospitals, deriving naturalist remedies for symptoms, and making endless (and seemingly futile) calls to the federal health agency with pleas for more support. Despite impressive demonstrations of community solidarity, the pervasive feeling among residents is one of abandonment.

Parque das Tribos is just one of many such communities. Indigenous Brazilians across the country, deserted by their government and racked with existential terror for their future, have begun protesting against the Bolsonaro administration. In late August, enraged indigenous communities took to the streets. Protestors blocked a major highway, a crucial route for transporting agricultural products out of the Amazon, donning signs urging Bolsonaro to “protect the Amazon” and support “indigenous rights” under an oppressive layer of wildfire smoke.

Indigenous communities were not the only Brazilians to take to the streets. Thousands of citizens have protested Bolsonaro’s education and pension policies since he took office, and more recently protesters have objected to his approach to COVID vaccines. 

Somehow, Bolsonaro continually dismisses any dissidents as “idiots.” Even as indigenous protests continue to gain traction, spreading from Brazil to Colombia, Bolsonaro shamelessly brushes off legitimate criticism as unfounded. Indigenous communities across Latin America continue to march under the banner of “indigenous rights,” calling for equitable land rights, infrastructure investment, and liberty to enforce their own environmental policies, especially in this time of crisis. Bolsonaro turns a blind eye.

To make matters worse for native Amazonians, wildfires erupted with unprecedented strength at the beginning of the dry season in early May and have raged ever since. Unlike the forest ecosystems in California and Australia, wildfires do not naturally occur in the wetlands of the Amazon, and recent trends of annual wildfires are a direct result of deforestation, pollution, and increasing global temperatures — all of which have been exacerbated by Bolsonaro’s lax approach to environmental protectionism.

These fires have been encroaching on indigenous communities, damaging food supplies, destroying homes, and disrupting  already strained and precarious health care systems. Even for communities that lie beyond the fire line, wildfire smoke leaves eyes, throats, and lungs more exposed to the respiratory effects of COVID-19. According to Human Rights Watch, demand for healthcare, especially respiratory medicine such as inhalers, increases on average by 30 percent every wildfire season, and indigenous health care officials annually struggle to accommodate this massive seasonal demand — even before COVID-19 loomed over vulnerable populations.

In the face of anger and desperation, the Bolsonaro administration has failed to develop a comprehensive plan of action, and Bolsonaro himself only occasionally acknowledges the catastrophic state of the economic and physical health of Brazil’s indigenous people. 

In early May, Bolsonaro deployed the army to combat wildfires, granting them permission to seek out illegal logging, deforestation, and fires. However, many residents argue the army’s presence has only exacerbated conditions in the rainforest, and research concurs that the army’s presence, which consists more of infrastructure projects than raids on illegal activity, has done more harm than good.

Despite domestic and international criticism of military deployment and inadequate plans to combat these crises, Bolsonaro continually refuses to address the pleas of indigenous communities for additional masks, PPE, hygiene supplies, and medical personnel. 

Instead, the president made a mediocre attempt to provide aid to rural Amazonian populations by sending medical personnel from SESAI, the national administration for indigenous health. However, the bureau hastily deployed its workers without sufficient efforts to prevent disease transmission from the medical professionals to patients who were not previously exposed. As a result of SESAI’s irresponsible and ignorant aid tactics, the Bolsonaro administration likely accelerated the spread of the virus among remote populations.

In addition to his failure to support marginalized communities, Bolsonaro has publicly and repeatedly denied the dire nature of wildfires and touted his self-proclaimed success at limiting the impacts of the virus.

In his 2019 speech before the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro blamed wildfires in the Amazon on indigenous communities, as if native Amazonians — who have called those forests home long before colonizers arrived — were foolishly engaging in cultural rituals that burned their homes, their livelihoods, and their heritage to the ground. He also firmly repudiated the existence of climate change, even denying that the Amazon was a crucial source of oxygen and a vital carbon sink for the entire world. According to Jair Bolsonaro, scientists invented climate change specifically to undermine his success as a president.

A year after his heavily criticized speech before the UN convention, Bolsonaro’s pre-recorded video for the 2020 convention continues to promote his policies as “the best environmental regulations on the planet”, even as all measurements of deforestation, wildfires, and carbon emissions indicate that Brazil is drifting further and further towards the point of no return.

In the midst of this multifaceted crisis tearing through indigenous communities, the President actively engages in a campaign of denial and misinformation. He refuses to acknowledge the extent of the catastrophe, regarding both the virus and the wildfires, and therefore, aims to avoid accountability for his failure to support the citizens that his office obliges him to support. Underpinning this refusal to face reality is the belief that he can ignore the struggles of indigenous communities with absolute impunity.

Since the rise of far-right wing, populist leaders like President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the global tolerance for deliberate misinformation has dramatically increased. Bolsonaro feels empowered to blatantly deny reality and swerve his responsibilities because his fellow conservative politicians have experienced relative success in the tactic of avoiding reality in order to avoid accountability. 

Like Trump and Johnson, Bolsonaro relies on a cohort of fervent far-right supporters to sustain him through storms of public outcry, both domestically and abroad. In response to their leader’s failure to protect and support their needs as citizens, Brazilians have taken to the streets, as have Americans and Brits and citizens from around the world who feel abandoned by the people whose job it is to serve. 

The voice of the people can only overpower the voices of misinformation, ignorance, and apathy with sustained, collective action. Indigenous communities have begun this daunting task, continuing to self-advocate and protest the injustices of Bolsonaro’s leadership, but the international community must do more to support them. Native Amazonians are dying at disproportionate and preventable rates, and so is their home.

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Once citing fewer than 10 COVID-19 cases a day, cases have risen to triple digits since August 14. With new clusters being attributed to gatherings of fundamentalist right-wing Christian churches and anti-government protests, these groups have come under fire for contributing to COVID-19’s spread. Underneath the cloak of health disputes, the health crisis in South Korea is incredibly telling of the expanding divide within the East Asian country’s political climate. 

Previously, South Korea was widely applauded for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, even coining their recovery strategy as “K-Quarantine”, projecting it as a successful world model. Though other countries such as New Zealand and Australia have also been able to tame the virus, South Korea is arguably the largest democracy to “reduce new daily cases by more than 90 percent from peak”. Their success is largely due to the three pillars of fast testing, thorough tracing, and mandatory isolation, all of which is communicated to citizens daily through official government messaging systems.

Now, amid the virus’s resurgence, churches have come under fire as being virus spreaders. In particular, the fundamentalist Christian church “Sarang Jeil,” meaning “love comes first” in Korean, has faced significant criticism. 

More than 1,100 cases of infection have been linked to the Sarang Jeil Church, second only to that of Shincheonji Church’s 5,200 cases in February. Its pastor, Jun Kwang-hun, has been known for his criticism of President Moon Jae-in, accusing him of being a North Korean sympathizer, as well as perpetuating and capitalizing on election fraud. Having tested positive for COVID-19, he has also battled criminal charges for spreading libel and obstructing epidemiological tracing by reportedly turning in false lists of church-goers used for contact tracing. Despite this, his devout following has not wavered, with members of the conservative right-wing blatantly disregarding social distancing measures and partaking in anti-government rallies. 

On August 15th, thousands gathered to protest President Moon Jae-in’s policies, carrying pro-South Korea banners, American flags, and cut-outs of President Trump. The conservative protesters advocated for President Moon to step down, claiming that he was “handing South Korea over to North Korea”. 

Though exacerbated by the rise of COVID-19 and subsequent economic hardships, the association of Christian fundamentalism and the conservative right in South Korea is not new. Rooted in Protestant American missionaries, Christian fundamentalists have historically aligned themselves with the South Korean conservative right’s’ fervently anti-communist stance and their strong opposition to the efforts to open diplomatic engagement with the North.

In the early 2000s, participation in the Christian fundamentalist movement skyrocketed as other churches started catering towards more “affluent urban professions,” alienating the lower class. As a result, the fundamentalist church bases grew. Sarang Jeil, for example, has a base largely made up of older, lower-income South Koreans, who “took the ostracization they experienced amid the changes South Korean Protestantism went through in the late 90s and turned it into a political holy movement,“ says Kim Jin-ho, a pastor and researcher at the Christian Institute for the 3rd Era.

The rise of COVID-19 cases has only deepened the existing divide in South Korea. Pastor Jun and the church have accused the government of intentionally infecting church members and publishing false COVID-19 test results to cast the brunt of the blame on churches. Many churchgoers have also criticized the government for their mishandling of the situation, with church-going patients citing that they “treated me like a ball of germs, not a citizen of the country.” Meanwhile, the government has also publicly criticized churches for being inconsiderate and senseless. 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tensions have been exacerbated by an ongoing recession, with the South Korean economy suffering a shrinkage of 3.3% in GDP between April and June. The recession has impacted the lower class disproportionately, brewing strong dissent from the right. Many churches also rely on donations from church attendance, furthering their opposition against government attempts to restrict public attendance. 

Politically, the government’s clash with right-wing churches has only put President Moon’s administration under further scrutiny. As of August 14, his Gallup Poll approval rating dropped to 39% amidst allegations of corruption and sexual harassment allegations within the Democratic party. In addition, he began receiving heavy criticism from the right after his unsuccessful efforts to rebuild South Korea’s relationship with North Korea. Being born to North Korean refugees himself, President Moon’s original campaign policies were centered around North Korea rapprochement to establish more cordial relationships between the two countries. Since groundbreaking reconciliatory actions between the North and South in 2018 when President Moon became the first South Korean leader to be ceremonially received, relations between the two countries have deteriorated after South Korea failed to mediate nuclear agreements between the United States and North Korea. South Korea has continuously made efforts to make peace with their Northern counterpart, but their unsuccessful attempts have divided the citizens, with the conservative right accusing President Moon of being a “communist sympathizer” and advocating for his removal. Left to choose between reconciliation with North Korea and maintaining diplomatic relations with the United States, President Moon remains stuck between “a rock and a hard place” as the resulting political divide continues to deepen. 

Going forward, South Korea is faced with difficult decisions between balancing virus prevention regulations, economic recovery, and managing domestic dissatisfaction with the government. Though the number of infections is now lowering, domestic political tensions still persist, and South Korea must tread carefully to avoid complete political upheaval. 

The post What COVID-19 Has Uncovered: South Korea’s Deep Political Divide appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Since conservative President Andrzej Duda narrowly won reelection in July 2020, LGBT rights in Poland have been placed in even greater jeopardy. In a speech, Duda stated that, “the Polish constitution should include an entry saying that it is forbidden to adopt a child by a person who lives in a single-sex relationship.” In his past term as President Duda stated LGBTQ ideology was “worse than communism.” His rhetoric has empowered hate speech and conflict leaving the future of all LGBT rights in Poland in peril.

Prior to Duda’s reelection, anti-LGBT sentiment erupted into violence last summer when a pride parade in the city of Bialystok led to clashes between paraders and protesters. Anti-LGBT protesters threw bricks, stones and fireworks leading to dozens of injuries; the conflict only subsided after police authorities deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd. 

The European Parliament condemned LGBT discrimination in Poland and called on local Polish governments to revoke their declarations- to no avail. In July, the European Union announced it would not provide funding for an EU program that connects communities across Europe through the “twinning of towns in different countries” to six Polish towns. The town’s that had their funding withheld displayed anti-LGBT sentiment and made bigoted statements. The funding ranged from $6,000 to $29,000 dollars. 

The EU has failed to take any meaningful and punitive action against the Polish government to stop it from oppressing its LGBT citizens. Furthermore, if the EU hopes to prevent growing nationalist and far-right sentiment in Poland, it must send a clear message to the Polish people, urging them to elect more tolerant leaders.

EU Response and Limitations Thus Far

In her first state of the union speech on September 20, EU Commision President Ursula Von Der Leyen said that, “being yourself is not your ideology.” 

“It’s your identity. And no one can ever take it away. So I want to be crystal clear – LGBTQI-free zones are humanity free zones,” Von Der Leyen said. “And they have no place in our Union.” While the Commission president publicly condemned Poland’s anti-LGBT actions, she was unable to offer specific steps the Commision would take to stop the Polish government from employing further discriminating legislation. Von Der Leyen promised to personally “push for mutual recognition of family relations in the EU [for LGBT couples],” which is undoubtedly a positive step for all EU citizens. However, LGBT Poles would still be subject to legislation from their local and national governments making this push practically futile.

The EU Commission’s inability to impose effective punitive action against member states who defy democratic values and violate human rights reveals a larger issue surrounding the legitimacy of the Commision as a whole. A unanimous vote is required to suspend a nation state’s voting rights in the EU, but Hungary and Poland have vowed to veto any sanctions aimed at each other. This effectively makes the two states that have, in recent years, experienced a rise in corruption, authoritarianism and anti-LGBT sentiment immune from accountability. 

What’s worse, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Poland and Hungary have received the most EU funding — €7.4 billion and €5.6 billion respectively. In comparison, Italy was hit hardest by the pandemic and received only €2.3 billion in EU funding, according to the European Stability Initiative. Despite their disregard for EU laws on human rights, Poland and Hungary were effectively rewarded through COVID-19 relief funding. The rationale for this inflated funding revolved around Poland and Hungary being newer additions to the EU and having less developed economies compared with other member states. 

The EU had an opportunity to negotiate with Andrzej Duda’s government by attaching conditions to relief funds but failed to effectively do so. 

What can the EU Do Moving Forward? 

While a vote to fully suspend the voting rights of Poland must be unanimous, which would unquestionably be vetoed by Hungary, Article 7 of the Treaty of the EU states that only a four-fifths majority is required to impose sanctions on a member state. The EU should move forward in exercising the powers granted through Article 7 to demonstrate that issues surrounding discrimination, intolerance, and hate will not be given up on. While it is unlikely that the current conservative Polish government will roll back on its  anti-LGBT policies and sentiment, the Polish people could be swayed into voting for more tolerant leadership to stop sanctions from the EU. 

Beyond sanctions, funding could be one of the EU’s most useful tools. The EU has already demonstrated a willingness to revoke funding from regional governments, and it must continue to do so on a larger scale. Giving more funding to Poland than any other EU nation during the COVID-19 crisis is an upsetting case of positive reinforcement when it could have been used as a tool for mediation. While there are significant steps that the EU can take to pressure the Polish government, true change will only arrive if public perception of the LGBT community in Poland is ameliorated. President Andrzej Duda narrowly won the vote by 51.2%, illustrating the feasibility of a shift in Poland’s conservative majority. 

The EU should do everything in its power to push for not only an end to discrimination, but also meaningful improvement for the LGBT community that will occur if the majority of Polish people decide to move towards a more progressive and tolerant future. 

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