Japan- The Land of the Rising Sun and Setting Buddhism

Japan- The Land of the Rising Sun and Setting Buddhism
Japan is in the news for all the wrong reasons these days. Take the case of its willful and utter disdain towards world outcry against Whale slaughter. Japanese fisherman hunt for whales by harpooning them in a very cruel way and hoisting the magnificent sea mammals alive after they are exhausted. It carries out all this in the name of scientific experiments albeit selling whale meat, blubber, and its smooth skin as shoe leather, which is commercially known as “porpoise hide” Indeed, it has become a matter of right for Japan to exploit a provision, which exists in the International Whaling Commission’s Charter of Regulated Whaling. It has been exploiting this provision to carry out mass slaughter of Whales for years with impunity and contempt for the sentiments of vast majority of people in the world, who have their heart in right place.
This writer remembers with vivid clarity, a documentary aired in National Geography Channel a few years back. The documentary detailed mass slaughter of defenseless whales by a band of merciless Japanese fishermen. The sea in the vicinity of mass slaughter was blood red, as far as the eye could see. Intrepid conservationists filmed this blood curdling graphic documentary and. the whole world is beholden to them for risking their lives in pursuit of their subliminal calling. The resultant outcry, stirred the government of the day. Paradoxically, it issued a direction to its fishermen to ensure that careful watch be kept to prevent filming of whale-slaughter-in-process at all costs and not the whale slaughter itself! Despite the angry and shrill outcry against whale fishing and their mass slaughter, Japan remains unmoved and unfazed and it is readying itself for another whaling season!
Japan is the world’s second largest economy. Next, only to USA. Ostensibly, Japanese are gentle, extremely polite and highly cultured. The world is richer as they have presented to the world their enchanting flower arrangement, painting, Haiku, Bonsai, and the famed tea ceremony. Significantly, it has fathered the Kyoto Pact to protect the humanity from the ill effects of global warming and devised a system of carbon credit. However, the most significant, unique and unparalleled feature of its philosophy of existence is enshrined in its Constitution, which directs the State to completely renounce war as an instrument of national policy.
So, why is this extremely polite and cultured society AT WAR with another extremely gentle, harmless, defenceless species called whales? The United Nations has just observed that whales, especially the Right Whales also known as Whalebone Whales are under danger of extinction. Quaintly, due to man’s insatiable desire to exploit those who cannot fight back for their very survival!
In contrast with Japans disdain for anything called Cetaceans (whales) we are by now familiar with heartwarming account of thousands of spectators rushing to the banks of Port of Sacramento just to catch a glimpse of two whales (mother and her calf) who have taken a wrong turn and swam 145 km inland. Two days later came the news that all out efforts to lure these two stranded whales back into the Pacific Ocean suffered a setback after they again reversed course and began heading further inland and that both were in great distress. The American Coast Guard have since placed a safety ring around them to ensure their safety while the veterinary doctors have administered antibiotics to hasten healing of cuts sustained on their skin. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has, just as this piece is being written, upheld the ban against whaling expeditions and Japan is making all the threatening noise of quitting the IWC!
The answer to unfathomable cruelties to these mammals perhaps lies in the Japanese psyche, which has been conditioned due to existence of 500 active volcanoes, insularity of their land. This has resulted in a narrow and circumscribed national outlook, which is out of step with the whole world despite Buddhism being religion of the masses. The same cruelty was evident during II World War. The Japanese man’s ability to commit Hara-kiri is singular and unparalleled in any other part of the world. The magnificent, gregarious and gentle Whales, Conservationists, and all right thinking people of the world will not shed a tear should Japan decide to commit political, social and cultural Hara-kiri. .