SPEAKING
FREELY Japanese whaling logic full of
baloney By Manjit Bhatia
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
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Australian
Environment Minister Ian Campbell may have spoken
too soon when, days before a crucial vote, he
suggested that Japan's push for the International
Whaling Commission (IWC) to end its 20-year
moratorium on the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
would be for naught.
But voting was
doggedly close throughout every session of the
IWC's meeting this month in the Caribbean nation
of St Kitts and Nevis. Anxieties soared and
tempers flared amid jockeying for
supporters between anti- and
pro-whaling states.
There were claims
Japan was buying votes and demands that
anti-whaling countries make their foreign aid
conditional.
Tuvalu finally sided with
Japan, amid charges that Tokyo had promised to
fund its infrastructure development. Prime
Minister Maatia Toafa threw up his hands in
disbelief over the suggestion, while Togo went to
the summit and paid its dues with US$10,000 - in
cash.
Tuvalu wasn't alone; Antigua and
Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St
Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines joined 27
other states in voting to end the moratorium on
hunting whales.
There's more. Japanese
yen, to curry favor, have extended from the tiny
South Pacific nations to Africa and the Caribbean.
Japan has a well-established record of bribing
smaller, weaker nations to prostitute themselves
to Japanese interests. And there's enough evidence
to suggest they did just that.
Since 1998
Japan has poured no less than $100 million in
"foreign aid" into St Lucia, St Vincent, Antigua,
Dominica, Grenada and St Kitts.
In the end
the resolution passed 33-32 - in favor of the
pro-whalers. While the vote does not end the
hunting ban, the IWC has been rendered
dysfunctional, if not redundant. The pro-whalers
reaffirmed that with their commitment to
sustainable hunting. Their word is not credible.
Until the ballot, Japan had been
exploiting a loophole in the moratorium to hunt
and kill minke whales in the Southern Ocean each
year - for "scientific" purposes. But Campbell and
Greenpeace say that's code for commercial hunting.
Nothing more, nothing less. If the whales had been
waiting with bated breath that they would be saved
from being brutally killed by Japanese whaling
ships and their harpoons, they've just had their
hopes dashed. In 2007, Japanese whalers will be
hunting and killing the Australian humpback
species.
In one breath Japan says whales
are hunted for scientific research. In another it
says whale killings will benefit some of Japan's
small fishing communities. Japanese logic is so
easily justified: the ocean beasts monopolize and
deplete fish stocks to the detriment of the
Japanese appetite.
Two of the three
possible reasons are commercial, but it cannot
justify Japanese cruelty toward whales. Japan,
Norway and Iceland have killed 2,500 whales in the
past 12 months. That's more than in any year since
the ban came into effect. Yet the Japan Whaling
Association (JWA) says it "strongly believes that
[whales] should continue to be protected".
But here's the caveat: "On the other hand,
there are species which are abundant enough that
marine management is needed, such as the Antarctic
and northwestern Pacific minke whales and
northwestern Pacific Bryde's whales."
Somehow this is justification enough,
morally and ethically, for Japan to continue
killing whales.
The JWA employs a curious
ploy for further justification of whale-killing.
Citing the late E J Slijper, a world authority on
cetaceans, "It seems improbable that an animal
which propels itself mainly with its tail should
need a more highly developed brain than, for
instance, a monkey, which uses all its limbs so
skillfully."
On a similar note, Margaret
Klinowska, a professor at Cambridge University and
a member of the specialist group of the IUCN
(World Conservation Union) species survival
commission, said, "In most species of cetaceans,
the brain is neither very large nor especially
complex," adding that "whales betray little
evidence of behavioral complexity beyond that of a
herd of cows or deer".
This makes it
right, then, for the Japanese to hunt and kill
whales anywhere they find them, and in any number
they desire? These killings are done in the name
of Japan's pursuit of "scientific research". But
one JWA source close to policymaking says
scientific research is no more than a cover for
Japan's behavior. Of the stacks of boxes
containing so-called research, the source says
less than 10% is research and less than half of
that is useful by any measure.
This is
gross deception, out-and-out lies sanctioned by
successive Japanese governments. It reveals, in
the most hideous and disgusting way, how sections
of Japanese society continue to behave in the
modern, civilized world. It is callous.
Here's more evidence the scientific
research behind Japan's whaling operations is
horrendously bogus. Japanese consumer demand for
whale meat has been plummeting to the point there
is now an oversupply, so much so that Japanese
schoolchildren are being urged to eat whale meat
for lunch. Even the elderly are being encouraged.
But the marketing campaigns have failed -
dismally.
Consequently, whale-meat prices
have dropped. Richer Japanese are buying other
meat products, such as imported beef. The JWA
hopes poorer Japanese will step in to buy the
cheaper whale meat. And still there's abundant
whale meat left over. That is processed, piled
into cans and sold as cat and dog food.
For this Japan insists it needs a whale
scientific research body, and for that, it needs
to kill whales. Now, here's an idea for Tokyo: set
up a scientific research institute for Japanese
baloney.
Manjit Bhatia is an
Australian writer and university teacher who
specializes in Asian and international political
economy.
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Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
