Other People = Dangerous

[Disclaimer: I very, very much like living in Japan, which is a beautiful and inspiring country; this is at least partially because my friends are not IDIOTS like, for example, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara or the vast majority of Japanese politicians]

Today Japan began a new policy of requiring fingerprints and photographs from all foreigners entering the country, including those with residency rights. (But excluding diplomats, which has been a good enough loophole for terrorists elsewhere in the past...) In a country the institutional racism of which makes the Bad Old Days of British policing look like a diversity-themed children's picnic, it is worth remembering that Japan is one of the few countries in the world with the glorious distinction of being a net exporter of terrorism.

Not only have all of the numerous political assassinations and occasional acts of domestic terror in the past six decades been carried out by Japanese citizens (including of course the Tokyo sarin attack, the only terrorist incident to have ever successfully used any kind of WMD), but the Japanese Red Army merrily spent the 1970s and 1980s hijacking, bombing, and murdering their way around the world; including the massacre at Tel Aviv's Lod Airport in 1974, which was carried out 'on behalf of' the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

This is also a country where the JAPANESE murderer of a FOREIGN language teacher can escape, without wearing shoes, from a significant number of police (and still be evading capture months later). I suppose one argument for harrassing everyone at the border could be that the police are far too incompetent to do anything once any potential terrorists have already entered the country.

If we perform the marvelous I-can't-see-what's-right-in-front-of-my-face-because-I'd-rather-not act (so beloved in Japan) in order to ignore the all-pervasive power of Japanese organised crime in the shape of the Yakuza, then it would be possible to suggest that foreigners made a significant contribution to crime in Japan. And, let's not forget, it's not foreigners who are cutting off their mother's head and carrying it around in a sports bag.

Phew... Rant over!