The onsen owners, who had claimed to have problems with inebriated and rowdy Russian sailors, asked Arudou, his Japanese family, and his non-Asian looking cohorts to leave. The businesses had posted signs stating that bath facilities were for "Japanese Only" (see photo Arudou, pp. 31, 39, 113). The onsen owners argued that it was discriminatory to reject only Russians, so they turned away all foreigners.

Later, Arudou became a naturalized Japanese citizen and changed his name from David Aldwinckle to Debito Arudou. When he returned to the onsen wielding his new citizenship, he was again rejected based on his “foreign” race. Arudou and his two co-plaintiffs (Olaf Karthaus and Ken Sutherland), in reaction to Yunohana onsen's continued discrimination, sued the business for damages and the city for violation against the UN CERD.

Arudou and his partners then win the initial case against the onsen, but not against the city. Arudou, who once enjoyed a wide base of support, eventually finds himself alone, abandoned by his lawyer and co-plaintiffs, begging an anonymous government clerk to help him file his appeal against Otaru in Japanese. (Arudou, p. 365).³

It all seems like gripping material for a book and, indeed, could (and should) be. However, Japanese Only never works—and on several operating levels, at that.

Assessing Japanese Only

In judging the merits or demerits of Japanese Only, one has to decide the standards and bench marks from which to gauge it. Just as a bubblegum horror movie is not judged on the same standard as an art house film, so the basis on which one reviews a work of social science (with its demands for rigor and hypothesis testing) must be suspended for the navel-gazing travelogue.

But therein lies the problem: what is Arudou’s book? Is it social science, a handbook for activists in Japan, a primary resource cum compendium of media reports, didactic literature, propaganda, autobiography or a public policy memoir? Is it an impassioned plea for the end of discrimination? Does it argue for the merits of tolerance in Japan? It is unclear to the reader, and perhaps to the author himself, what the book is meant to achieve.

Japanese Only is loosely structured as a narrative in chronological order. Arudou tells us a story because “it reads better and sounds less tendentious than an essay” (Arudou, p. 391). To some extent, characters and a story unfold. Arudou is most effective in drawing Karthaus, his German co-plaintiff. He succinctly captures Karthaus’s quiet faith and humanity. In a few deft strokes, the reader has a glimmer of understanding Karthaus’s commitment to stopping racism and his largely Burkean world view. Sutherland, the other co-plaintiff, remains a fun loving but ultimately flat character.

One key problem with the narrative is development of the main character: Debito Arudou himself. First, Arudou’s name changes, almost inexplicably: Dave, Debito, Me, David, the translator, the transcriber, etc. We never truly understand what drives him nor the true costs of his activism, personally or professionally. For example, the author has said multiple times that he embarked on this journey to save his two young daughters from racism. Yet, he deliberately placed them in a situation where he knew his children would be discriminated against when he first took them to Yunohana Onsen to “make our point clearer” (Arudou, p. 23). The onsen manager looked at Arudou’s children and declared that older Japanese looking daughter could enter the onsen, but her younger Western looking sister could not.

This is an extraordinary decision and deserves explanation: facing such blatant discrimination at a young age (both were under 7 years old at the time) must have had a profound impact on their lives. Moreover, from his narrative, Arudou seems to be forever off on fact-finding missions and dedicating his time and energy away from his young family and career. His very understanding Japanese wife is only given passing mention, although she too fielded harassment. His family receives death threats in the mail: “FUCK YOU. . .WE WILL KILL YOUR KIDS.” (Arudou, p. 304) Arudou’s response is a rather bland cliché: “You don’t make deals with terrorists. . .stay the course.” (Arudou, pp. 305-6).

Events simply follow one after the other, and introspection or in-depth commentary is scant. Arudou’s mistakes are never acknowledged, his flaws (aside from a weight problem) are never sketched. Indeed, one suspects the reader is deliberately treated to a one-dimensional character with neither rhyme nor reason beyond the occasional sound bite: “it’s all for his children.” He almost never looks back. We wonder, Does he have a life outside of activism?

True, in one section Arudou muses that his friend thought that he may have been used by his fellow activists. He takes comfort in the fact that “human rights activism” has a common pattern of “dissent and discordance” (Arudou, p. 255).

One would think that on this journey, Arudou would have made a misstep: no one was hurt? No one was left behind? He does not respond to many of his critics and justifies this with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Seldom if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas.” (Arudou, p. 299)

At almost every step, the reader is treated to a litany of clichés from a group of mostly anonymous⁴ cheerleaders that he labels as "Friends" (viz. Arudou, p. 285).:

Those he dislikes or disagrees with are relegated to the “Peanut gallery,” which he abbreviates as “PG” (viz. Arudou, p. 285): “Well congratulations. Signs are down. . .Now are you dropping the suit?” (Arudou, p. 285).

Criticizing the narrative may be unfair. The author states in the first paragraph that the book is “a record of how social movements rise and fall in the age of the Internet” and a case study so that readers too can “make the world a better place” (Arudou, p. i). If we take Arudou at his word, the book is indeed a record, in as much as he does reprint the media reports, old e-mails sent to his “Friends” mailing list, transcripts⁵ , court documents and other miscellany. Many of these items can be found on his website (www.debito.org) for free, thus saving the reader 3500JP¥ (US$1=105JP¥, $33) to purchase the book. On his website, one can use a search engine making it a useful resource: lacking an index or a developed reference list, the same cannot be said about the book.

As a primary resource, Japanese Only is virtually unusable. The appendix, which contains two excerpts of the court judgments, is curiously underdeveloped. Many of the newspaper clippings incorporated into the text belonged in this section. An unwieldy chapter/sub-chapter structure, an addiction to random capitalization, all uppercase text, bold print, and shifting fonts: hunting for information in this book is tedious. Arudou quotes long passages in full that could have been summarized in a few sentences. He also uses a number of unsuccessful stylistic devices that detract from the “record.” His Japanese father-in-law, for example, appears to have an Italian accent: “Hey shaddappa you face.” (Arudou, p. 312). The self-indulgent writing is in desperate need of an editor: “One lit kiss later, they took deep breaths of shared fire” (Arudou, p. 101). (Would you know a couple is smoking cigarettes?) He finds it necessary to tell us that we have reached the end of a chapter by writing, “END OF CHAPTER ONE” (Arudou, p. 109). And the glossary, bizarrely, is in the front with what seems like a random selection of words, such as “snakku” (hostess bars) that are only peripheral to the issues at hand. One wonders why he found it necessary to point out that “girls” in the snakku will “probably not put out” (Arudou, p. x).

As for the claim of Internet activism, the book does not provide much useful information for the activist-to-be, aside from a few short passages. It seems unlikely that this book would help a would-be Algerian activist facing discrimination in France, or a Turk in Germany. The book remains focused on the specifics of Arudou’s case and makes no effort to contextualize, compare or contrast it to other movements.

The advice he does give is sensible: keep the main points of e-mail articles on the first screen and write stand-alone articles with “snappy writing” and a “sunny style” (Arudou pp. 111-2). He also gives a few tips about dealing with the press and press conferences. The serious internet activist may, however, find it more useful to go to NetAction’s website (http://www.netaction.org/) for stereo instructions on writing effective activist e-mail and other comprehensive guides to Internet outreach and advocacy.

In the post “Battle of Seattle” age in which tens of thousands of people rioted on the streets, many linked by cell phones, instant messaging, GPS, PDAs⁶ , and laptops, Arudou’s brand of “Internet activism” of cranking out “Nyuu Yoku Times”⁷ for his “Friends” e-list seems almost quaint. Arudou makes little use of technology to organize flash mobs, blogs, google bombs, or wikis⁸: he remains the old-fashioned pamphleteer. Unfortunately, his thorough and comprehensive website with thousands of pages of material, which is by far one of the most effective tools in his Internet arsenal, gets short shrift: the book has only passing references to this excellent resource within the main text (Arudou, pp. iv, 13, 57, 281, 307, 376-7).

Perhaps, then, this book is best understood not as a narrative, nor as a handbook for activists, but as a personal account of intolerant attitudes in Japan. It would be unfair to judge the book as social science, as it is clearly not designed with structured analytical content in mind. This is not as criticism per se, but simply an observation: Arudou himself writes that he aimed to create a book in which “a nonfiction event [was] told as a story with characters and a narrative” (Arudou, p. 391). It is somewhat of a pity that Arudou did not take advantage of his training from his Masters course under political science professor Chalmers Johnson⁹ at University of California San Diego and develop some of the intriguing themes he introduces in the book. He posits, for example, that anti-foreign sentiment was spreading in Japan, yet offers little except anecdotal evidence. One could see future graduate students investigating his claims.

And yet, Arudou makes some not so easily overlooked errors: in the glossary, he writes within the context of defining Zainichi Gaikokujin (Japan-born foreigners):

To posit that “just about every other developed country” does not base citizenship on jus sanguinis is simply incorrect: citizenship in countries such as Austria, Israel, South Korea, Singapore, Norway, and Italy (to name just a few) is not automatically based on place of birth, that is jus solis, but rather jus sanguinis. All would argue that they are “developed.” In fact, no country solely bases their citizenship on jus solis: many countries use a combination of jus sanguinis, jus solis, and/or a process of naturalization. While in the New World jus solis is commonplace—77% of countries in the Organization of American States (OAS, a mix of developed and undeveloped states) has jus solis—only 8% of countries in the European Union (EU) and 20% of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) apply this law. (For a JapanReview.Net analysis of jus solis/jus sanguinis in the world, click here).

I point out the problems with this definition, not for gratuitous stone throwing, but to highlight a key underlying premise of the book: Japan, Arudou implies, is an outlier in its legal treatment of foreigners. Yet this implication is simply wrong in the above case. Moreover, the concepts and definition of citizenship are fundamental to this argument. Arudou should get them right: in failing to do so, his credibility is undermined. Such mistakes and omissions further undermine his credibility when he reports that "Japan happens to be the only OECD country without any form of domestic law against racial discrimination" (Arudou, p. 306) and neither provides a single citation to support his claim nor outlines how he arrived at this conclusion in the first place. A shame, really.¹⁰

Arudou’s argument that racism is wrong, especially for non-ethic Japanese citizens, is presented clearly: both ethic and non-ethnic Japanese carry the same burdens of citizenship. Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution does, after all, guarantee racial equity to Japanese nationals: “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.” One of Arudou’s complaints was that Japanese legal scaffolding was not sufficient to enforce Article 14. Moreover, non-citizens are unprotected from racial discrimination.

However, his arguments become far more cloudy when he calls for a civil rights act that is “effective at all levels of government, enshrining the basic rights for Japanese residents, regardless of citizenship” (Arudou, p. 398). He mixes together an anti-racism message, the rights of non-ethnic Japanese citizens, and “pro-foreigner” rights. While few would disagree that an anti-discrimination law is desirable, broadly undefined “rights” for non-citizens are another matter altogether. Arudou posits that it should be mandated “simply because it is a good idea” (Arudou, p. 398). But it begs the question: Why? On what basis is it good? Good for a small minority of foreign residents? (Click here for Japan's Non-Citizens: Facts & Figures) Good for the economy? Good for Japan over all? And what exactly are “basic rights”—does it include rights to welfare? Should the Japanese government, for example, fund foreign schools? Arudou mentions political rights (Arudou, p. iii): which political rights? Should foreigners be allowed to vote or hold office? What do non-citizens have to do to earn these rights? Taxation, draft, or social service? Arudou does not attempt to distinguish between negative rights (i.e. do not discriminate) and the positive rights that would flow from his proposed civil rights act.

Too often the need for tolerance is presented as a feel-good sound bite; however, it is a complex issue. Given all the problems that Arudou faced, it is odd that he does not present a case for why tolerance is a “good thing” for Japan. Questioning the limits, successes, and failures of cultural tolerance is no longer just the realm of the ultra-right. Take, for example, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh’s assassination in which he was allegedly shot and stabbed by dual Dutch-Moroccan national Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri in 2004.¹¹ This murder sparked a wide debate: many feared that the one million Muslims in the Netherlands were eroding traditional Dutch values of tolerance and liberalism. Many “native” Dutch felt that traditional Muslims did not respect key values such as equality of the sexes, religion, or sexuality. Holland is not alone in this debate. Similarly, France’s wrangling over Muslim girls wearing headscarves in school has polarized debate. In Thailand, after the East Asian currency crisis, Thais were not necessarily xenophobic (in that they welcomed tourism and foreign visitors), but were chary of foreign capital. Would Arudou debate that this too was a violation of civil and human rights?

The Tony Show