Opinion Putting Japan in Perspective By DAVID ZOPPETTI	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
日本を広い視野から理解する 日本を広い視野から理解する 外国人が日本の問題を取り上げてやみくもに非難し、 自国のやり方を自慢する傾向は以前はよく見られた。 今ではもうそんなやり方は通用しないが、 他国と日本の実情を比較するのは大切なことだ。 在日外国人ジャーナリストの義務とも言えるだろう。

There were days in Japan when foreign columnists, journalists or TV personalities — whether they worked in English or in Japanese — could make a living out of systematically criticizing their host country.

They would pick up some current social, economic or political issue, state how clumsily Japan was dealing with it, then boast about how remarkably their own country — or "the West" in general — had managed to solve it.

This required very few journalistic skills. But there was always a newspaper editor or a TV producer ready to buy the product, as there was a common belief that remarks about Japanese society had a greater impact when voiced by a foreigner.

And this wasn't entirely untrue. Indeed, the Japanese public often showed a certain weakness — and even gullibility at times — in dealing with pressure or criticism from the outside. But things are changing, and nowadays there is a growing awareness of what is happening abroad as well as a genuine interest in finding out how Japan should fit in the global community.

In other words, the Japanese are no babes in the woods, and no journalist in his right mind would dream of going back to the old formula of systematically denigrating things done the Japanese way and bragging about the "irreproachable" methods of the West.

However, this doesn't mean that there is no room left for making comparisons. On the contrary, a global approach to problems is more important now than ever, and pointing out analogies between situations in different countries should be one of the premises of modern journalism. Let me give you a few examples.

When I see how much money is wasted on unnecessary — and often suspicious — public works projects in Japan, I feel it is important to bring forward the message that in some countries citizens are enabled by law to organize referendums to evaluate the necessity of such works and to determine whether they should be carried through or not.

After experiencing how difficult it is to obtain paternity leave from a Japanese company, I think there is a point in showing how far ahead in this field both the legal system and the mentali ties are in Scandinavian countries. It's important to know that such improvements were not simply handed over on a platter by politicians, but were made possible thanks to the constant striving of citizen movements.

Faced with the ever-increasing number of deadly accidents on Japanese roads, is it not relevant to share information about what is done in Germany or Denmark — countries that have succeeded in drastically reducing such accidents — to educate drivers and improve driving conditions?

When talking about how the Japanese press deal with matters related to the Imperial Family, does not comparison with the coverage of the Royal Family by the English press have an obvious bearing?

This list could go on. The point is that there is a fundamental difference between bashing and putting an issue in perspective. I feel that journalists — especially if they are long-term residents in this country — have a responsibility to point out differences, to draw comparisons and to use them to come up with constructive suggestions.

Shukan ST: Feb. 18, 2000

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