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Dec. 2002 No.26 |
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GLOBALISM AND THE WHALING ISSUE
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Takao Hosokawa
Professor
Agriculture Department
Ehime University |
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More
than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union that had led
the socialistic bloc in the world, the United States, the champion
of capitalism that stood in stark confrontation with socialism, further
reinforced its confidence and has been expanding its influence, imposing
its patterns of action on other countries. The Soviet breakdown meant
the collapse of the socialistic ideology as a norm. It also meant
that the Soviet politics were engulfed by its old antagonist, the
United States, in the wave of globalization. The United States globalized
information through its powerful information transmission capability.
In other words, it spread in the world the American tenet that unregulated
free economy is good. Thus, the United States succeeded in globalizing
the politics of the Socialist countries.
There may be
diverse interpretations of the word globalism, but the point here
is that globalism entails the imposition of value systems. It implies
that countries and regions having their own traditional rules and
customs should abandon them and comply with the global rules.
The autonomy
of whaling rooted in regions, it seems to me, has been utterly deprived
under the pretext of environmentalism, which is a form of globalism.
There is a stronger tendency to make light of what has been rooted
in a certain region or climate under the name of unilateral globalism.
Amidst such circumstances, agriculture, forestry and fisheries having
strong roots in the regions and climate of Japan are forced to suffer
decline, and whaling is no exception.
In the present
situation formed by an international framework under the leadership
of the United States (i.e., the commercial whaling moratorium), the
traditional whaling communities that were deprived of their right
to a livelihood are agonizing in search for their regional identity.
In December last year, the present author visited Ayukawa in Miyagi
Prefecture and Abashiri in Hokkaido--two of those communities--and
learned from people involved in whaling about the difficult situation
in which they had been placed, including the problem of finding successors
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Mr.
B of the whaling company A in Oshika Town of Miyagi Prefecture told
me about the successor problem as follows: "We are urging the Fisheries
Agency for the resumption of whaling because we, who lived on whales,
do not want to see whaling disappear in our generation. Our company
fortunately has two staffers in their twenties, while the other two
are in their fifties and one in his sixties. So we have a balanced
staff structure in terms of age. But we cannot recruit younger people
if there is no future prospect for whaling. Especially, we face the
need to train new whale flensing staff. At present, the oldest flenser
is 75 years old. Flensing requires many years of experience." Mr.
C, a staff of the Institute of Cetacean Research in Ayukawa, Oshika
Town, said "there was no government compensation for the people engaged
in whaling after the enforcement of the commercial whaling moratorium.
Those who lost jobs sought means of livelihood in other sectors such
as manufacturing and construction. Even if commercial whaling is resumed,
it would be difficult to employ young people in whaling because of
technical reasons."
Mr. C pointed
out the following needs to preserve whaling culture. "After Maruha
Corporation pulled out from Ayukawa, the vacated land was turned into
Whale Land, a tourist spot, but this facility is now running deficits.
Visitors increased after the entrance fee was reduced from 1,000 to
700 yen but still the deficits remain. The town cannot close Whale
Land because it is necessary to preserve the whale culture. The traditional
whale festival is held once a year to keep our whaling culture, but,
in reality, the number of people not interested in whales is increasing.
Whale meat is served for school lunch once a month, with the aim to
have the younger generation know the taste of whale meat. I hope that
more young people will come to eat whale meat. Previously, you had
never paid for whale meat. It had been given as a gift. In other words,
sharing had been practiced so commonly. As a matter of fact, sharing
of whale meat constituted the symbol of this community."
Mr. E of the
whaling company D of Abashiri, Hokkaido, recounted that whale dishes
formed traditional family cuisine there. "People in Abashiri do not
eat frozen whale meat because they had been used to eating it raw.
Now the whale meat supplied is only that from research whaling. They
waited until the next spring as they wanted fresh whale meat. We don't
have the habit of eating hari-hari nabe (whale meat boiled with vegetables).
We cooked fresh meat as steak, or fried with ginger and bean paste
(miso). As people do not have refrigerators they used to preserve
whale meat in soy sauce. The period when the whale meat was supplied
was from April to June. And after they had eaten up their share, they
did not eat whale meat until next spring. There had been no restaurants
specializing in whale dishes because whales had been cooked at home.
Recently, a whale restaurant opened in this city and seems to be attracting
tourists. But for people in Abashiri, whale was something to be eaten
at home. As a matter of fact, whale was the only meat available. It
was an inexpensive daily foodstuff."
Mr. G of a marine
product processing company F in Abashiri, expressed his dissatisfaction
about the International Whaling Commission as follows: "At present
the IWC does not recognize subsistence whaling in Japan. We hope coastal
whaling in Japan, including that in Ayukawa, is recognized as subsistence
whaling. In other words, we want that coastal whaling in Japan will
be treated in the same way as subsistence whaling by Inuits in the
United States. We want the IWC to recognize a provisional quota of
50 minke whales in order to bring relief to whaling in our region."
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"I
am not so much concerned about the issue of whale flensing techniques,"
he continued, "but it would be more difficult to recruit gunners and
crew. This problem should be solved the soonest possible. I am now
planning to organize a whaling campaign in the festival of Abashiri.
I also intend to attend the annual meeting of the IWC meeting in Shimonoseki.
It is my expectation that Japan's proposal on the resumption of commercial
whaling will see one step forward to its realization at the coming
IWC meeting," he said.
This time I visited
Ayukawa and Abashiri, two of the traditional whaling communities in
Japan, and interviewed people involved in whaling. After the visits,
I confirmed that those people, including municipal government officials,
are making efforts not to terminate whaling tradition. However, what
is more important in preserving whaling and whaling culture would
be to build up a network of the whaling communities' activities and
transmit the information to the world as Japan's campaign for the
resumption of whaling.
The present trend
towards globalism represents the unilateral "imposition of rules and
value judgments" by the United States. A commercial whaling moratorium
is in place and the right of livelihood by traditional whaling communities
has been infringed upon by environmental globalism that has made the
whale a symbol of environmental protection under the slogan that "the
earth's environment cannot be preserved if we cannot protect whales."
This situation which is now before us clearly represents the negative
aspect of globalism. Japan needs to fight back the U.S.-led universalism
under the name of "globalism" that denies regional traditions and
customs. There is indeed a need to correct the present abnormal situation
of the IWC--an international framework for whaling dominated by environmental
globalism that gives little regard to the will of whaling communities.
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