Japanese Nationalists Invade French Embassy

Members of a Japanese ultra-nationalist group have been arrested for invading France’s Tokyo embassy in response to a French satirical TV show which poked fun at the recent earthquake.

6 members of the group illegally entered the French Embassy in Tokyo’s Minato district, where they were promptly arrested by police for trespassing.

The men explained that they “came to protest after a French TV station made fun of the recent earthquake.”

The group in question was identified as “Wakouki-juku” (loosely, “School of Japanese Ascendancy”) – one of Japan’s “Uyoku Dantei” (“right-wing groups”), fringe ultra-nationalist groups best known for running noisy propaganda spewing black vans, and for their shady connections and faintly surreal antics – many are actually run by the yakuza and have large ethnic Korean contingents amongst their members and leadership.

This has on occasion led to such bizarre spectacles as Japanese “ultra-nationalist” groups harassing right-wing racist politicians such as Ishihara for accusing his opponents of being ethnic Koreans.

Needless to say, these silly groups are studiously ignored by the vast majority of Japanese and can be viewed more as road gangs camouflaged as political groups than as actual nationalist political movements – Japan’s actual far right can be found in the LDP.

The road gang analogy is strengthened by a look at their websites – these often proudly display a variety of lovingly customised and often quite eccentric propaganda vehicles, in much the same way as car or bike fanciers will indulge their juvenile obsessions with elaborate yet pointless conversions of excessively noisy vehicles:

Interestingly, the “right wing groups” were nowhere to be seen during the Senkaku islands spat – the nationalist protests which were seen were organised by conservative establishment figures, and attended by normal people as opposed to yakuza stooges.

Even 2ch hates them (although this is not really surprising if it is accepted that they are mostly Koreans and/or yakuza):

“The shame of Japan!”

“Just a bunch of crazies…”

“Go and protest at the Diet, those are the ones who are really mocking us with their policies.”

“More of those dirty Koreans. Why must they always bother our country?”

“A bunch of ethnic Koreans most likely.”

“These right wing groups and the yakuza are absolutely full of Koreans. Their real objective in running these trucks is to make a public nuisance and ruin the image of the Japanese right, and so diminish the patriotism of the Japanese.”

“They just want to ruin the image of conservatives in the French-speaking world. It’s still the second most widely spoken language.”

“A bunch of Koreans love this country more than any of you – all you lot did was insult France in a few threads.”

“Who cares what these fake right wingers do. They should be harassing Tepco if they want to make themselves useful.”

“‘Wakou’ = ‘wakou’ [an ancient name for Japanese pirates]?”

“If they’re real natives they should go and protest pachinko parlours sending all their profits back to North Korea.”

“Any news you don’t like somehow ends up being the fault of Korea…”

“These right wing groups have no ideology or politics, they are just branches of yakuza branches.”

“Bosozoku [biker gangs], gaisen uyoku [right-wing propaganda trucks], soukaiya [extortionists who disrupt company shareholder meetings], yakuza, tekiya [racketeers], they’re all connected. 30% are Koreans, 60% buraku [descendants of the Edo-period “unclean” castes], 10% whatever. Other countries can probably never understand how the ‘right-wing’ here is something championed by the very dregs of society.”

“These groups are just cover organisations for the yakuza. They have no real political agenda, they just put on these performances occasionally. Most of the leadership aren’t even Japanese.”

“They completely ignore Takeshima and Senkaku only to pick up on something like this?”

“I live in France – the media restrictions here are amazing, it’s even worse than Japan. All the companies are under the influence of Sarkozy or the ruling party. My friend works at the AFP and says he doesn’t even bother watching TV news.

The common people are pathetically educated, it’s really bad. I still remember being asked ‘do they have these in your country?’ by someone pointing at a microwave oven.”

“And of course we’ve yet to see any of these groups go near a Korean or Chinese embassy.”

“Even the BBC ran a report saying 90% of their members are Koreans or burakumin.”

“More people trying to get into France illegally.”