- South Africa’s ambassador to Japan Mohau Pheko, top left, attends a photo session with other female ambassadors and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo in Sept. 2014.
- Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
In a letter to Japan’s Sankei Shimbun daily, South Africa’s ambassador to Japan challenged a proposal made in its controversial column about foreign workers and segregation, explained the history of apartheid in her country, and ended with a quote from former president Nelson Mandela.
Sankei on Wednesday published a column by author Ayako Sono which said that while Japan must rely on immigrants to address its shortage of workers to care for its ballooning elderly population, it might be better for people with different races to live separately.
Ambassador Mohau Pheko wrote that in essence, the column glorifies apartheid.
“I wish to offer a strong caution about emulating apartheid laws. Furthermore, it is important to place apartheid in its correct context in order to avoid any country from glorifying it as a policy consideration,” she wrote in the letter dated Feb. 13.
The ambassador added that Ms. Sono’s suggestion is a “scandalous proposal in the extreme,” and that as a South African she could not leave it unchallenged.
In the letter, Ms. Pheko touched on how South Africans were racially classified into three categories under the apartheid policy based on the color of their skin, appearance, social acceptance and descent. Blacks were required to carry “pass books” in order to access non-black areas. Race laws touched on every aspect of life, she wrote, including blacks being forced to work under harsh conditions and tortured and detained arbitrarily.
“Surely the respected columnist and writer is not suggesting such treacherous and archaic laws for nursing care immigration to Japan? Why would Japan, a respected member of the United Nations and a bidder for the United Nations Security Council non-permanent seat for 2016, even consider such laws?” the ambassador asked.
“Apartheid is a crime against humanity. It can never be justified in the 21st century to deliberately discriminate against other human beings anywhere in the world on the basis of skin color or any other classification,” Ms. Pheko wrote.
In concluding the letter, she quoted Mr. Mandela, the late anti-apartheid leader. Feb. 11, the day Ms. Sono’s column appeared in Sankei, was the 25th anniversary of Mr. Mandela’s release from his long imprisonment.
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
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I sad HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Whether policy-driven or not, the living zones seem to emerge anyhow. Chinatowns around the world is a case in point.
If you want to experience racism in Japan go apartment hunting. The apartment available for let shrinks considerably when they find you're an expat and I'm white. Imagine being a person of color.