I don’t know anything about Switzerland, but immigration isn’t a solution to the prospect of Japan “not having a country left in a few generations.” There might be more or fewer people living on the islands, but “Japan” will be gone either way.
Nowadays Japan’s fertility rate is higher than most of its neighbours. We are just used to pick it as an example because it started aging earlier than most other countries.
Japanese population is still over 120 million. Forecasts put it falling below 100 million at some point in the second half of this century.
Things will have to change in order to keep population stable in the long term, but the Japanese approach seems IMHO more sensible than that of other countries.
Your idea of “racism” arose in a western historical context and simply has no application to Japan. Japan didn’t bring a bunch of people to their country by force and then enslave them and deny them political rights for hundreds of years.
Nation-states not only exist, the UN recognizes their existence as a human right in the The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN recognizes a right of “peoples”—groups of people bound together by culture, ancestry, language, etc.—to self determination. I was born in a country named after one ethnocultural group (Thailand) and my family is from another country named after our ethnocultural group (Bangladesh). Japan is the homeland of Japanese people, just as Thailand is the homeland of Tai people, and Bangladesh is the homeland of Bengali people.
Not sure why you keep on repeating that when nationalism is a thoroughly modern concept and not something that God handed down to us thousands of years ago. It's frankly bizarre for a Bengali born in Thailand and living (presumably, based on timezone) in North America to be so invested in defending the honor of the Japanese ethnostate on the orange hacker website.
Also, I don't know what you would call the historical (and even current) treatment of Zainichi Koreans other than "racism" (as well as the current treatment of immigrants from places like Bengladesh).
> Not sure why you keep on repeating that when nationalism is a thoroughly modern concept
The desire for cultural groups to form their own communities isn’t modern, it’s ancient. What arose in the 20th century—in the aftermath of colonialism—is the global recognition that these groups have a right to form nation-states. The recognition that right was a driving force across the world in the 20th century: Pan-Arab nationalism, Indian nationalism, Bengali nationalism, etc.
> It's frankly bizarre for a Bengali born in Thailand … to be so invested in defending the honor of the Japanese ethnostate on the orange hacker website.
Because your criticism of Japan undermines the legitimacy of the existence of countries like Bangladesh as well. My uncle didn’t get shot at by Pakistanis to establish a multicultural economic zone.
> Also, I don't know what you would call the historical (and even current) treatment of Zainichi Koreans other than "racism" (as well as the current treatment of immigrants from places like Bangladesh)
If Japan allows immigrants into the country then mistreats them, then that’s wrong. But that’s not what this article or my post is talking about.
