Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2011

As I write this it’s approaching August 15, otherwise known as V-J Day, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II. At my local train station this time last year, I was treated to the sight and sound of a man in black fatigues holding a megaphone, angrily haranguing everyone within earshot from atop his little black van. On other days, I also see such people driving around Tokyo, assaulting citizens’ ears at deafening volumes with their supremacist tirades.

The question for me is simply this: why?

What do they benefit from marching and driving around, spouting their vitriol, hate and lies? My glib answer is that they have nothing better to do—it really is that simple. With no hobbies, no friends and no social life, they fill the void where their self-identity should be with the only thing that’s left to them—their race. I don’t imagine many of them have wide social circles and a variety of interests, because if they had lives, they wouldn’t be full-time nationalists.

Unfortunately, there are numerous politicians who will court them, routinely banging on about race and nation to make up for their utter lack of policy substance. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe built his public profile entirely on emotional grandstanding about the Japanese abductees in North Korea, but by playing to the crowd in this way, he actually set back what little progress had been made with the Kim Jong-il regime. He was just one of a succession of prime ministers who have willfully aggravated Japan’s relations with its neighbors for the sake of indulging nationalist sentiment.

What does it benefit politicians to cozy up to a tiny handful of revisionist xenophobes? I fear that the simple answer is, again, that it gets them some votes, and they’re just not concerned about the other long-term consequences. It encourages the far right, from the ranters at Yasukuni shrine to the whitewashers of history textbooks, and it alienates neighboring countries with which Japan really ought to be strengthening its ties, rather than trashing them. This is something at which the street-level nationalists also excel. When the world sees Makoto Sakurai and his private militia of shaven-headed thugs snarling abuse at a teenage girl, what kind of image does this create of Japan? Not that it’s a welcoming and hospitable country, that’s for sure.

Not that he cares: if he and his kind had any concern about Japan’s overseas image, or its relationship with its neighbors, they wouldn’t do what they do. However much they delude themselves to the contrary, they’re not motivated by a love of Japan. They never have been, and they never will be. They’re motivated only by narrow self-interest, by the need to create an identity for themselves where none exists. People who truly love Japan should be fighting against nationalism and racism, rather than engaging in it, just as people who love Britain should embrace the European Union rather than disdain it, and people who love the USA and the freedom and inclusivity for which it stands should support the Muslim community center in New York rather than oppose it.

This goes also for the politicians, motivated not by the nation’s interest, but only by the need for votes. If anything, my inner conspiracy theorist suggests, there are some politicians who depend on continued conflict to sustain their careers, and who routinely engage in deliberately provocative acts in the name of “defense,” all just for the sake of looking tough.

So, when we hear them appeal to the patriotism of the Japanese, we need to take a close look at what they’re saying and decide for ourselves in whose interest they’re really acting. Only by doing this can we see through the demagogues who use patriotism as a tool to manipulate people’s feelings and advance their personal agendas. Think about where the message is coming from, and who benefits, and chances are it’ll be the same people. We’ve evolved beyond the need to protect our tribe, so to put aside these base feelings and see the wider picture is the best way to support our countries.