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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Let the whales live


alt tv/fleet fm breakfast news comment
Let the whales live
A national campaign to halt the slaughter of more than a thousand whales in the Southern Ocean has been launched by The Dominion Post. Sparks flew yesterday when editor Tim Pankhurst kick-started the newspaper's campaign with an attempt to deliver a letter to Japan's ambassador to New Zealand, Toshihiro Takahashi, calling for the cessation of its annual whaling campaign. Mr Takahashi was unavailable to accept the letter, but moments after handing the correspondence to an embassy official and explaining the campaign, Mr Pankhurst and three editorial staff were ejected from the embassy's Wellington headquarters by security staff, who objected to the taking of video and photos. Police were called to the incident but no action was taken. Mr Pankhurst said the Japanese Government and the people it represented were on a collision course with Australia and New Zealand over whaling. "It is time to up the ante," he said. "Japan must be left in no doubt their actions in the Southern Ocean are deeply offensive and must be resisted on every possible front."

Isn’t it funny that this type of leadership isn’t coming from any of our political leaders, but it’s coming from the Dominion Post. Tim Pankhurst is right, the only reason the Japanese are getting away with slaughtering whales is because no one is kicking up enough of a fuss and letting the Japanese know that such action damages their relationship with not only our region, but globally. Part of the problem is that because Japan is such an insular country where most people don’t speak English, the vast majority of Japanese citizens have no idea what we are yelling at.

4 Comments:

At 19/12/07 1:48 pm, Blogger Rangi said...

Most japanese people simply don't know that people care so much about whaling - last year the Nissinmaru's difficulties got zero media coverage, I learnt about it from here!

 
At 19/12/07 2:00 pm, Blogger Rangi said...

It's also the way people go about attacking whaling practices. When you have people saying WHALING IS BAD!! DIE AND GO TO HELL YOU WHALE KILLERS, they aren't going to listen.

in japanese culture, that kind of attitude is seen as immature, and they either dismiss it or get defensive (as you would if you felt someone's attacking your culture). if someone just sat down and said

"look, i know that hunting whales used to be a big part of your culture, but if we keep hunting them then there are going to be none left",

they would be way more successful.

 
At 19/12/07 3:06 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"...but if we keep hunting them then there are going to be none left

Yeah because I bet no one has told them that bit yet.

 
At 23/12/07 2:36 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Most Japanese understand English to an extent. 80-90% of them can read it well. They certainly can read `Fuck off and leave the whales alone`.

 

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