Whale debate continues

Sea Sheppard anti-whaler Pete Bethune’s Tokyo trial “earlier this year for interfering with Japan’s annual whale hunt dominated New Zealand media, and direct action at sea connects with long-standing cultural currents to do with whales and whaling,” The Japan Times’ Dougal McNeill begins in an opinion piece for the publication. “For all the intensity and depth of that support, the debate around whaling exists in a strangely ahistorical and decontextualized space, a self-righteousness sealing itself off from examination or self-reflection. The whales in question are often referred to as ‘our whales,’ suggesting a debate as much about ownership and dominion of the seas as any narrower environmental concern. And, for all that these associations may be unwelcome, they point to unsettling traditions in the history of Japanese-Australasian relations. The aspect of the debate —the way it fits into where it happens, how it both draws on and in turn shapes and continues local discourses on race, on racism, and on local anti-Asian sentiment — is almost wholly lacking from even considered commentary.”