Immigration deserves serious cultural ecological review.
ONO Goro / Emeritus Professor, Saitama University
June 16, 2015
In Japan, the focus on manpower shortage in the context of Abenomics (Prime Minister Abe’s three arrows of fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms) has rekindled the debate on accepting immigrants. Worldwide, with the call for globalization, the liberalization of the movement of human beings, money and goods has come to be taken for granted.
However, the kind of globalization that we would like to see is one that will augment "diversity", which will help advance social evolution. It does not mean unifying the world in the mold of modern Western society. It is in this context that we should see the movement of human beings, and we should take care to ensure that the intermingling of diverse cultures do not end up in the loss of such diversity.
Human beings have flesh and blood. Goods embody the resources and energy put into their production process. As such, they cannot be treated merely as factors of production in the same way as money is. This should be seen not just in economic terms, but far more emphasis should be placed on the enormous impacts that the movements of human beings and goods have come to have on the natural environment, climate and culture both in their places of origin and in their destinations.
There have been historically confirmed cases in which the movements of human beings wrought devastating havoc on nature, for example, where pasturing and irrigation accompanying such movements caused soil runoffs and deforestation along the coast of the Aral Sea and in the Amazon River Basin. Around Japan, immigrants face the challenge of adjusting their life habits to the unfamiliar climate of their destinations, and problems also arise in their places of origin, as the depletion of the labor force leads to the deterioration of the natural and climatic conditions.
Proponents of the movement of human beings cite as their reasons not only economic factors but also humanitarianism, cultural enlightenment, importance of diversity and so forth. But many of these arguments fail to have universal resonance because they do not take into account the long-term adverse consequences of such movement.
It is argued that, given the conditions in the countries of origin, migration is "necessary for humanitarian reasons" or can serve as "economic cooperation" for these countries. In fact, what is needed on the part of these countries is to improve the social conditions that make life miserable for their people, not to send out these people as migrant labor, as some governments of these countries insist.
If the outflow of labor from a country should serve as a springboard for that country to take off economically, there should in the future be a reverse flow of the labor force back to their home country as that country develops. That would in turn bring about the collapse of the social structure in the destination country that has been built up with the inflow of migrant labor as an essential element. In any event, what has to be done is to create employment opportunities in the country of origin, instead of allowing the exploitation of factors of production such as labor and resources in that country. Despite all this, attempts to justify the movement of human beings as migrant labor under various pretexts have often resulted in discrimination and friction in the destinations countries.
For example, if the immigrants from the dry regions of the world keep on throwing away kitchen garbage in the humid climate of Japan in the same way as they did at home, it can give rise to the problem of infectious diseases and cultural friction and discrimination. This may give rise to situations similar to invasive alien species driving away the native species, leading to the collapse of the ecological balance preserved over many years in the recipient country.
In Japan, most of the businesses that employ foreign workers in fact are looking for low-wage labor for the so-called "3K" jobs (kitanai, kiken and kibishii in Japanese, translated as "3D" in English, i.e. Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning) which Japanese workers are reluctant to take up. In cases where the foreign workers are accepted for training as "technical interns", there have been unending examples of these workers being exploited under very poor working conditions. As for accepting highly skilled foreign professionals, unless we invite professionals of the highest caliber and assign them to work as leaders in fostering young professionals in Japan, as we did in the Meiji period, they may not help much in fostering human resources suited to the Japanese climate, and we may even lose some of the positive Japanese characteristics that have been appreciated by the international community.
The Japanese culture that we have today has been fostered through the process of importing advanced civilizations from abroad, digesting and assimilating them into our own climate since the dawn of history. In the course of long history, our forefathers learned lessons from the past and devised ways of living and improved the natural conditions in a manner best suited to our climate. We need to repay their legacies by passing them on to future generations.
Migration, or the movement of human beings, tends to be deemed inevitable as globalization proceeds apace. But we should take another look at it, not for economic reasons, but from a loftier perspective of the future of humankind. We should first recognize that symbiosis on a global scale would mean living separately but together in the sense of respecting the different cultures and values of others. The prerequisite for those who wish to migrate to other lands is to assimilate themselves to their lands of destination and to learn to love and defend the climate and culture there. Those who receive these immigrants in their midst, for their part, would be required to approach them without discrimination and treat them equally as those who share the same values, irrespective of their ethnic origin. Realistically speaking, it needs to be recognized that it is no easy task to clear these hurdles.
Goro Ono is Emeritus Professor of Saitama University.
However, the kind of globalization that we would like to see is one that will augment "diversity", which will help advance social evolution. It does not mean unifying the world in the mold of modern Western society. It is in this context that we should see the movement of human beings, and we should take care to ensure that the intermingling of diverse cultures do not end up in the loss of such diversity.
Human beings have flesh and blood. Goods embody the resources and energy put into their production process. As such, they cannot be treated merely as factors of production in the same way as money is. This should be seen not just in economic terms, but far more emphasis should be placed on the enormous impacts that the movements of human beings and goods have come to have on the natural environment, climate and culture both in their places of origin and in their destinations.
There have been historically confirmed cases in which the movements of human beings wrought devastating havoc on nature, for example, where pasturing and irrigation accompanying such movements caused soil runoffs and deforestation along the coast of the Aral Sea and in the Amazon River Basin. Around Japan, immigrants face the challenge of adjusting their life habits to the unfamiliar climate of their destinations, and problems also arise in their places of origin, as the depletion of the labor force leads to the deterioration of the natural and climatic conditions.
Proponents of the movement of human beings cite as their reasons not only economic factors but also humanitarianism, cultural enlightenment, importance of diversity and so forth. But many of these arguments fail to have universal resonance because they do not take into account the long-term adverse consequences of such movement.
It is argued that, given the conditions in the countries of origin, migration is "necessary for humanitarian reasons" or can serve as "economic cooperation" for these countries. In fact, what is needed on the part of these countries is to improve the social conditions that make life miserable for their people, not to send out these people as migrant labor, as some governments of these countries insist.
If the outflow of labor from a country should serve as a springboard for that country to take off economically, there should in the future be a reverse flow of the labor force back to their home country as that country develops. That would in turn bring about the collapse of the social structure in the destination country that has been built up with the inflow of migrant labor as an essential element. In any event, what has to be done is to create employment opportunities in the country of origin, instead of allowing the exploitation of factors of production such as labor and resources in that country. Despite all this, attempts to justify the movement of human beings as migrant labor under various pretexts have often resulted in discrimination and friction in the destinations countries.
For example, if the immigrants from the dry regions of the world keep on throwing away kitchen garbage in the humid climate of Japan in the same way as they did at home, it can give rise to the problem of infectious diseases and cultural friction and discrimination. This may give rise to situations similar to invasive alien species driving away the native species, leading to the collapse of the ecological balance preserved over many years in the recipient country.
In Japan, most of the businesses that employ foreign workers in fact are looking for low-wage labor for the so-called "3K" jobs (kitanai, kiken and kibishii in Japanese, translated as "3D" in English, i.e. Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning) which Japanese workers are reluctant to take up. In cases where the foreign workers are accepted for training as "technical interns", there have been unending examples of these workers being exploited under very poor working conditions. As for accepting highly skilled foreign professionals, unless we invite professionals of the highest caliber and assign them to work as leaders in fostering young professionals in Japan, as we did in the Meiji period, they may not help much in fostering human resources suited to the Japanese climate, and we may even lose some of the positive Japanese characteristics that have been appreciated by the international community.
The Japanese culture that we have today has been fostered through the process of importing advanced civilizations from abroad, digesting and assimilating them into our own climate since the dawn of history. In the course of long history, our forefathers learned lessons from the past and devised ways of living and improved the natural conditions in a manner best suited to our climate. We need to repay their legacies by passing them on to future generations.
Migration, or the movement of human beings, tends to be deemed inevitable as globalization proceeds apace. But we should take another look at it, not for economic reasons, but from a loftier perspective of the future of humankind. We should first recognize that symbiosis on a global scale would mean living separately but together in the sense of respecting the different cultures and values of others. The prerequisite for those who wish to migrate to other lands is to assimilate themselves to their lands of destination and to learn to love and defend the climate and culture there. Those who receive these immigrants in their midst, for their part, would be required to approach them without discrimination and treat them equally as those who share the same values, irrespective of their ethnic origin. Realistically speaking, it needs to be recognized that it is no easy task to clear these hurdles.
Goro Ono is Emeritus Professor of Saitama University.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
移民問題は文化生態系の視点から真剣に見直す必要がある
小野 五郎 / 埼玉大学名誉教授
2015年 6月 16日
日本ではアベノミクス（安倍総理の唱える財政刺激、金融緩和、構造改革の３本の矢）に伴って人手不足に焦点が当てられたことから再度移民受け入れ論議が高まり、世界的にはグローバリゼーションの掛け声とともにヒト・カネ・モノの移動自由化が当然視されるようになった。
しかし、求められるグローバリゼーションは、社会進化の源たる「多様性」を高めるものであって、単なる欧米型近代社会への一元化とは違う。ヒトの移動もそうした文脈で捉え、多様性の交流がかえってその喪失に繋がらないように配慮する必要がある。
元よりヒトは血が通い人格を有し、モノには資源エネルギーが化体され、いずれもカネのごとく単なる生産要素として扱いうるものではない。また、それらの移動が出入両側の自然環境・風土文化等に与えるようになった多大な影響について、経済的視点よりもはるかに重視すべきであろう。
ところで、ヒトの移動は、それに伴う放牧・灌漑等により、今日アラル海沿岸やアマゾン川流域に見られるような土壌流出・森林破壊等を通じ破滅的な自然破壊をもたらしたことが史的にも確認される。 現代日本周辺でも、単なる流入先での風土と合わない生活というだけではなく、流出側でも働き手を失い風土を疲弊させる弊害が認められる。
一方、ヒトの移動の推進論者は、経済的なもの以外に人道上、文化啓蒙、多様性の重視など様々な理由を挙げる。しかし、その多くは、長期的弊害をも考慮した上での普遍的妥当性までは伴わない。
例えば、送出国側の状況に鑑みて、移民は「人道的に必要」とか送出国への「経済協力になる」との議論がある。しかし、送出国側で求められるのは、悲惨な生活を強いられる現地社会そのものの改善なのであって、一部現地政府が主張するようなヒトの送出ではない。
また、仮に送出国側がそれをバネにテイクオフするとすれば、将来的には経済成長の進んだ母国への回帰が進むはずであり、それによって今度は彼らの存在を前提として構築した受入れ国の社会構造が崩壊することになる。いずれにしても、為すべきは現地に雇用機会を創出することであって、ヒトや資源など現地からの生産要素の収奪ではない。にもかかわらず、何とかヒトの移動を正当化しようとするからこそ、結果として受入れ国における差別や摩擦などが多発しているのである。
例えば、湿潤な日本の風土において、乾燥地帯から来た移民が生地と同じつもりで生ゴミを放置すれば疫病流行とか文化摩擦から差別・摩擦を招く。また、外来種の侵入が在来種の滅亡を通じてその国で永年維持されて来た土着生態系の破壊を招くような事態も招きかねない。
日本において、実際、外国人労働者を受入れる企業の大半が求めているのは、自国民がやりたがらない３K（汚い・危険・厳しい）職種での低賃金労働力であり、「実習」と称して受け入れているケースでは劣悪な労働条件下でこき使われるものが後を絶たない。高度人材受入れ論にしても、明治期日本のような最高レベルの人材を指導者として招き国内人材の育成に当たらせるのでなければ、結果として風土に合った人材が育たず、国際社会から評価されてきた日本らしさそのものを失うことになりかねない。
そもそも今日の日本文化も、有史以来、海外から先進文物を移入し、それを咀嚼して自らの風土と一体化させて成立している。思い起こせば、先人たちは、長い歴史の中で過去の反省に立ち、風土に合った住み方、自然改良を加えてきた。そうした先人が遺してくれたものへの報恩は、子孫に引き継ぐことによって果たさねばなるまい。
グローバリゼーション下不可避とされるヒトの移動に関しても、経済的理由からではなく、今一度人類の将来というより高い視点から見直すべきである。すなわち、全地球的には互いに他文化ないし異なる価値観を尊重しての棲み分けこそが真の共生だと悟った上で、他の土地への移住を望む者は自分が移住しようとする土地に同化し、その風土・文化を愛し守ることが大前提となる。また、その場合、受入れ側は、お互い価値観を共有する者として必ずしも民族の血にこだわらず、一切の差別・区別なく自分たちと全く同等に接することか求められる。このようなハードルを越えることは決して容易ではないことを現実の問題として認識する必要がある。
（筆者は埼玉大学名誉教授。）
しかし、求められるグローバリゼーションは、社会進化の源たる「多様性」を高めるものであって、単なる欧米型近代社会への一元化とは違う。ヒトの移動もそうした文脈で捉え、多様性の交流がかえってその喪失に繋がらないように配慮する必要がある。
元よりヒトは血が通い人格を有し、モノには資源エネルギーが化体され、いずれもカネのごとく単なる生産要素として扱いうるものではない。また、それらの移動が出入両側の自然環境・風土文化等に与えるようになった多大な影響について、経済的視点よりもはるかに重視すべきであろう。
ところで、ヒトの移動は、それに伴う放牧・灌漑等により、今日アラル海沿岸やアマゾン川流域に見られるような土壌流出・森林破壊等を通じ破滅的な自然破壊をもたらしたことが史的にも確認される。 現代日本周辺でも、単なる流入先での風土と合わない生活というだけではなく、流出側でも働き手を失い風土を疲弊させる弊害が認められる。
一方、ヒトの移動の推進論者は、経済的なもの以外に人道上、文化啓蒙、多様性の重視など様々な理由を挙げる。しかし、その多くは、長期的弊害をも考慮した上での普遍的妥当性までは伴わない。
例えば、送出国側の状況に鑑みて、移民は「人道的に必要」とか送出国への「経済協力になる」との議論がある。しかし、送出国側で求められるのは、悲惨な生活を強いられる現地社会そのものの改善なのであって、一部現地政府が主張するようなヒトの送出ではない。
また、仮に送出国側がそれをバネにテイクオフするとすれば、将来的には経済成長の進んだ母国への回帰が進むはずであり、それによって今度は彼らの存在を前提として構築した受入れ国の社会構造が崩壊することになる。いずれにしても、為すべきは現地に雇用機会を創出することであって、ヒトや資源など現地からの生産要素の収奪ではない。にもかかわらず、何とかヒトの移動を正当化しようとするからこそ、結果として受入れ国における差別や摩擦などが多発しているのである。
例えば、湿潤な日本の風土において、乾燥地帯から来た移民が生地と同じつもりで生ゴミを放置すれば疫病流行とか文化摩擦から差別・摩擦を招く。また、外来種の侵入が在来種の滅亡を通じてその国で永年維持されて来た土着生態系の破壊を招くような事態も招きかねない。
日本において、実際、外国人労働者を受入れる企業の大半が求めているのは、自国民がやりたがらない３K（汚い・危険・厳しい）職種での低賃金労働力であり、「実習」と称して受け入れているケースでは劣悪な労働条件下でこき使われるものが後を絶たない。高度人材受入れ論にしても、明治期日本のような最高レベルの人材を指導者として招き国内人材の育成に当たらせるのでなければ、結果として風土に合った人材が育たず、国際社会から評価されてきた日本らしさそのものを失うことになりかねない。
そもそも今日の日本文化も、有史以来、海外から先進文物を移入し、それを咀嚼して自らの風土と一体化させて成立している。思い起こせば、先人たちは、長い歴史の中で過去の反省に立ち、風土に合った住み方、自然改良を加えてきた。そうした先人が遺してくれたものへの報恩は、子孫に引き継ぐことによって果たさねばなるまい。
グローバリゼーション下不可避とされるヒトの移動に関しても、経済的理由からではなく、今一度人類の将来というより高い視点から見直すべきである。すなわち、全地球的には互いに他文化ないし異なる価値観を尊重しての棲み分けこそが真の共生だと悟った上で、他の土地への移住を望む者は自分が移住しようとする土地に同化し、その風土・文化を愛し守ることが大前提となる。また、その場合、受入れ側は、お互い価値観を共有する者として必ずしも民族の血にこだわらず、一切の差別・区別なく自分たちと全く同等に接することか求められる。このようなハードルを越えることは決して容易ではないことを現実の問題として認識する必要がある。
（筆者は埼玉大学名誉教授。）
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟