CRIME
Why I published 'Foreigner Underground Crime File:' Editor makes his case and responds to critics

TOKYO — Ever since publishing a magazine called "Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu" (Foreigner Underground Crime File) last month, I have been subject to a campaign of harassment. In particular, some emails I've received have been quite vicious — and have included threats to my life. I have to admit that, although the ferocity of this reaction has surprised me, the basic emotions have not.

The topic of foreigner crime is taboo in Japan, with people on both sides of the issue distorting the facts and letting their feelings get the better of them.

On the Japanese side, the "foreign criminal" is a beast who lurks everywhere and wants nothing more than to destroy Japanese people and their way of life. Whether it's a North Korean agent kidnapping our daughters or a Chinese thief invading our homes, many Japanese are convinced that foreigners should be treated with suspicion and fear.

This attitude makes it impossible to have an informed conversation about where real foreign criminals come from, or the reason they commit their crimes. In fact, one of my goals in publishing "Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu" was to help begin a frank discussion of the issue.

On the other side, many foreigners consider any suggestion that they engage in lewd or criminal behavior to be an unacceptable insult. This can be seen quite clearly in the reaction our magazine elicited in the Western media, and especially in the online community. The army of bloggers who bullied FamilyMart convenience stores into removing "Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu" from their shelves have decided for everyone else that this book is so dangerous that it cannot be read.

Yet I wonder how many of these "puroshimin," or "professional civilians," have read — or even seen — the magazine. I suppose the same right to free speech they claim for themselves should not extend to those who might want to buy and read our publication.

What these people are ignoring is a simple truth: there are no lies, distortions or racist sentiments expressed in "Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu." All the statistics about rising crime rates are accurate, and all the photographs show incidents that actually occurred.

For instance, it is true that on June 19, 2003, three Chinese nationals murdered a Japanese family — a mother, father and two children aged 8 and 11 — and dumped their bodies into a canal in Fukushima. It's true that Brazilians and Chinese account for over half of the crimes committed by foreigners in Japan. It's true that American guys grope their Japanese girlfriends daily on the streets of Tokyo.

That's not to say that some of the criticism leveled at "Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu" is unreasonable. Bloggers have called attention to a few of our crime scene photographs, in which we have blurred the faces of Japanese people but not those of foreigners. Let me respond by saying that, if we had covered up the foreigners' faces, the reader wouldn't be able to recognize them as foreign, and the illustrative power of the image would be lost.

Use of 'niga' doesn't have emotive power of English word

Another criticism I have heard involves our use of the term "niga," which appears in the caption of a photo showing a black man feeling up his Japanese girlfriend on the street. I would like to stress that this term has none of the emotive power in Japanese that the N-word does in English — and to translate it as such is unfair. Instead, "niga" is Japanese street slang, just like the language used in the other captions on the same page.

Finally, some critics point to the absence of advertisements in "Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu" as evidence that we are financed by a powerful and rich organization. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason there are no ads in the magazine is because we couldn't find any sponsors who wanted to be part of such a controversial project. However, in one way I wish we did have the backing of such an influential group: I would feel a lot safer if I could count on them for security!

Having been given this opportunity to share a message with Tokyo's foreign community, I would like to stress three points. First, before foreigners rush to accuse me and my staff of racism, or to label our publication a typical example of Japanese xenophobia, I would ask that they consider how quick their own culture is to view the Japanese as subhuman. In World War II you labeled us "monkeys," and in the bubble economy years, you considered us "economic predators."

Second, as our country becomes increasingly globalized and more foreigners come here to live and work, the Japanese will be forced to confront the challenges of a pluralistic society. Only by honestly discussing this issue and all it entails can we prepare our culture for this radical change.

Finally, if we can manage to openly discuss the issue of foreign crime in Japan, we will have the opportunity to address our own problems as well. Sure, we could continue to run away from the topic and remove books from shelves, but in doing so we are losing the chance to become more self-aware. What we need to understand is that by having a conversation about violent and illegal behavior, we're really talking about ourselves — not as "Japanese" or "foreigners," but as human beings.

Shigeki Saka is an editor at Eichi Publishing Company in Tokyo.