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engelleri kaldır remove barriers YouTubeThis is absolutely appalling.

I imagine the incident in which a totally blind student was injured after being assaulted by a passenger on the JR Kawagoe Line[1] is still fresh in everyone’s memory. Yet according to this Naver summary[2], comments siding with the assailant have astonishingly begun to emerge on Twitter. They say things such as, “She brought it on herself” and “Stop acting like a victim.” In the very year Japan finally ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities[3], it is almost impossible to believe that we are seeing such a spectacle before our eyes.

As Professor Machimura also writes on his blog, Matimulog, in “An Ugly Japan Erupts”[4], this tendency seems to be directed not only at people with disabilities, but also, for example, at people wearing maternity badges[5]. As the reverse side of pressure to conform, it seems to manifest as aggression toward “those who are different” and “minorities.”

They are unable to put themselves in another person’s position, and in a sense this can be called a manifestation of a lack of imagination. And this lack of imagination is truly frightening. It seems to me that Japan’s former rush into war also owed much to the enforcement of homogeneity that resulted from this same lack of imagination.

Let me introduce one good video[6]. It shows what would happen if you were the one in the minority.

Watch this video on YouTube.
Playing the video connects to YouTube.

If those unimaginative people who are “irritated” by “those who are different” watched this video, would they come to understand even a little…?

[1] “Totally Blind Schoolgirl Injured after Being Kicked in the Leg, Possibly in Retaliation for Tripping Passenger with Cane, Kawagoe,” Mainichi Shimbun http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20140910k0000m040094000c.html (September 9, 2014, 20:49)

[2] “If You’re Totally Blind, Don’t Ride”; “It Certainly Is Extremely Irritating”—After Blind Girl Is Injured on Kawagoe Line, Twitter Users Rush to Side with Assailant http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2141040600248450501 (accessed 2014/9/11)

[3] Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Japan’s Initiatives for Peace and Stability in the International Community” http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/jinken/index_shogaisha.html (accessed 2014/9/11)

[4] “An Ugly Japan Erupts” http://app.m-cocolog.jp/t/typecast/30148/31412/80603640

[5] In fact, a pregnant friend of mine has apparently been shoved and says that trains are frightening.

[6] I learned about this from Professor N on Facebook.

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