(This article is reproduced from a Facebook post published on the 22th at 11:03.)
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has taken action over Olympic show director Kentaro Kobayashi’s Holocaust joke.
A Yahoo News article by Saori Imai calls for an “Urgent petition: Prime Minister Suga, discipline Olympic show director Kobayashi today, before the Tokyo Olympics become an eternal disgrace.”1 Even if the show he produced were performed at the Olympics and Paralympics, it could come back to haunt them later. At this point, perhaps the show should be canceled and replaced with a moment of silence2 It would honor the victims of COVID, the earthquake disaster, and the Holocausts of the past and those still continuing today3.
As for “discipline,” as I have said before, this whole series of events vividly illustrates a governance problem within the Olympic Organizing Committee4. Therefore, I think everyone who supported the current governance structure, including those at the top, needs to be replaced wholesale.
I will add developments below in chronological order.
- 2021-07-22
- 1:11 A tweet recounting the series of events, from consulting State Minister of Defense Nakayama through the inquiry to the SWC
- 4:12 Kosuke Takahashi, “‘Let’s Play Massacre the Jews’: Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony Director Kentaro Kobayashi Used the Holocaust as Comedy During His Career as an Entertainer”
- 8:44 Saori Imai, “Urgent petition: Prime Minister Suga, discipline Olympic show director Kobayashi today, before the Tokyo Olympics become an eternal disgrace”
- 10:50 @_nat: “The SWC has taken action. As I keep saying, this is a governance problem within the Olympic Organizing Committee. It has to be changed decisively from the top down.”
- 11:03 This article
- 12:40 Reuters, “Tokyo Olympics dismisses opening ceremony director on eve of event and reviews content”
- 12:48 Kyoko Shimbun, “Breaking: Opening ceremony to be held after closing ceremony; repeated troubles leave insufficient time for replacement (Kyoko Shimbun / announcement at 12:48)”
- 13:03 Kyodo News, “President Hashimoto says, ‘We would like to be allowed to hold the opening ceremony’”
Footnotes
- At 12:40, an initial Reuters report arrived saying he had been dismissed.
- I proposed such a plan on 7/20: “Another Olympic Opening Ceremony That Could Have Been”.
- such as in Xinjiang Uyghur
- Judging from the July 20 Frankfurter Allgemeine article “Schamlose Werbung”, the international side also appears to be no good. Here is a series of tweets about this.
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