State and Immigrant Diaspora Identity in Contemporary Japan: From a Developmentalist National Ethic towards a Multicultural Development Ethic of Common Human Security

Abstract

Since the turn of the millennium, the defence of human rights in the political/intellectual environment of contemporary Japanese civil society has been facing the challenge of a nationalist backlash to globalization. The press today uses a new expression, ‘human rights metabolic syndrome’, which is becoming an accepted concept to explain the growing juvenile criminality and the social insecurity caused by an increase in the number of ‘illegal’ foreigners. Just as the metabolic syndrome is caused by an excessive consumption of nutrients, the threat to ‘human security’ (as a secure way of life for nationals) is seen as being caused by ‘too much human rights’ especially when combined with the growing demand by foreigners for their rights.