The Last Word
India is a free nation today. Indians have been fed the “We are a free country in the world” line for so long that we don’t question it. Our freedom from Englishmen is a history today. We are culturally rich so do Japan; both countries have their civilization dating to centuries. After living in Japan for a long time now, observing the direction the India is heading to; I think I can safely say we can certainly compare these two countries on certain fronts. Let’s forget the technological advancement and the infrastructural advancement that this small country has achieved over the years. Japan today, is a much freer and safer country than many culturally rich nations in the world. As a culturally rich nation we can’t make this claim anymore today.Sure Japan too has its problems; everyone does. But I don’t fear for my or my family’s safety, at night. I don’t fear the people here. And I most certainly don’t fear “terrorism” in Japan. Can most people living in rest of the nations in the world make the same claim? I don’t believe so. Today India has become a police state, where populance fear for its personal safety, just like people used to do in Soviet Union. We fear for terrorism, animal behavior of men over women, local gangsters and we go on to invent new fears of the world.
There also seems to be some idea, among westerners, that Japan is a sort of “nanny state”. According to this view, Japanese are so trapped in groupthink that they don’t think for themselves or do anything without government’s permission. This is patently false. In many ways, Japanese are motivated to do things by themselves more than Indians are. They have some valuable things to teach the rest of the world. I will give you a good example, but first, an observation about Japan that any one would have made here.
There are vending machines standing in the streets everywhere in the country. You will rarely see any one broken. I have never heard of anyone being stolen. People also keep beautiful Bonsai trees in front of their homes. Some of them are over 100 years old and quite valuable. No kids run over at night kicking them over. No one steals them. Teenagers don’t stone the glass windows nor do they paint wet mud on the compound walls here, like they do in India.
Everyone accept this as a Japanese way. Considering the reasons for these phenomena made me find some answers. Sociologists claim that Japan has a stronger family unit than the rest of the world and this explains its more stable society. This is certainly true. But there is one more thing that Japan has that the rest of the world does not: kumiai.
Kumiai refers to a group of people, living in a neighborhood or working for the same company, who come together to resolve their local problems. This is done on a minute scale, without consultation or approval of the state. The kumiai has nothing to do with the government or management. Some outsider might confuse with “Voluntary Socialism”, but they would be mistaken. Socialism with its rules and structures is never voluntary.
One day shortly after I had moved to Japan, I saw a group of neighbors cleaning the drainage ditches in the neighborhood. I asked my roomie what they were doing. “Its kumiai”, he said. “Actually we need to go and help them out”. So we went and shoveled dirt and mud from the ditches along with 12 or so neighbors. They were young and old, men and women of high ranks and after the ditches were cleaned, everyone thanked each other and bowed.
I was puzzled. “Why do people do this?” I asked. “Don’t they pay taxes to get the ditches cleaned?” My friend explained that people in the kumiai got together to in an effort to keep their neighborhood beautiful, to lower taxes and get to know to each other better. They held meetings once in a while to discuss neighborhood problems and how to deal with them. It was a way for the folks to enjoy mutual understanding and trust. The kumiai was a group, but perhaps a better definition would be a community.
I look back on that day as a lesson in politics. Had a government come into clean the ditches, it would have brought in a dozen men, a few trucks and a tractor with a shovel. It would have taken all day, snarled the traffic and eaten up a lot of tax payers’ money. But the local people got together and took care of themselves. And it was up to me, as an individual, to decide whether or not I wanted to be a part of the community – which I did, in part because I might someday need help from my neighbors.
I think kumiai helps explain why kids don’t vandalize neighborhoods here or why they don’t go around raising hell: Mom and friends are just going to have to clean up the mess anyway. Kumiai is one of the reasons that streets are safe at night. And it’s a big reason; I think why Japan offers a society free from crime and fear. If this simple idea could reach a lot back home we would enjoy our claim of freedom in the independent India.
Courtesy:Metropolis, Japan
posted by Unknown @ 12:57 PM
