An E-mail from supposedly an anti-whaler in U.S.A.

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Question:

Whales are not fish for a start.

They’re small insects that feed on bananas; we know… Chris.

Response:

What aspects? Rude behaviour etc. it does happen, was that what you were expecting?

Since there are so many examples, I present one from "Kujira to Inbou" (Whales and Plots), by Yoshito Umezaki, 1986. Since translation is by myself, it may contain grammatical error, and sentences may look awkward for native users of English. Masaaki Ishida <http://www.a-web.co.jp/~golgo13/whale.html Two incidents, which were shocking to Japanese, happened at IWC meetings in 1978 and 1979. The first incident happened in the evening of 30th June 1979, the last day of the annual meeting in London. It was when catch quotas for each area were about to be discussed. About 30 young people who were mobilized by anti-whaling groups broke into the conference room of Mount Royal Hotel, and sat-in the center of the room where tables were arranged in shape of "U". When they left out the room after the ‘ceremony’, they splashed red dyes contained in bottles toward Japanese delegation. Many members of the Japanese delegation remember following words shouted to them. "Murderer!" "Barbarian!" "It’s blood of whales you killed!" Yuuzou Yamato, a commentator, participated in this meeting as a member of "Hogei-Mondai Kondankai" (gathering to discuss whaling issue) formed by men of culture. After returning to Japan, he harshly accused this barbarity at every opportunity of giving speech. "Why did anti-whaling mobs splash dyes only to Japanese delegation? When they leave out the room, they splashed dyes to Japanese delegation who represented only one colored whaling nation, without glancing at seats for white whaling nations such as USSR, Norway, Iceland, Spain. Obviously this was an expression of racism. It was by the same reason of why USA used atomic bombs only to Japan and had no intention to use them to white enemies in Europe." - Yuuzou Yamato The similar incidents happened in 1979. When Kunio Yonezawa, the Commissioner of the Japanese delegation, left Cafe Royal, which was the conference place, and started walking on the Regent Street, he was suddenly sprayed with red paint from behind. No one other than members of the Japanese delegation was harassed in such a way. 1979 meeting of IWC was the opportunity that anti-whaling movement escalated to the extreme anti-Japanese. Before the first day of the meeting to be held on 9th July, about five thousands people had anti-whaling meeting at Trafalgar Square on 8th, Sunday. We had been advised from police, who knew that the meeting would not be only anti-whaling, that Japanese people had better not to go near the Trafalgar Square. I got on a taxi, and covered the meeting by going around the Square. Flags of several organizations, such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, were fluttering. Most people were in their twenties. I could see Peter Scott, a charismatic person for environmental conservation in Britain, in the center of people. A large white papier-mache whale was carried out. A harpoon with national flags of Japan and USSR was stuck to its back, and there was paint of red blood on the body. Then a life-sized doll, putting on something like sailor’s jacket and wearing glasses was hanged. The Japanese national flag was on its chest. The doll hanged by rope was swaying under the gallows held by young people. After seeing this scene, I left the Trafalgar Square. One member of Japanese delegation, who passed the Square soon after by taxi, witnessed a harpoon piercing the doll from chest to back. The IWC meeting started the next day, 9th July, Monday, at Cafe Royal which was facing Regent Street nearby Piccadilly Circus – a famous place in London. The meeting was to start at 10 A.M., but anti-whaling organizations started to yell repeatedly in chorus "Sane the whale!", "Moratorium", since around 9 A.M. I could see placards of "JAP the whaler killer!", "JAP the scum of society". Every time members of the Japanese delegation arrived at the entrance, the voices became loud. At 9:55, when almost all delegations finished to enter the conference place, a tall young guy with long hair walked out the anti-whaling people and moved into the Regent Street, holding a Japanese flag by his right arm. He then lit the flag by a lighter in his left hand. When the flag almost burnt out, a policeman walk to him, took away the flagstaff, and calmly stamped out the fire. This year’s meeting was under extraordinary atmosphere of anti-Japan from the beginning. Starting from those years, every year in London when IWC meeting was close to start, incidents happened that made-in-Japan cars parking on roads were damaged. It is not known who did this. However, these harassments did not last long. After dealer of Japanese cars agreed to donate environment conservation organizations, the harassments stopped suddenly. It is almost the crime, but as I mentioned earlier, surely there are people who get money as anti-whaling movements prosper. _

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The following is one of messages sent to me by someone in the U.S.A. using my e-mail address as the originator. The paranoic person sent 101 same messages to me. Can I interpret this as quite common bahavior of anti-whalers? Masaaki Ishida Well, Zach, no matter which way you "interpret" it, it most likely will not surprise anyone. Keep in mind that you’re from a country where Black Bear organs are "interpreted" as aphrodisiacs. And you’re whining about receiving unsolicited e-mail. You should be ashamed of yourself. Bjorn Ursfjord

Well, Bjorn, you have the right idea but your aim is slightly off. Yes, there _is_ someone here who ought to be ashamed of himself. That person, however, is not the inestimable Mr. Ishida, one who is to my limited experience very worthy of respect. That person who should be ashamed of himself is the contemptible racist bastard who apparently is so sadly lacking in fundamental compassion for his fellow human beings that the only way he can respond to the most distressing and shocking occurrence that Mr. Ishida reports is with shallow ideological needling. I will give you three guess who that person is. Regards, Stephen DeGrace sdegrace (at) cycor.ca

Response:

… I’m sorry, Masaaki. And I’m sorry we have people like that here. We do. I don’t blame you a bit for being outraged. You have every right to be. Sincerely, David Eitelbach

Geez, David, be more considerate! Diabetics read this newsgroup too.

Response:

The following is one of messages sent to me by someone in the U.S.A. using my e-mail address as the originator. The paranoic person sent 101 same messages to me. Can I interpret this as quite common bahavior of anti-whalers?

When the Newfoundland seal hunt was the Sexy "Environmental" Issue of the day, letters of this general calibre inundated various offices of the Federal government and Newfoundland provincial government. Janice Scott Henke gives a good sampling in her book "Seal Wars." There were, of course, genuine letters of concern from good people who had been tricked into taking a false view of the hunt by propaganda of questionable validity (to put it kindly) but there was a distressing amount of what can only be called hate mail, some of it quite shocking and evil. Given that many if not most of the people concerned about whaling probably get their information exclusively from organisations whose take on the issue is, to my mind, decidedly shallow and deceitful, it is no surprise that, like in the sealing issue, many of the people who take an interest in whaling apparently do so in a very shallow and immature fashion. I know from experience that there are many good people who are opposed to or express reservations about whaling and do so on stronger grounds than Sailor Paul Watson and company’s say-so, but nevertheless, my pessimistic belief is that sadly the sort of behaviour of the person who wrote you is quite common. I do not like to think that it’s _typical_, however. I think that encouraging behaviour such as the email that you received and Bjorn Ursfjord’s contemptible reply to your post in this very thread is one of the greatest crimes of the Enviro-Demagogue movement (my inflamatory label). Needless to say, I was apalled by the letter you received. I extend to you my sincere concern and sympathy. I beg you not to think that this sort of behaviour is typical of North Americans. [offensive letter snipped] Regards, Stephen DeGrace sdegrace (at) cycor.ca

Response:

Thank you for another message. Actually, I don’t worry the series of incidents so much as you imagine. Reading in books about such aspect of the whaling issue was one of the reasons I got involved in it, and it is merely what I had anticipated happened really. Although Bjorn Ursfjord is not Anglo-Saxon (I guess), the recent incidents including the e-mail bomb reminded me of the following words by late Shichihei Yamamoto, a Japanese commentator. His words came (I think) from observation of ’70s events that anti-whaling movement are targeted mainly to Japanese through the propaganda of lies and exaggerated facts. "Anglo-Saxon place themselves at the top on the Earth. What are ranked second are non-Anglo-Saxon white peoples. What are ranked third are some animals which are admitted by Anglo-Saxon as to be given the same rights as humans’. Dogs, horses, and whales belong to this class. Then what is ranked below are non-white peoples. Therefore, there exists a logic that it is against the moral that non-white Japanese kill whales which are ranked upper in the hierarchy." Many people in Japan think that such sentiment and hostility to economic growth of Japan led to the prosperity of anti-whaling movements. Behind the ignorant people who don’t know (or even don’t try to explore) the fact but are eager in shouting "save the whales", there are people under the mask of gentlemen and ladies who write the scenarios. Another thing I recalled was not-known-so-well story about Heinrich Himmler. As a leader of SS and GESTAPO, he ordered to kill so many Jewish people. It is well known. Unpopular side of the story is that he was a man who got enraged when he heard of animal abuse. Such mentality has nothing to do with Nazism, and in fact there are many similar people in today’s world. There are many people and some governments which state that whaling is inhumane. However, I have never heard that people in those nations kill fish in the instant ways as they demand to the whaling. So what they are doing is to introduce rank among animals based on their like/dislike to them, and accuse other people who don’t follow the same view (one of my acquaintance devised a word ‘animal-discriminationist’ for them). I sometimes think whether such imposition of what is merely private taste is a expression of lust of conquest, which has not been satisfied since many colonies had became independent after WWII. It looks anti-whaling nations coincide well with those which have several centuries of tradition of colonialism, or nations which are governed by people who came from the former. Maybe social-psychologists can explain the phenomenon well. P.S. Like past e-mails, you will find grammatical mistakes in my text. Masaaki Ishida <http://www.a-web.co.jp/~golgo13/whale.html

Response:

Racial/cultural prejudice. It is described in an article by C.W. Nicol (I will add it to my HP this weekend) who observed the early stage of anti-whaling movements. Probably such side of the movement is unnoticed in your country. In the recent event (I think it was early 90s), I recall that when British Minister of fisheries was about to admit the limited harvest of abundant species of whales, he changed the policy facing a number of protest messages from Japan-haters who are ignorant of resource management. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Although Bjorn Ursfjord is not Anglo-Saxon (I guess), the recent incidents including the e-mail bomb reminded me of the following words by late Shichihei Yamamoto, a Japanese commentator. His words came (I think) from observation of ’70s events that anti-whaling movement are targeted mainly to Japanese through the propaganda of lies and exaggerated facts. "Anglo-Saxon place themselves at the top on the Earth. What are ranked second are non-Anglo-Saxon white peoples. What are ranked third are some animals which are admitted by Anglo-Saxon as to be given the same rights as humans’. Dogs, horses, and whales belong to this class. Then what is ranked below are non-white peoples. Therefore, there exists a logic that it is against the moral that non-white Japanese kill whales which are ranked upper in the hierarchy." All I can say is this sounds a little like facsist racism from a japanese view point, and perhaps from someone who is a little paranoid about critisim directed towards a nation that has on more than one occassion and continues to show a high level of disregard towards international opinion and sensible resource management. Acts like the continued commercial whaling under the guise of research does not help the level of respect towards the japanese govt/nation and atitude. It is certainly not got anything to do with race, colour or culture and especially you as an individual. This quote above reeks of racism from nuerotic paranoia.

Could you tell me what is a "high level of disregard towards international opinion" and whose opinion is to be regarded as "international"? If you read the reports of IWC meetings, you can easily identify that strong supporter of anti-whaling policies are concentrated in Western Europe and two exceptional countries in Oceania. They represent only a small potion of the world, and to regard their opinion as "international" is less persuasive. Also, I’d like to hear from you what is the definition of commercial whaling and what you are informed as the nature of Japanese research whaling in the Antarctic. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Many people in Japan think that such sentiment and hostility to economic growth of Japan led to the prosperity of anti-whaling movements. Behind the ignorant people who don’t know (or even don’t try to explore) the fact but are eager in shouting "save the whales", there are people under the mask of gentlemen and ladies who write the scenarios. Another thing I recalled was not-known-so-well story about Heinrich Himmler. As a leader of SS and GESTAPO, he ordered to kill so many Jewish people. It is well known. Unpopular side of the story is that he was a man who got enraged when he heard of animal abuse. Such mentality has nothing to do with Nazism, and in fact there are many similar people in today’s world. I think it is pretty well undertood that Himmler was more than a little mad. I am sure that there are one or two mad people in the anti-whaling lobby, but I try to believe that I am not as mad as Himmler, but really I don’t see what this has to do with whaling or anti-whaling and Japan. I can only think that you are trying to justify whaling somehow here, but it is lost on me.

The answer is clear. What I image from Himmler is a kind of people who respect for their favorite animals than ethnic culture/people. Such people form one part of anti-whaling movement under the name of animal rights movement. There are many people and some governments which state that whaling is inhumane. However, I have never heard that people in those nations kill fish in the instant ways as they demand to the whaling. Whales are not fish for a start. Most of those countries that think whaling is inhumane also have strict controls on how animals, especially mammals should be slaughtered.

Fish is also live creature and feel pain when injured (I believe). So what is the reason that killing of mammals should be done with greater care than to fish? Also do you think such particular view should be shared by all the people in the world? So what they are doing is to introduce rank among animals based on their like/dislike to them, and accuse other people who don’t follow the same view (one of my acquaintance devised a word ‘animal-discriminationist’ for them). Perhaps they are bringing in rank of animals above other life, (no control on killing insects, microbiology, plants.) I do agree that some cultures do hold some animals *above* other animals, but there is a baseline in which humane treatment of animals, even those diadvantaged for some cultural reason are given a level of protection.

I’d like to ask whether treatment to domestic animals is regarded as humane in your country. Comparing whales who enjoy free life in the nature and only small portion are killed, with domestic animals which live under restricted conditions and killed eventually, how do you judge which is humane? Since I came from the northern part of Japan, I’m used to eat meat of sheep. However, one of my friends from southern part of Japan is very negative to kill infant sheep to produce/export the meat. What is opinion in general in your country? I sometimes think whether such imposition of what is merely private taste is a expression of lust of conquest, which has not been satisfied since many colonies had became independent after WWII. It looks anti-whaling nations coincide well with those which have several centuries of tradition of colonialism, or nations which are governed by people who came from the former. Maybe social-psychologists can explain the phenomenon well. which whaling countries are these? I always thought that Japan colonised more countries and was never itself colonised in recent history. Apart from that what a load of rubbish, I do not see the coincidence of whaling nations and colonised nations. Show me.

Japan’s occupation of Korea started early this century and did not last even half a century. The case for Taiwan is similar. It started because some Japanese politicians imitated concurrent European imperialism to cover the lost interest by unfair treaty with western nations which was imposed by military power at the end of Edo-era. Well, the coincide may be less convincing than the case for cultural block. But I’d like to recommend you to check IWC reports and count the number of active supporter of anti-whaling policies which never had colonies. For me it looks natural that peoples who are accustomed to impose value system to other nations for long centuries are likely to impose their views as something like standard of the human being. Some western nations, such as Netherlands, have strong anti-Japan sentiment because WWII with Japan was an opportunity that movement for idendendance started in their colonies in Asia. P.S. Like past e-mails, you will find grammatical mistakes in my text. Same here ) Sorry to hear you got mail bombed, stay cool. James

Thank you but I’m cooler than you imagine. :-) I’m just fed up with seeing some people who think all the world should abide by their particular point of view, and even don’t notice the tendency of their mentality. P.S. Forgive me if you find grammatical errors. But my dinner time was shifted toward late time to write this. Masaaki Ishida <http://www.a-web.co.jp/~golgo13/whale.html

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The following is one of messages sent to me by someone in the U.S.A. using my e-mail address as the originator. The paranoic person sent 101 same messages to me. Can I interpret this as quite common bahavior of anti-whalers? When the Newfoundland seal hunt was the Sexy "Environmental" Issue of the day, letters of this general calibre inundated various offices of the Federal government and Newfoundland provincial government. Janice Scott Henke gives a good sampling in her book "Seal Wars." There were, of course, genuine letters of concern from good people who had been tricked into taking a false view of the hunt by propaganda of questionable validity (to put it kindly) but there was a distressing amount of what can only be called hate mail, some of it quite shocking and evil. Given that many if not most of the people concerned about whaling probably get their information exclusively from organisations whose take on the issue is, to my mind, decidedly shallow and deceitful, it is no surprise that, like in the sealing issue, many of the people who take an interest in whaling apparently do so in a very shallow and immature fashion. I know from experience that there are many good people who are opposed to or express reservations about whaling and do so on stronger grounds than Sailor Paul Watson and company’s say-so, but nevertheless, my pessimistic belief is that sadly the sort of behaviour of the person who wrote you is quite common. I do not like to think that it’s _typical_, however. I think that encouraging behaviour such as the email that you received and Bjorn Ursfjord’s contemptible reply to your post in this very thread is one of the greatest crimes of the Enviro-Demagogue movement (my inflamatory label). Needless to say, I was apalled by the letter you received. I extend to you my sincere concern and sympathy. I beg you not to think that this sort of behaviour is typical of North Americans. [offensive letter snipped] Regards, Stephen DeGrace sdegrace (at) cycor.ca

Thank you for the message. I have ever read Mrs Henke’s book (Japanese translation). By the way, I recalled the interview (in the book) with Paul Watson on the anti-sealing movement. He stated that since so many orgasizations were already there for "save the whales/dolphins" movement, there was no room (for SS) to earn money (rather than by anti-sealing). Masaaki Ishida <http://www.a-web.co.jp/~golgo13/whale.html

Response:

I think, to the contrary, that countries that do whaling may very well be toppers when it comes to having a conscience about those animals killed for food. A conscience that makes the suffering minimal. Examples? Well, Norway for one have a ban on bow-hunting, there are very strict rules for hunting big game (*very strict*) and for the weapons used,

Harpoons are definately of of the question. The same holds for granades and air-gun projectiles. Not to speak of the combination of thes three. there are relatively strict rules also for small game hunting.

Something like "whatever you do, don’t use an air gun." But still it is all right to shoot _whales_ them. Come on, if you can’t kill a grouse with an air gun because it’s inhuman, how can the use of such tools be defended when it comes to killing much larger animals? It is all well supervised.

That’s why druken farmers every year kill their neighbours when they mistake their tractors for being mooses. We have *very* strict rules for transportation of animals, for slaughterhouses both when hygiene and "humane" killing is considered. And I could go on.

Sure, but he whales that are hunted are not kept in captivity. To say that whaling is humane because our slaughterhouses are is silly argumentation. Whaling has never been humane, it never was and it never will. To euthanase a bull is somethning quite different from shooting wild-ranging whales about to dive. One other thing: People have been attacked and ripped and chewed badly by animals.

So it’s ok to play ‘tit for tat’? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth: animals rip and chew us, let’s rip and chew them … alive. People have been shot, stabbed, had limbs blown off in explosions or just plainly crushed or whatever. When reading/hearing about this *pain, agony and torture* are toned down somewhat, is’nt it…it seems that most often one don’t feel much pain and such when things like the above happen quickly.

Or perhaps this: some humans have been chewed without complaiting, hence whales don’t suffer from being partly blown apart. Needless to say, the argument is pure nonsense. One man had an arm blown off by a grenade, he did’nt know his arm was gone until another told him.

A strong argument for the fact that being hit by a granade is not more healthy for the mind than it is for the body. One man was attacked by a lion, he said he did’nt feel any pain he just felt almost hypnotized although he was almost ripped apart.

Sure… Do you want to be taken seriously or what? Myself I have been bashed rather badly from time to time. Pain? That came as an dessert after things "settled", not like if one sticks a needle into one’s finger. Try shooting the finmger off instead, You wont feel it before some time has passed maybe ten minutes, fiteen, an hour…?

I prefer trying neither. So don’t tell me that an animal’s death need to be utterly painful just because we people need food!

That is my opinion too, but I draw a somewhat different conclusion about whaling… Sturla Molden

Response:

snip There are many people and some governments which state that whaling is inhumane. However, I have never heard that people in those nations kill fish in the instant ways as they demand to the whaling. Whales are not fish for a start. Most of those countries that think whaling is inhumane also have strict controls on how animals, especially mammals should be slaughtered.

Well done, Watson…but since You recognise the fact that whales are not fish, You must also agree to the fact that fish are not whales? Now, fish are killed by the zillions every year in nets, by hand, by other predators than HomSap’s and in every cruel way Yopu could imagine, and then some. But that’s ok, ’cause if only all countries would stop whaling, then no fish would suffer either? Or is this just an attempt to find an excuse for wanting fish for Your dinner, whilst whaling still is "oh-so-bad’n-cruel(tm)"? I think, to the contrary, that countries that do whaling may very well be toppers when it comes to having a conscience about those animals killed for food. A conscience that makes the suffering minimal. Examples? Well, Norway for one have a ban on bow-hunting, there are very strict rules for hunting big game (*very strict*) and for the weapons used, there are relatively strict rules also for small game hunting. It is all well supervised. We have *very* strict rules for transportation of animals, for slaughterhouses both when hygiene and "humane" killing is considered. And I could go on. One other thing: People have been attacked and ripped and chewed badly by animals. People have been shot, stabbed, had limbs blown off in explosions or just plainly crushed or whatever. When reading/hearing about this *pain, agony and torture* are toned down somewhat, is’nt it…it seems that most often one don’t feel much pain and such when things like the above happen quickly. One man had an arm blown off by a grenade, he did’nt know his arm was gone until another told him. One man was attacked by a lion, he said he did’nt feel any pain he just felt almost hypnotized although he was almost ripped apart. Myself I have been bashed rather badly from time to time. Pain? That came as an dessert after things "settled", not like if one sticks a needle into one’s finger. Try shooting the finmger off instead, You wont feel it before some time has passed maybe ten minutes, fiteen, an hour…? Think about these things. I think that a whale hit by a grenade harpoon have other thing on it’s mind than just "ouch! OOOOOUUUCHHHH!!! ooooh, pain! agony! (gnashing of teeeth) oooouuuchhh!!! when will it stop? pleeease – help me someone! Watson! heeeeelp! OOUUCH"(and so on for a few hours)… I think it would be more like: "*BAM*-Aii, what was that hitting me in the side? what a deafening sound! A long line thing…it’s pulling on me…ohhh – dizzy, gotta try to get away from whatever…it’s pulling gotta try…dizzy…*blackout*" Maybe done in five minutes. Maybe one. Maybe less. There are examples of moose grazing and being shot through the heart looking up wondering what that was, grazing again as if nothing happened then suddenly falls to the ground dead. I had a similar experience when deerhunting once, the young grazing buck throughholed by a .375H&H (heart shot) from 50m range turned 180

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