JAPAN - A Nation Regrettably Without Compassion

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

The hot blood flows thick,
Millions of eyes remain blind
Ignorance is bliss - pw

Frantic dolphins being selected for captivity. Photo: Sea Shepherd

The continuing horror of Taiji continues to expose the astounding arrogance of the Japanese government, Japanese media and the Japanese people.

I am thoroughly sick and tired of this politically correct mantra that the Japanese people are not to blame and that we should not think ill of Japan because of this on-going bloody obscenity perpetuated by a gang of murderous thugs in Taiji.

I am also sick and tired of accusations of racism every time we speak up for the dolphins and each and every time we condemn the relentlessly cruel slaughter of these gentle, intelligent, self-aware, socially complex sentient marine beings.

Blood is flowing in the Cove and the eyes and ears of the Japanese people remain blind to the steaming blood in their own waters. Dolphins are screaming in the Cove and the ears of the Japanese people remain deaf to these vicious atrocities.

The Japanese media submissively ignores the slaughter. Japanese politicians aggressively support the slaughter and the majority of the Japanese public remain willfully ignorant of the killing and for the most part they simply don’t care.

We have been opposing the slaughter since 2003. People ask why we don’t cut the nets and free the dolphins. We did that in 2003. Sea Shepherd freed 16 pilot whales and they escaped. The two courageous Sea Shepherd volunteers spent four weeks in jail and were fined about $10,000. This was an acceptable price to pay for the lives saved but that action resulted in the implementation of an expensive annual policing force with such strict security that it is virtually impossible to physically intervene. Already without breaking any law, every returning Cove Guardian veteran is denied entry into Japan, forcing Sea Shepherd to send new volunteers every year. Thankfully there are many people willing to go to Japan to stand up for the dolphins.

Restricted from inference, the Cove Guardians are engaged in live-streaming, photos and video in an effort to keep this brutality before the eyes of the world. Just today the capture and killing of a pod of over 300 dolphins reached the eyes of over ten million people around the planet, everywhere except in Japan where social media and mainstream media is censored.

Being willfully ignorant of the horror of Taiji is not an excuse. The screams of the dolphins are echoing around the globe, these bloody scenes of sadistic brutality are being viewed around the world by millions.

This mercilessly callous annihilation of such gentle beings is an abomination that is staining the escutcheon of Japan with a putrid and enduring shame. The entire nation of Japan reeks of a sordid barbarous ignominy, and it is all the fault of a mere thirty or so thuggish Japanese fishermen engaged in a vile trade of enslavement and mass murder.

They have given Taiji the distinction of being the world’s most notoriously pitiless town. I have studied Japanese history and there is nothing in Japanese culture that can justify this atrociously vile evil.

And that is what it is, pure malicious, odorous evil

These dolphins are thinking, feeling self-aware beings with a complex language and social networks. This killing is cold blooded murder. There can be no acceptable excuse.

This is not right. It is not a tradition and even if it was, damn such a foul tradition. This is unconscionable, unforgivable and displays a deep and odorous malfeasance that is universally unacceptable outside of Japan and the Danish Faroe Islands.

They cannot continue to hide behind the skirts of accusations of racism. Compassion for the lives of dolphins is not racism. As for their so called ‘food culture’ I have no respect for it at all, it is no different than asking me to have respect for the food culture of cannibals or the perversion of spooning out the brains of live twitching monkeys.

I am no longer interested in listening to the pathetic justifications for this foul and vile atrocity.

Are there good people in Japan? Of course there are, we have had many good Japanese people crew on our ships but I have to say they are the exception to the rule because of the one hundred million plus Japanese people, very few are in opposition to this iniquity and pleading ignorant just does not cut it because when the rest of the world is aware of an atrocity in a country and their citizens claim to be unaware, well that sounds highly suspicious and where have we heard this before? They are aware. The truth is they just don’t care, as a nation they seemingly lack empathy and as a nation they are seemingly devoid of compassion.