Archive for January, 2012

Video h/t BCF

This Sunday afternoon the jury rendered their verdict in the Shafia trial. After long deliberation they found all of the defendants guilty. Thus all three of them – Mohammad Shafia (father), Tooba Mohammad Yahya (mother) and Hamed Shafia (their son) were convicted on four counts of first degree murder.

It was a bittersweet victory, because on one hand the murderers were punished, but on the other hand that’s not going to bring back the three girls and their stepmother whom they killed. It is nearly impossible to comprehend the motivation of those subhuman monsters who killed people from their own family.

Although we have had other “honour killings” in Canada, this one was one of the most shocking demonstrations of the crime, which is common in the countries where the fanatical Islam rules. However, instead of getting away with it, as it is the custom in the Muslim countries, the Shafias found out that in Canada we still find such crimes disgusting and punish those who commit them (at least for now).

That sentiment was very clearly stated by Justice Robert Maranger when he sentenced those animals:

“There is nothing more honourless than the deliberate murder of, in the case of Mohammad Shafia, three of his daughters and his wife, in the case of Tooba Yahya, three of her daughters and a step mother to all her children, in the case of Hamed Shafia, three of his sisters and a mother.

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour, not of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.

“For these crimes, for these murders, the sentence is mandatory as set out in the Criminal Code of Canada, imprisonment without eligibility of parole for a period of 25 years and that’s the sentence of the court for each of you.”

Another thing so hard to understand was the total lack of remorse for the crime. The defendants didn’t admit anything and were defiant in the conversations among them recorded before they were arrested. Papa Shafia obviously justified the murders on one of the recordings:

“No, Tooba, they messed up. There was no other way. Tooba, for the love of God, look at what they did. No, Tooba, they were treacherous to both themselves and us. For the love of God, Tooba, damnation on this life of ours, on these years of life that we lead.”

“Even if they come back to life a hundred times, if I have a cleaver in my hand, I will (them) to pieces. Not once but a hundred times. As they acted that cruel towards you and me, for the love of God, what had we done (to them)?: We had excess had we committed that they … undressed themselves in front of boys?

“If we remain alive one night or one year, we have no tension in our hearts, (thinking that) our daughter is in the arms of this or that boy, in the arms of this or that man. God curse their graduation! Curse of God on both of them (Zainab and Sahar), on their kind. God’s curses on them for a generation.

“May the devil shit on their graves! Is that what a daughter should be? What a daughter be such a whore?’’

It looks like fanatical Islam is really a dangerous mental condition.

As a closure, the victims Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, the 13-year-old Geeti, and Shafia’s first wife Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, will get a commemoration plaque at the place where they died.

Now that the criminals are going to spend at least 25 years each in jail and the victims had finally received justice and peace, we may ponder the question Jerry Springer usually asks in the end of his show: “What did we learn today?”

I wish I could say that the whole country stood firmly against the militant Islamism in support of the victims, but I can’t.

Today CBC managed to find a few scumbags to interview, who tried to raise the issue about how the Shafias would’ve been treated better, if they belonged to another religion or nationality.  Our disgraceful national broadcaster even placed a poll on its website asking its readers if they find the verdict just. To be fair to the readers I should say that at the time of this writing over 93% found the verdict just.

You may think that among politicians, who are supposed to the conscience of the people, the “honour” killings would be unanimously condemned. Yet when last year the Government of Canada called those killings “barbaric” in a study guide for would-be Canadian citizens, the Liberal MP Justin Trudeau objected to the term and demanded “responsible neutrality”.

It is hard to believe that an MP could be that clueless and stupid, but the metrosexual d’Artagnan obviously is determined to sell Canada’s values in interests to accommodate even the most savage customs of the people who might vote for him.

Then the foot soldiers of those treacherous politicians strictly follow what they are told. Last week we had an interruption of the trial due to a bomb threat.

In the video above you can hear how the prosecutor is being interrupted and heckled by people who are angry with the verdict. Although we can’t see them, judging from the fluent English they speak, it’s safe to assume that they belong to the gangs of leftards and union scumbags, who would attack anything that is even slightly beneficial for Canada. These are the people who go out of their way to bring back from Guantanamo that despicable piece of garbage named Omar Khadr. They are the ones, who each year plaster hundreds of posters calling for the release of the Muslim cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal.

And even more important – did the countless social workers and school counselors learn anything from the Shafia girls’ deaths? You know, they are very determined when they try to force a tranny club on a school. It became clear at the trial that the girls desperately needed help and there was nobody who could provide it.

Did you expect anything else? They were aware that they had to be culturally sensitive to the traditions of the Muslim culture, even though those traditions include treating women like garbage. But hey, diversity is worth much more than the lives of a few girls.

Many commentators today claimed that the trial showed how Canada handles successfully the challenges of multiculturalism. I am not that sure about that. With people like Justin the metrosexual and the lefties it is just a matter of time before our basic principles of fairness and justice become the target of “reforms” in the name of accommodating the “rich mosaic” of weird cultures, which are flooding our country with the understanding that they don’t need to adapt to us.

If we are ever able to stop people like those, we would finally have something to brag about…

 

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

What you see in the video above is the assault on a blonde woman (reportedly of Dutch origin), who had the misfortune of showing up at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The “cradle” of the Egyptian “revolution” is notorious for hosting gangs of savage Muslims whom the Western press desperately tries to picture as fighters for the bright democratic future of Egypt.

I hope you remember an almost identical case, in which another blonde was raped in the same place. I am talking about the American journalist Lara Logan. It was hard to chastise Lara for what happened to her – after all, she was doing her job of covering the “great” changes and her superiors probably never could imagine that the noble revolutionaries she was supposed to interviews were in fact a gang of vicious animals.

However, this is not the case with the still unnamed Dutch girl in the video. She definitely chose to ignore the atrocities caused by the Muslim mobs to Christians and foreigners. She probably had the delusional idea that going there to support their “revolutionary cause” would move those Muslim to tears. That might be true in the Dutch metrosexual environment, but in the deranged Arab world an uncovered woman is a fair target.

Did she learn anything from that experience? We don’t know yet, but I can assure you that she won’t learn anything. People like her live in an imaginary ideological bubble, which protects them from communicating with the real world.

I bet you that in a few months she’ll be off to another place of “oppression”. It is hard to feel sorry for people like her.

What really angers me is the fate of the countless Egyptian women and girls, who suffered the same or even worse assaults. They rarely appear in videos (and the Western press has very little interest in such videos anyway). They probably sincerely believed that things will change in Egypt. Yet, with the election results giving 75% of the parliament’s seats to Muslim fanatics, who range between very extreme and ultra-extreme, I don’t see any hope for those women.

I wonder if that Dutch woman has anything to say about them…

Video h/t BCF

 

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

On December 18 last year the last American soldier left Iraq. Thus the US Army finally withdrew from the country (leaving a small unit to guard the US Embassy in Baghdad). The withdrawal had been among Barack Obama’s promises ever since he started campaigning four years ago.

The timing was probably well calculated – not too early (otherwise the country’s descending into a lawless mess might have hurt Obama’s re-election campaign) and not too late (or else Obama’s image as a warmonger would’ve been cemented in the minds of the bleeding hearts who support him).

To show how important that event was, the Prime Minister of Iraq proclaimed December 31 a national holiday in celebration of the US withdrawal. When people celebrate after you leave their plac they usually mean that you were unwanted. There is nothing flattering here – after nearly 8 years and 4,000 casualties, the Americans were still considered occupiers.

I am far from blaming Obama. Although he prolonged the war, it was George W. Bush who started it.

I am still puzzled about why he did that. It was true that Saddam Hussein used to pay $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide terrorists. Also, at the time there was the case of the WMD, which looked quite convincing, although later they found nothing. Maybe the oil conspiracy theory was credible enough (despite the fact that in a country like Iraq any export arrangement can easily be overturned).

Or maybe Bush sincerely believed in the export of democracy, thinking that once the old regime is overturned, Iraq would become a modern democratic paradise. I tend to agree with that interpretation, because we saw the same delusion during the “Arab Spring”, when Obama facilitated the overturn of a few dictators hoping to bring democracy only to see barbaric Islamists taking power.

The problem with the Arab countries is that as long as their culture, politics and everyday lives are dominated by Islam, there’ll be no chance of democracy. Sure, you can say that when the masses in Egypt elect the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, they have done that in a democratic way. But that is not going to improve their situation at all.

Iraq is not different. When the British determined the borders of this artificial country consisting of three major groups that hate each other, they planted the seeds of the future wars. Ironically, the only person who proposed a solution to that problem was Joe Biden while he was running for President of the USA. His idea was to divide Iraq into three countries controlled by Kurds, Shia Arabs, and Sunni Arabs, but as soon as he became a Vice-President, the idea was forgotten.

In a tribal country like Iraq the only successful ruler would be an authoritarian figure, who controls everything with an iron fist. Every act of compassion or compromise is viewed by the Arabs as a sign of weakness, which is mercilessly exploited.

When Bush went to Iraq and deposed Saddam, he got rid of the only person capable of maintaining some order. The quarrelling factions of the parliament elected in supposedly democratic elections revealed the weakness of that system in the country. Without an authority figure, people there don’t have respect for the government.

That uncertainty and instability brought in Al Qaida terrorists, local militias and all kinds of bandits, who tried to take advantage of the situation. Officially, all of them claimed that they were fighting the Americans, but the truth was that they killed many more local Muslims and Christians than US servicemen.

The withdrawal of the US Army didn’t change the situation at all showing that all the fighting was sectarian.

During the first week of January, several bombs in Baghdad, Sadr City and other towns killed nearly 80 people in single day. The next week, a man in a police uniform blew up himself among Shia pilgrims killing at least 50. Just two days ago, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car close to a funeral procession in Baghdad, killing at least 32 people, half of them policemen.

All in all, at least 200 people all over Iraq have been killed in bomb attacks since the beginning of 2012. And they can’t even blame the Americans or the Jews for that.

The country is descending slowly, but steadily into a civil war. There are not many options left. We may see Joe Biden’s scenario realized – with the Kurds and Sunnis declaring independence and the Shia parts annexed by Iran. Or, just as likely, we could witness the ascend of a new dictator, much worse and more ruthless than Saddam and the Iraqi people would be happy to support him no matter what he does, just to have some peace. Then Iraq will return to exactly the same situation it was in before the USA invaded it. And with the current weakness of the USA, nobody will challenge the dictator.

… Don’t you miss Saddam? At least under him that mess was much more manageable…

 

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

 

After the not-so-successful attempt to revive the corpse of the Liberal Party of Canada at its last week’s convention, its leadership tried to continue the process by spreading their own version of “change and hope” in meetings with the voters. One of those events was last night’s town hall meeting in Scarborough (that’s in Toronto).

It was supposed to deal with some juicy stuff – exposing the hidden agenda of the Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and the dark Harperite forces that stand behind him. To deal with the monumental task, the party mobilized four “top guns”, all members of the Canadian parliament – Jim Karygiannis, MP (Scarborough-Agincourt, ON), Kevin Lamoureux, MP (Winnipeg North, MB), John McKay, MP (Scarborough-Guildwood, ON), John McCallum, MP (Markham-Unionville, ON).

The funny thing was that of all available venues they chose to appear at NAMF (North American Muslim Foundation). That organization has been involved in many questionable activities like fighting the secularism in the Ontario public schools (by advocating Muslim prayers), hosting extremist preachers hostile to Jews and gays, etc.

The event was opened by Farouk Khan (a.k.a. Farook Khan), head of NAMF, who is known for his hypersensitivity to criticism of the Muslim extremism. He said in a radio interview last year that if people like Geert Wilders are allowed to speak in Canada, the Muslims would be eventually herded into concentration camps in Kingston (Ontario) – you can read more about that at BCF.

It may seem strange that the Liberals chose this particular place to host them, but that’s not a real surprise. Recently I wrote about an upcoming NAMF Gala, where Olivia Chow was advertized as a “guest of honour”. An NDP stooge accused me of lying in the comments. In a newspaper I picked there last night they mentioned that Olivia couldn’t make it due to “miscommunication of attendance”. However, Karygiannis attended and handed out prizes. That was quite a surprise – apparently NDP has more sense than the Liberals.

The first speaker, Kevin Lamoureux, the Liberal Party’s immigration critic, didn’t waste any time – he started by stating that Manitoba is far ahead from Canada in the field of immigration. The province’s immigration has increased from 3,500 per year to 13,000, which is over 1% of the population. To match that Canada must increase the levels to over 300,000 people a year, which would be over 1%.

(We can barely absorb the current immigrants, how can we do it with more and more coming?!)

Once he established the numbers, he raised the question about what type of immigration we need. Emphasizing only one group, like grandparents, would be a disaster, so we need a balance and the right mixture. Herein lies the difference between Liberals and Conservatives. The Liberals want the economic interests and the social responsibilities to be in balance (while the Conservatives don’t want that).

The date of November 4, 2011, was a traumatic one for Lamoureux. On that day Jason Kenney announced the freezing of the parents and grandparents immigration program for the next 2 years. Lamoureux saw this as a completely wrong move – many parents are still relatively young, often around 50 and they can still contribute to our economy. Besides, the grandparents can help their families by providing childcare.

(As usual, the Liberals fail to mention that many of those categories are much older and they more than offset the contributions of the “younger” parents by excessive reliance on our social services.)

The second event that took place that day was the introduction of the Super Visa for parents – a multiple-entry visa, which would be valid for 10 years. The latter was a sinister move by Kenney, who wanted to neutralize the effects of the freeze.

The confirmation came on December 1 when the rules for obtaining the Super Visa were announced. It turned out that the government required the families to have a sufficient income to apply for the visa. Lamoureux considered that unfair, because many of those families are not established yet. Even worse – the government also wanted the families to buy private health insurance for the applicants, which would cost from $800 to over $2,000 depending on the age.

The conclusion is that Jason Kenney has provided false hope.

(I am not sure if Lamoureux is really that ignorant or only pretends to be in order to get a few more immigrant votes. It is self-evident that a family, which doesn’t have enough money shouldn’t bring more relatives in. Otherwise, by taking more non-working dependents their income would drop even more and the taxpayers would have to foot the bill. And if there is no medical insurance, who is going to cover the older people’s health bills? If we drop the insurance requirement, it would be a matter of time before somebody files a Charter challenge that the “rights” of the visitors are violated because the government doesn’t provide the same “free” health care to them. And I don’t need to tell you how this challenge would end with our “progressive” lawyers and judges…) 

The issue, according to the Liberals, must be revisited and obtaining visas made easier in order to increase the role of the family. The situation now shows a total lack of leadership and only a new Liberal government would be able to resolve those issues.

Another issue are the refugees – Canada has a moral and legal obligation to accept them. That may require more money. Many of them come from conflict countries with different cultures and need – a young girl who has come from a place without elevators would need more time and effort to adapt to Canada. That’s why we need leadership, which the Conservatives cannot provide.

(Since when Canada is the only country with such an obligation? The same UN conventions have been signed by almost all other countries. Why don’t countries like China, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait accept refugees? There is nothing moral when our country is exploited by unscrupulous welfare-cheque-chasing individuals, who on top of that have no intention of adapting to our culture.)

Similar issues exist with the provincial nominee program – it is widely used in Manitoba, but it is only now developed in Ontario. It matches specific jobs with qualified individuals from abroad.

During his talk Lamoureux mentioned several times a “green sheet” published by the Conservatives. It turned out it was a collection of facts on the immigration success of Harper’s government, which was handed out at the door to the people who showed up.  After reading a copy, I wasn’t that exited – they wrote that the large backlog was created during the Liberal rule, but Harper and Kenney were not only clearing it, they also managed to bring in more immigrant and refugees. It seems that the Conservatives are not going to fix that immigration mess either…

During the event they passed around a petition (initiated by Lamoureux) against the $100,000 health insurance and the freezing of the grandparents program for 2 years.

Frankly, the whole presentation was quite boring and it definitely failed to create enthusiasm for the Liberal Party. Things livened up during the Q&A period.

Many people asked questions about their personal immigration problems. After one of those questions, Karygiannis didn’t miss the opportunity to take a cheap shot at the Conservatives. He asked a man if he had notified his MP about the problem. The guy mentioned the MP’s name and Karygiannis shot back:

“So your MP is Conservative?”

“Yes.”

“Say again, what is he, Conservative?” (laughter)

“Yes”

“You mean he is Conservative?”

Truly a superb grade-two joke.

A revolutionary NDP girl was concerned that the provincial nominee program may make easier the exploitation of those workers. After dispersing her fears, Karygiannis didn’t miss the opportunity to add: “If in 2005 your party didn’t go against us, we wouldn’t have those problems today.”

Then came the big question that allowed the MPs present to earn their popularity among Muslims (at least in their Liberal minds). A Muslim guy (whose wife was wearing a niqab, she was the only veiled woman in the audience) asked about the ban of niqab during the citizenship ceremony.

Karygiannis shot at Kenney right away – the regulation was stupid, because there are many ways to identify such a person. For example, a female officer can do that before the ceremony. Another MP added that such a regulation is a blatant violation of the Charter and the Muslims should challenge it in court. A third even went further by saying that such violations of the Charter are part of Harper’s ideology. Lamoureux added that Kenney had ulterior motives to make an issue out of the niqab – his purpose was to speak to the ugly side of politics. Harper and Kenney did the same when they appeared in Vancouver to intimidate the boat with Tamil refugees.

Surprisingly, that passionate defence of Muslim fanaticism didn’t get much of a reaction from the audience, although a very large part of it was Muslim. Could it be because most people don’t care about the issue and the Liberals have chosen the wrong cause again?

But the bitter taste of the statements of those MPs remained – obviously, you can’t trust the Liberals to defend the Canadian values. They sincerely believe that that the weird Muslim fanatics speak for every other Muslim or immigrant.

Then there was the Indian engineer who complained about the degrees that are not recognized. He was also disappointed with the policies of the Liberals on the immigration issues and said he now votes for the Conservatives.

Lamoureux replied that they are working on the new policies. The degree recognition doesn’t depend on the government – it’s the professional associations that are the problem. The Liberals plan to create a commission, which will pressure the associations into accepting those degrees.

(What a stupid idea – why don’t they investigate the degrees before the people come here? The universities that grant reliable degrees are well known, so the validity of the degrees could be verified before the immigrants are approved. That’s much easier than creating a new layer of bureaucracy.)

The Liberals are a pathetic bunch – I don’t think they won any new supporters. All the MPs did was to promise new spending without an explanation about who is going to provide the money. I suppose even the recent immigrants were able to grasp that.

Obviously, the Liberal Party’s new claim to power and influence is premature. It would be good if it spends a few more years in the intensive care unit.

 

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

The media reported that a group of Muslim leaders refused to participate in the “interfaith breakfast” organized by the New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They were protesting the increased surveillance of Muslims and mosques by the New York police. They even sent an open letter explaining their grievances:

“We believe with heartfelt conviction that during times when a community’s rights are being flagrantly violated its leaders cannot in good conscience appear at a public gathering with the government official who is ultimately responsible and smile for the cameras as if all is well, when we know full well that it is not.”

In a peculiar way I feel sorry for Dhimmi Bloomberg – after so many years invested in Muslim ass kissing, it must be hard to be snubbed with such open public contempt. The Mayor was the staunchest supporter of the Ground Zero mosque. He fully supported the two Muslim scammers, who came up with that scheme and fircely fought against everybody who dared criticize the “project”. He spent many hours in mosques listening to the sermons of dumb imams, who barely concealed their disgust that they have to let a Jew in their mosque.

And I don’t know how he felt sitting uncomfortably on the mosque’s floor and eating the stinky halal food.

It turned out all that wasn’t enough. They expect him to do much more. He is supposed to stop investigations against Muslims, because they feel offended. It doesn’t matter that the surveillance conducted by uniformed and undercover police officers has prevented  bombings and other acts of terrorism. All that matter are the delicate feelings of the Muslim bullies, who think they should be left to do whatever they want.

They also report that Bloomberg supported the police. Do you believe him? I don’t. Just like his lefty-spirited buddy Obama, Bloomberg will turn the things around in a way that would ensure that his beloved Muslims don’t feel offended, even if this costs American lives.

There is nothing new under the sun…

 

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

I thought it was good to start the posts for the New Year with an uplifting, feel-good story. That’s hard, because the last year was marked by gloom and pessimism – Obama’s incompetence, Europe’s march to economic disaster, the fake Arab springs bringing Muslim fanatics to power, etc., etc.

I think I found an event that could be a source for optimism, even though it was rooted in another disaster. I am talking about the March earthquake in Japan. After going through my records of the trip to Japan two months ago, I have finally sorted out the pictures I took.

One of the things I wanted to do while being in Japan was to go to the Fukushima area, which was the worst affected region. We were perfectly aware that the authorities wouldn’t let us go that far, but it was worth the try to get some idea about the magnitude of the events.

As you may recall, the earthquake that hit Japan on March 11, 2011 was one of the worst in the world’s recorded history. Even though the earthquake was so powerful, the country was very well prepared, the main damage was caused by the tsunami, which followed it. Over 20,000 people died in those events.

So we left on a beautiful sunny day in early October (the weather in Japan is still warm that time of the year). After a few hours’ drive we reached Sendai, a beautiful city, which was affected badly by the earthquake, but by October everything was already fixed. Fortunately, the city is not that close to the shore and the tsunami didn’t reach it.

Sendai was the place where the only Canadian in Japan died during the tsunami. That was Father Andre Lachapelle, a Catholic missionary. One of the charity projects of his Church was a kindergarten in a village near the shore. Shortly after the earthquake struck he drove to the village to help. He died on his way there.

 

 

Then we went to the shore, which is only a few kilometres from the city. The traces of the devastation were clearly visible. Before March, the area was filled with many houses, but now almost everything is gone.

 

Only some of the industrial and office buildings survived, although many of them are not safe to use.

 

 

 

As of the traditional Japanese houses, they have been completely destroyed. Only the foundations of those houses remain, including a cemetery. That type of house is light and can withstand a strong earthquake, however, that doesn’t help at all when the area is hit by tsunami.

 

 

Although most of the debris has been cleaned up, there are few piles remaining, which still haven’t been processed. Japan has a very strict recycling program – everything is meticulously sorted out and reused, especially metal and plastic.

 

Then we headed south to Fukushima. On our way we saw even more destruction.

 

We stopped in a small town and went to the ocean shore to take pictures. Many of the houses are close to the shore, yet they have been less affected by the tsunami; many of the houses were intact.

 

 

Still, the devastation is visible. There are houses completely destroyed:

 

A ruined store, a bridge that crumbled, concrete shattered near the ocean:

 

 

 

 

There is even a car, which is still in the little river:

 

Miraculously, a small Shinto shrine has survived while most of the buildings around it have been destroyed:

 

An odd thing we noticed was that we didn’t see any people, except a small group of workers with a bulldozer. The town looked deserted.

We have been there for less than half an hour, when a police car approached us. The two officers were wearing face masks and white gloves. They explained that the town had been evacuated because of radiation and they are patrolling to ensure that nothing is stolen from the houses.

 

 

Then they asked if they could check our car. By the way, as it is common with the Japanese police, they were very polite and considerate. They asked for permission before checking every part of the car or any of our bags. And every time they bowed slightly with gratitude before proceeding with the search. I was tempted to see what would happen if we refused to let them check a bag, but didn’t want to push my luck.

After they were done we chatted with them for a while. It turned out both of them were from the Nagasaki police force. Police officers from different areas serve in the Fukushima area for a month at a time to keep order. They said that the radiation in the town was negligible, but the people have been evacuated as a preventive measure. They found it strange that a Canadian would go to this town.

Then we continued our way south. We kept driving near the shore. Everywhere the picture was similar – you see mostly foundations and damaged buildings. The closer you get to the nuclear power plant, the more police you see and at certain point the army units appear.

 

The tiny Japanese Army is practically invisible under normal circumstances – they usually stay in their bases. The leftist press even pretends they don’t exist, very rarely can you see pictures of the military in its publications. However, they were heavily involved in helping people during the disaster, searching for survivors, clearing the affected areas and helping built temporary shelter for the survivors.

 

At certain point, still away from the plant, we were stopped and asked to turn back – they say it may be dangerous to continue. That put an end to the trip.

On the way back I was thinking what made Japan so resilient when dealing with disaster. I did research on how the survivors coped – since so much of the infrastructure was destroyed, they were accommodated in schools and sports facilities. Everything was very well organized – the areas inside those buildings were even assigned their own new postal codes.

The restoration efforts started right away and proceeded with lightning speed. Here is a badly damaged highway, which was restored in less than a week:

 

The people, who lived in those temporary accommodations, with the exception of the children and the elderly started helping right away – many volunteered to clean the debris, help restore the businesses they worked in, etc. All of that was done on a strictly voluntary basis – the emergency forces would’ve been able to do everything even without them.

But being helpful is a matter of ethics and tradition for the Japanese. They are frequently accused that they are prone to a herd mentality, that they lack individuality, etc. Japan simply has that idea of how important mutual help is, which makes everybody feel an obligation to be useful.

If you remember the Katrina hurricane disaster in Louisiana a few years ago, you may recall that thousands of people, especially from the welfare underclass, waited for months and years until somebody else finished rebuilding their houses. They were even upset at the possibility that the Latino workers may stay there after they finish and turn the “chocolate city” (as the New Orleans mayor called it) into something else. Even more drastic example was the earthquake in Haiti – the victims still live in tent cities doing nothing, while surrounded by 90% of the ruins they never bothered to clean up. The gullible Westerners sent billions of dollars in help only to have the money stolen by the local crooked politicians and charities. Even one of the Haitian cultural “luminaries”, Wyclef Jean (who ran for president), stole millions of dollars from the donations to his “charity”.

In contrast, to most Japanese such behaviour is unthinkable. Nobody would consider it normal that they could stay doing nothing while somebody is working to build their homes. Even the looting after the disaster was so minuscule, compared to other countries. Even Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia) got involved in the rescue works right away distributing goods. I don’t recall the murderous New Orleans gangs doing anything even remotely similar, except killing people and looting the abandoned houses.

The important thing is that the Japanese still adhere to their values, which have allowed them to survive on their inhospitable islands for thousands of years. After the Second World War Japan was more devastated than Haiti, the quality of the goods they produced was nothing to brag about, they had no natural resources, yet they found the strength to turn the things around and become one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

The crucial reason for that situation is that Japan is a monocultural country – over 99% of the people are Japanese and they take their values and traditions seriously. And those are values and traditions that have been proven to work for the benefit of society. There is very little diversity and self-loathing.

Many of the “multicultural” problems we have here are unthinkable in Japan. If some dumb Muslima demands that a Japanese company accommodate her “right” to come to work in hijab or niqab, she’ll be ejected from that business faster than a champagne cork. And just see what will happen when somebody asks for a Muslim prayer room. A few months ago I had a talk with a Japanese correctional officer, who told me that some Muslim criminals (usually murderers and rapists) in Japanese jails complained to their embassies and they demanded that the Japanese supply halal food for them. The demand was laughed out and it is still talked about as interference in the affairs of Japan.

It is still a shame to be a bum in Japan, while in Canada it’s a badge of honour, which would bring you all kinds of goodies. There is another aspect of the entitlement culture that you can’t find in Japan – the consumer debt. The consumer debt is a cancer that destroys millions of people in the West. Feeling temporarily rich by charging everything on a credit card is perfectly acceptable here, even though most people become slaves of the banks.

In contrast, the Japanese don’t like being in debt. Although all banks and many department stores issue their own credit cards, the reckless use of those is quite rare. Japanese have little personal debt and the household savings are estimated to be about $19 Trillion. The largest bank in the world – Japan’s Postal Bank – one of the most popular banks in Japan, holds personal deposits of about $4.8 Trillion. The Japanese government has more than enough currency reserves – unlike USA or Greece it doesn’t depend on borrowing from foreign countries to pay for its programs (they have some debt, but it is internal, owed to Japan’s citizens).

Not bad for a country with no natural resources and a very small army…

Can we learn something from Japan that we can use? Not necessarily. Japan still keeps in its culture, ethics, and business practices everything that made it highly successful. We, on the other hand, are very creative in finding more and more ways to destroy the values and practices that made the West great. If anybody has a credible strategy to stop that process, I will print out this post and eat the paper…

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Happy and Prosperous 2012 to All My Readers and Friends!