Brian from Greenpeace here.
Taking the fight to Tokyo isn't surrendering -- it's a tactical shift. Despite all the attention we get outside of Japan for challenging the whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, those images and stories don't play in the media in the one place on Earth where they most matter: in Japan.
We've worked this issue from our office in Tokyo for years now, and last year we began to see a shift that we want to exploit now.
We've seen whaling discussed on the front page of Asahi Shinbum, defended by the prime minister, and criticized in the Japanese business press -- an unprecedented level of attention to whaling in Japan, where 70% of the public doesn't even know that whaling occurs in the Antarctic.
Whale meat eating is in decline, there are huge stockpiles of unsold meat, even Japanese scientists are now saying that the research value of killing so many wild animals is practically nil -- and so now is the time to raise questions in Japan about why taxpayers are funding this folly with subsidies of 400 million yen (around 4 million dollars), government-funded promotional programmes to get whale meat into schools, and tax-backed distribution schemes.
Japan has been rocked by corruption scandals that have brought down politician after politician. So when we looked for a way to take down the politicians who run the whaling problem, we looked for scandal stories to tell -- and we found one when we discovered the widespread embezzlement of whale meat and interecepted a box, one of four worth around 30,000 USD, that a crewmember had sent to a private address.
The biggest paper in Japan called for an investigation. The Tokyo public prosecutor agreed a full investigation was in order.
Instead, the government arrested two of our activists for "stealing" the box in a televised raid on the Greenpeace offices by 40 police who took membership records, computer disks, and files. Amnesty has denouced this as a politically motivate arrest, and our activists face TEN YEARS in prison. The over-reaction of the Japanese Government is perfect confirmation that we've hit a nerve, and we're on the right track, the scandal and corruption of how whaling lines only a few Bureaucrats' pockets in Japan is an Achilles' heel, and that this issue is moving in the pattern that Gandhi described: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
The end game will be in Japan, and that's where we've moved the game.
If you want more information, please have a look here:
http://www.greenpeace.org/end-gameIf all we cared about were fundraising, we'd be going back to the Southern Ocean this year. As important as saving individual whales may be, this was a tough, strategic decision about putting our resources where we think they'll best be spent to win this issue once and for all.
--Brian
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
