Thoughts after a long, long flight

Japan has instigated a new customs procedure for foreign nationals who come into the country – along the lines of the American system tourists are required to be fingerprinted and take a retina scan.  This is supposedly for our own protection, although a promotional video that accompanied the announcement of the scheme suggested otherwise through some iconographic imagery of 9/11 and a rolling list of terrorist attacks (the fact that Japan’s only case of terrorism to date has been the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks didn’t pop up).  I must admit I was not too happy about going through this process, although at least I didn’t have the same experience as at JFK last year when I spent an uncomfortable couple of minutes as the customs officer worked out I wasn’t Chris Perkins the international smuggler (thank god he is a short man)! But, through conversations with friends both Japanese and Western, it seems that Japan is still having trouble dealing with people whose identities straddle tug at predefined notions of ‘Japanese’ and ‘foreign’.  By way of forcing this point home, it seems, the last thing I saw at the airport was an example foreigner registration card that sported the name Jennifer Yoshimoto.

But when I got back to Europe and opened up a copy of the international Independent, my perceptions of Japan were put into context.  It seems that the British government is contemplating a £1000 tariff on visiting family members from abroad that come to see their loved ones in the UK.  Coupled with the clamour over deporting foreigners who commit crime here at home (not necessarily such a bad thing, but as an editorial in the Observer remarked, it doesn’t help with our already soured perceptions of foreign workers in the UK when media coverage is all about ‘their’ criminality) England is not looking particularly open itself.  Maybe Japan isn’t so bad after all…

All this leads me to wonder if national identity and nationalism only split into two distinct concepts when individuals observe others. In other words, national identity is what ‘we’ have and nationalism is what ‘they’ do.   It is hard to argue that national identity is a bad thing, in much the same way as it is equally hard to argue that nationalism is a good one.  Therefore national identity is appropriated for our own use and nationalism is thrown at others. But would it not be more profitable to recognise that these two elements are fluidly intermingled; splitting only as we intervene through an observation that is itself located within a nationality?  And what happens when people who push at the ideas of national membership, those caught between the lines, make their own observations?   If anything positive came out of the last 2 hours of the 17 hour trip back from Japan (never again!) it is the conviction that not considering these questions will make it all the more difficult to come to terms with our nationalism and the national identities of others.