Taiwan attends Hiroshima Peace Ceremony for first time in 80 Years
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Time of India
29 minutes ago
- Time of India
'I love this country despite...': Dean Cain claps back at trolls questioning his Japanese origin as Superman joins ICE
Dean Cain shut trolls who mocked at his Japanese origin as he joined the ICE. 'Superman' actor Dean Cain shut down trolls who mocked his decision to join the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reminding him how his Japanese grandparents were imprisoned in an internment camp in the US. "Yes. I LOVE this country, despite its past mistakes," Dean Cain said. The MAGA actor recently announced his decision to be part of the ICE and do whatever the ICE director, Todd Lyons, wants him to do. "What kind of loser volunteers to be an ICE officer? What a moron. Dean Can, your pronouns are has/been," actor and activist John Leguizamo said. "Why would you join ICE and encourage people to join ICE when your ancestors were interned in World War II. You're a Japanese. You're not even white...I know you, and you are not white. You have never been white. And no matter how many of these white activities that you participate in, it's never gonna make that happen," comedian Margaret Cho said. Dean Cain spoke about his Japanese origin extensive. He was born as Dean Tanaka and is half-Japanese on his father s side. In a July interview, he said people think he tries to hide his Japanese origin, his actual name but it's tattooed on his ankle. 'My family was interned in the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. That was a horrible injustice, but I don't think that I deserve any sort of reparations," he said in the interview. After revealing that he joined the ICE, Cain dropped a video urging people to work for ICE as it also offers $50,000 signing bonus, student loan repayment, enhanced retirement benefits and special pay for individuals working in field operations and law enforcement roles. "So, if you want to help save America, ICE is arresting the worst of the worst and removing them from America's streets. I like that. I voted for that," Cain said. "They need your help. We need your help, to protect our homeland and our families."
The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Why they fear the flag: How ‘One Piece' turned into a rallying cry for liberation
Somewhere far from the Grand Line, a pirate flag from Eiichiro Oda's Japanese manga and anime series, One Piece, has been making a divisive kind of landfall. Across Indonesia, ahead of the country's Independence Day on August 17, the Strawhat Pirates' Jolly Roger — the flag of Monkey D. Luffy and his fictional crew — had been hoisted beside doorways, pinned to the backs of vehicles, and flown in place of the national red and white. The image of the iconic grinning skull in a straw hat has spread far enough to catch the attention of the state. For many it was a wordless declaration that the state had been failing its people. A deputy house speaker condemned the flag as an 'attempt to divide the nation.' Another lawmaker hinted at treason. One senior aide to President Prabowo Subianto warned that the symbol, flown beside Indonesia's red-and-white, could undermine the national flag itself. If you know One Piece, you probably see it already. In the iconic world Oda has built since 1997 — of colourful pirates of all shapes and sizes fighting back against corrupt marines, genocidal monarchs, and a 'World Government' that erases history — the Jolly Roger is precisely the emblem you would fly if you loved your country but could no longer stomach what its rulers had made of it. The pirate story about friendship and treasure has long been a parable about dismantling tyranny. And if Luffy and his Strawhats existed in our world, the same officials who drape themselves in jingoist patriotism would likely call them what they routinely brand so many dissidents of oppression in the struggle for liberation. Conjuring the 'enemy' History is replete with moments when the label 'terrorist' has been stretched to fit whatever shape power needed it to. British colonial administrators used it to discredit Indian revolutionaries; apartheid South Africa applied it to Nelson Mandela. The word's elasticity has long allowed those in authority to blur the line between 'public enemy' and 'liberator'. One Piece's World Government perfects this technique, though the story also acknowledges that violence and extremism are real forces in the world, not simply fictions conjured by propaganda. In the series, the state's propaganda machine works tirelessly to recast dissent as danger. Archaeologists on Ohara, guilty of preserving forbidden history; the people of Alabasta, resisting a manufactured insurgency; the Shandians of Skypiea, holding on to land in the face of forced displacement — all are folded into the same caricature as 'enemies of peace'. In the broadcasts of the marines' war correspondents, like Big News Morgans, state violence is sanctified and its victims are rendered villains. And yet, the Strawhats are not innocent of the charge that they are a threat to the established order. They have torched government flags, attacked fortified bases, and aided revolutions in occupied territories. Before the eyes of the whole world, they have declared open war on the World Government. By the definitions in a government dossier, these are acts of terrorism. What One Piece insists on however, is that such acts cannot be divorced from the conditions that provoke them, and that sometimes the refusal to accept a peace built on the backs of the oppressed is a moral imperative. After all, buried deep in the rarely-leafed pages of the Geneva Conventions (namely Additional Protocol I to Article 1(4)) grant armed resistance to colonial domination or alien occupation the dignity of national liberation and self-determination. Which means, unlikely as it sounds, that even a silly, rubber boy with a dream operates in compliance with international humanitarian law. A politics of liberation The genius of One Piece is that it wears its politics on its sleeve while masquerading as a funny pirate story. Luffy is no Robin Hood, content to topple one bad king and prop up another. Dense and blockheaded he may be, the Strawhat captain seeks nothing less than the liberation of the global oppressed and the destruction of the order that props up oppressors in the first place. Time and again, the series drags the Strawhats into conflicts where the moral stakes are absolute. On Fish-Man Island, systemic racism has festered for centuries, pitting species against each other. In Dressrosa, a king recognised by the World Government is in fact a warlord who tortures and enslaves his people. In Ohara, the state commits a full-scale genocide to prevent the truth from escaping. You can draw parallels without even trying. The teaching guide Oda's work has inspired among activists and educators likens the actions of the World Government to atrocities being commited in real time, in the real world. It is also no accident that the worst crimes in One Piece are the ones committed under the veneer of legality. The marines' white coats are tailored for plausible deniability. And so to read the series as apolitical is to ignore its very essence, that law and order are meaningless when they serve only the powerful. Gaza and the Strawhats In its peculiarities of distilling moral clarity into more bite-sized food for thought, the Internet has been asking: would Luffy free Palestine? For One Piece fans, the answer is almost too obvious to bother with. Set the Strawhats down in Gaza and they'd treat the siege as just another unjust island to liberate — slipping food through blockades, toppling watchtowers, and unmaking walls. And they'd probably do it knowing full well that, in the eyes of the powers they'd crossed, they would definitely be branded criminals, extremists, or worse. Since late 2023, Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed thousands of civilians, destroyed hospitals and water systems, and forcibly displaced and starved more than a million people. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported patterns of conduct consistent with crimes against humanity and, in the judgment of the International Court of Justice, with acts that have consistently met the legal definition of genocide. Under the logic of the World Government, Palestinians who resist this — whether by protest, or by breaking the siege, or by armed struggle — should be labeled terrorists. It is the same logic that sees no contradiction in flattening entire districts for 'security' while denouncing stone-throwing as barbarism. It is the same logic that would put Luffy's wanted poster on every wall from Tel Aviv to Washington. One can argue the tactics, the morality, and the timing of any particular act of resistance. But the broad truth remains that the oppressors have always reserved for themselves the right to decide who is 'legitimate' and who is an 'enemy of peace.' In One Piece, as in Gaza, that propogated legitimacy has less to do with justice than with obedience. Why they fear the flag This is probably why, in Indonesia, the Strawhat flag's sudden ubiquity has unsettled the political class. It's clearly not just a bit of pop culture silliness or an act of otaku indulgence. It's been a direct reminder that allegiances are not owed to governments simply because they wave the right flag. And it's a symbol that has always said: our loyalty is to freedom and not to you. When symbols like the Jolly Rogers or the keffiyeh emerge, they become threats precisely because they travel faster than the official rhetoric. They offer a shorthand for solidarity and a visual language that can't be easily co-opted. Governments can try to confiscate them and make them illegal, but in doing so, they inadvertedly confirm what their critics have been saying all along: that their authority depends on controlling what people do, and more dangerously, what they can imagine. 'One Piece isn't political' There has nevertheless been a particularly frustrating strain of denial among some fans who insist that One Piece is just an adventure, and that politics is something imported into it by overzealous critics. The vapidity behind this thought is to liken Animal Farm to a children's book about talking animals. It is to ignore that the series has, for more than two decades, depicted imperialism, systemic racism, propaganda, ethnic cleansing, and slavery as the very engines of its plot. The politics of One Piece have never been incidental, in fact, one could argue they are its very marrow. Oda's villains have always been strong in ways that mirror the worst habits of our own world. And his heroes have always been kind in ways that threaten the hierarchies we take for granted. It's not unlike the moral spine that runs through James Gunn's Superman, where the recent conversations around what the cape and the crest stand for have been far simpler, and far more subversive, than the partisan readings imposed on them. Strip away the stand-ins and you're left with a hero who refuses to weigh human lives on the scales of alliance or convenience, who will stop a massacre whether it comes from a sanctioned ally or a sworn enemy. In that sense, Luffy and Superman share a dangerous trait in the eyes of the powerful with their loyalty to the stubborn idea that the vulnerable should be protected, even if it means being called the villain by those doing the harm. If Luffy's world ever bled into ours, you could imagine his ship turning up anywhere the strong have taken over or made a prison of someone else's home. In Palestine, Sudan, the Congo, Ukraine, Xinjiang, Rakhine, Tibet, Tigray, Ireland, Syria, Artsakh, and Kurdistan — the names would change with the wind, but he would keep sailing until no one's freedom depended on the permission of their oppressor.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
What's driving Japan's population fall, with record decline of 900,000 people in 2024
The year 2024 saw Japan's total population decline by more than 908,000 people to around 120.65 million (or 12 crore), according to recent official data. A DW report stated that while this was the largest population drop since 1968, it was also the 16th straight year in which the Japanese population shrank. One important trend in this context is the falling birth rate in Japan, or the number of births per 1,000 people in the population over a given period. 'Some 686,061 newborns were recorded in 2024, the lowest number since records began in 1899,' DW reported. As a result, the total population has contracted in recent years. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba termed the figures a 'quiet emergency', but the country is not alone in witnessing declining birth rates and populations, especially not in its neighbourhood. China has also seen shrinking populations every year since 2022, and announced a subsidy to improve fertility rates. South Korea also has among the lowest birth rates globally, even as the figures have declined in other countries, from India to France. What explains these trends? Can they be reversed, and what is the situation in East Asia? First, is Japan an outlier? Not exactly, in the sense that a majority of countries are also witnessing declining birth rates and total fertility rate or TFR (the number of children a woman will likely bear in her lifetime). One popular explanation is the demographic transition theory, which says that as countries move from agrarian societies (that require a high number of workers) to industrialised economies, birth rates fall. Medical, educational and technological advancements improve the chances of survival of infants, and women's decision-making powers about the number of children they plan to have. Australian demographer Peter McDonald has further argued that two social and political shifts in the last few decades have also lowered the importance of having children for a good life. First was social liberalism, in which individuals in modern societies re-examined social norms and increasingly focused on individual aspirations. Second was the withdrawal of the welfare state in major Western economies in the 1980s and 1990s, which led to 'loss of trust in others… decline of community…and fear of failure or of being left behind', he wrote. However, this shift is being seen not just in the West or industrialised societies. At different levels, it's in countries with relatively supportive child care policies for parents, like France and Scandinavian nations, and those like Japan, where living costs and work pressure are high. Social scientists are still trying to understand the near-universal decline, with many stating that it is irreversible beyond a point. The usefulness of monetary incentives is found to be limited, and there is no silver bullet, so far. So, what is the situation in Japan? Japan often makes headlines in this area because of its particularly low TFRs and birth rates. For example, India's TFR is 1.98, South Africa's is 2.22, Brazil and the United States are both at 1.62, and France is at 1.66 (World Bank data as of 2023). Japan's TFR is at 1.2, South Korea's at 0.72, China's at 1 and Singapore's at 0.97. The world average was 2.2, just above 2.1 — the TFR needed to maintain the population levels. There are clear benefits to lower TFR, like women living healthier lives, gaining more education and financial freedom, and exercising autonomy about their bodies, as well as parents potentially providing a higher quality of life for each child. However, a high proportion of the elderly population in a society risks a greater burden on the people in the 15-59 age group, which is considered the working population. Not only would the elderly require caregivers, but funding their healthcare and other needs would lead to increased taxes on the working population. Demographers have noted some common patterns in many East Asian nations. Urbanisation and modernisation have meant high living costs, making it expensive to raise kids. Rigid traditional gender roles still prevail in these matters. University of Pennsylvania researchers noted that 'Women who do decide to marry often find themselves carrying a 'double burden' of working and managing the majority of household tasks (or 'unpaid work'), making the prospects of a large family both stressful and unmanageable…' ('Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle: A case study of low fertility in South Korea') They acknowledged that this is not unique to the region, and argued that the high social pressure felt by parents to invest large amounts of time and money in their children's education also plays a role. 'Korean parents often find it difficult and discouraging to have more than one or two children, despite the fact that desired family size for young adults has hovered around two for the last three decades', they wrote. Peter McDonald noted that the economic slowdown in Japan, by the 1990s, with rising aspirations among the youth, impacted marriage and childbearing prospects. Both concepts are generally interlinked in these countries, unlike the West. He wrote that governments have not been able to 'attempt to modify the worsening employment conditions of young workers.' This, even as men and women spend long hours working because of high professional pressure. McDonald argued for making child-rearing a social project, so to speak, with governments and other institutions changing how they view the subject and becoming more accommodating. 'While young people are aware that almost inevitably they will reduce their material outcomes if they have children, most are willing to accept the loss so long as it is not overly destructive of their aspirations. In particular, they would like to have confidence that they will have adequate financial resources during the period when children are very young…' he added. ('Explanations of low fertility in East Asia: a comparative perspective') Japan has also historically been hesitant to allow immigration, based on ideas of preserving cultural homogeneity. This has changed to an extent in recent years, with immigration allowed for some professionals. However, the rise of a new political party that is critical of immigration indicates there is at least some pushback against the idea. Rishika Singh is a Senior sub-editor at the Explained Desk of The Indian Express. She enjoys writing on issues related to international relations, and in particular, likes to follow analyses of news from China. Additionally, she writes on developments related to politics and culture in India. ... Read More
