The Wall Street Journal Author Causes Row With Remarks on Immigration, Segregation
A newspaper column by a well-known author that said it was better for people of different races to live separately is causing a ruckus in Japan. The author, Ayako Sono, has penned several dozen novels, received countless awards and remains active at 82. A lifelong Catholic, she heads a charity that supports Japanese nuns caring for the poor in Africa and Asia. Until 2013, she was an independent director at Japan Post, the postal and financial services giant. She serves on a panel advising Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on education.
In a column published in the conservative Sankei Shimbun daily on Wednesday, Ms. Sono discussed the need to bring in immigrants to ease the shortage of workers to care for Japan’s ballooning elderly population. She offered one condition: foreigners should live segregated from the Japanese.
“Since I learned the situation in South Africa 20 to 30 years ago, I’ve come to believe residential areas should be separated, so whites, Asians and blacks will live among themselves,” she wrote. She then offered an anecdote about an apartment building in Johannesburg, saying that an influx of black residents after the end of apartheid caused white residents to flee. Tweets and blog posts slamming Ms. Sono have flooded social media. Some attacked Sankei for running the column. Africa Japan Forum, a nonprofit group promoting knowledge of Africa, issued a statement asking Ms. Sono and Sankei to withdraw the article and apologize to the people of South Africa.
“This kind of thinking is shameful for a member of the world community,” Naoko Tsuyama, the group’s representative, wrote in a letter. Ms. Sono told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that she wouldn’t discuss the column. “If there is an error in the article, I would correct it. I am a human and I make errors. But that piece doesn’t have any errors,” she said.
Katsunori Murakumo, a Sankei spokesman, said in a statement that the newspaper published Ms. Sono’s column as her personal view. “We think it’s only natural that there are various views on that column,” he said. Ms. Sono caused another stir in 2013 with remarks suggesting that women should quit their jobs once they give birth.
In the latest column, some readers also found Ms. Sono’s description of foreign caregivers demeaning. Calling on the government to ease immigration rules for bringing in caregivers, Ms Sono said the only qualification needed for such workers is “gentleness.” “There is absolutely no need to have Japanese language skills or knowledge of hygiene,” she said. “In any country, there is a family dynamic where grandchildren look after grandmothers.”