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BBC Trending: Is this manga cartoon of a six-year-old Syrian girl racist?
"I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life… all at the expense of someone else," reads the text on the illustration above. "I have an idea. I'll become a refugee."
The image and caption were posted by a right-wing Japanese artist last month. Now, more than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in Japanese urging Facebook to take it down. The petition, posted by an account calling itself the "Don't Allow Racism Group", claims that several people have reported the illustration and demands that "Facebook must recognize an illustration insulting Syrian refugees as racism."
Although the Japan Times reported that Facebook did not take the picture down, saying it did not go against community guidelines, the artist herself removed the picture. But she remains defiant about her motivations for posting it in the first place. Toshiko Hasumi told BBC Trending that she believed the people signing the petition were left-wing activists. "I draw many political mangas [Japanese comics] which are not favourable to them," she said. "This is why they targeted me."
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:10PM
Yeah, everything's racist nowadays, yep yep. I first saw that picture on an imageboard site a few days ago and got plenty of laughs out of it -- because it's true.
Japan for one isn't swallowing the "immigrants are good for society" poison-pill that populations of European nations are gobbling up like flies on shit -- for example, they chose to send more aid rather than accept migrants.
Almost makes me wanna live there, if I weren't a Gai-jin and if Japan wasn't so goddamn overcrowded.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:28PM
Luckily they have a depopulation problem and rural areas... although you'll always be a piggu baka gaijin.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:04PM
>an imageboard site
NORMIES GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 09 2015, @08:18PM
I do think there are a number of people seeking to abuse the system regarding how or why they seek asylum... but I am having difficulty believing that a depiction of a 6-year-old girl can be considered an accurate reflection of the 6 yr old's mindset.
I am sure she has no idea what asylum laws are like or even what the word means. Even if its what her parents want, most children are traumatized simply by being forced to move to a new home and make new friends, let alone run a political and humanitarian gauntlet.
The comic would have rung true to me if an example of a high maintenance pretty young asylum seeker were depicted... but from the looks of things, it seems to be mostly young men of military age, couples with young children, and old people.
I have not seen pictures or read any stories about high maintenance women looking for a free ride in their quest for asylum, but it could very well be that the really pretty ones got captured and sold by less scrupulous parties. The sex trade is rough in that area of the world. I have few doubts that some of the young girls who aren't old enough for that sort of thing have been captured and forced into it while attempting to migrate with their parents.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 11 2015, @09:13AM
"mostly young men of military age"
Those are precisely the people that I have an issue with. Those are the people who should be taking part in solving the problems at home. Instead of fighting for their ancestral lands, instead of fighting DAESH, they are running away to Europe, and abandoning the women, the children, and the aged to the tender mercies of DAESH.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:42PM
it seems like people don't understand the difference between fear and racism anymore. then again, maybe they wanted to make it click-bait.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday October 09 2015, @06:16AM
It's just a convenient way for people to avoid having to use their brain. Why go to trouble of acknowledging a viewpoint different than your own when you can just attribute it to bigotry? If someone questions prayer in public schools, they must be anti-Christian. If someone questions Israeli government policy, they must be anti-semitic. If someone questions the H1B visa program, they must be xenophobic. etc.
The idea of a six-year-old girl fleeing a warzone merely as cover for a devious plan to milk government-provided services in another country is not racist. It's just plain idiotic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:10PM
It's just a convenient way for people to avoid having to use their brain.
A cop-out of a conversation for when you bump against the boundary of a different viewpoint... where have I heard that one before? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by juggs on Friday October 09 2015, @04:51AM
Many European nations have a long history of embracing refugees and immigrants. A cursory look at that "great" Britain's history for even the last few hundred years to a millennia will show a constant movement by people - either as invaders or as people running away from being invaded.
The difficulty is not the invasion per se, it is the the time it takes for the normalisation of society that must occur to ingest the invaders or refugees and maintain the society. i.e. everyone is welcome, just don't all come at once and don't shit in your own front yard when you get here.
At the moment there seems to be a fire hose of refugees from the Mid-East flocking to certain parts of Europe..... OK they are running away from theological oppression with mad beheadings..... I understand that.... I would run too. The question that needs to be asked is - who caused the power vacuum in that region and destabilised it continually for decades and thus caused this fire hose to open?
Bit harsh to refuse to accept the result of ones own doing no?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @02:59AM
The question that needs to be asked is: Why are they not defending their country?
They should be standing up for their country. We did. America did. The UK did. France did. Germany did. Countries built their freedom of today on the blood split by their people.
Will these people die for Germany?
Why will these people not sacrifice their lives? Is it islam? Are they beaten down, scared, cowards who can not stand up to these bullies with guns?
If every person who has migrated away from syria gave their life to kill a member of isil then they would not have a problem now. Poison their food. Kill their animals. Steal their weapons. Put water in their cars. Set fire to buildings. Do unto isil as isil does unto others. Destroy their army one soldier at a time.
Cowards.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @07:37PM
Not sure if you're referring to World War I, World War II, or the fall of the GDR.
Suppose Germans had refused to fight in World War I. Surely tthe Central Powers would have lost the war sooner, and the Allies would have had no grounds to demand reparations of Germany? I suppose the Austrians and Hungarians would be displased, but probably the outcome would be better for Germany.
Now, about World War II. The conventional wisdom is that Germany started it, at least in Europe. Suppose that, having embraced Nazism, Germans refused to go to war. I'm not sure what the outcome would have been, but what actually happened was that around 5 to 7 million Germans were killed in the war, major cities were razed, the country lost territory to Poland and Russia, the remainder was split and many Germans had to live under communism.
About that, the GDR ended without need for a war. When East Germans committed the crime of Republikflucht, fleeing the country, the communists treated it as a major problem and I think their assessment was spot-on. Once the border fence between Austria and Hungary came down, there was a mass exodus. That, not fighting, destabilised the GDR. Had Germans taken up arms, there would have been a different outcome. Not likely a better one for the country, I daresay. Suppose the refugees from East Germany had been turned back rather than welcomed.
Now, about Syria. Besides being invaded by ISIS, it's also in a civil war. Plenty of Syrians have taken up arms "for their country" but on opposing sides. That is the reason people are fleeing the country. You advise the refugees to stand up for their country against ISIS, but ISIS is well-armed because it has munitions surrendered/abandoned to it by the Iraqi army. These people who have fled their houses might have what,a rifle or a kitchen knife? ISIS has been winning readily against the militaries of Iraq, Syria, and the USA, and you're telling these civilians to wait in their houses until ISIS' army comes, then fight to the death?