Red Cross Vans Blocked in Ceuta, Hijabs in Japanese Convenience Stores

Why This Topic Landed in Japan

As the foreign resident population grows, the question of who pays for integration keeps getting asked, and a government panel putting language support on a formal footing turned that question into a concrete one. The FamilyMart case moved in the other direction: writing hijabs into the dress code shifted it from one manager's call to company policy. The Ceuta footage was picked up as an image of where acceptance ends up when it breaks down. Nothing connects the three events to each other.

Key Reaction Themes

• Cost is the heaviest objection — On the language programme, by far the most common line was that taxpayers should not be funding it, argued as a choice between the individual's responsibility and the employer's. Suspicion about how much of the budget would be skimmed ran alongside it.
• Declining to use the shop, as an individual choice — On the hijab story most posts framed it as consumer choice, and some inverted Hiroyuki's own logic to say the wearer could equally choose not to.
• Europe cited as the precedent — The next strand, present across all three incidents, pointed to France and Britain to argue that accommodation proceeds in steps.
• Distrust of the aid organisations themselves — On Ceuta most posts sided with the residents and argued that continued assistance prolongs the situation. A minority called the blockade a rights violation.
• A small group takes language acquisition seriously — Some argued that language shapes thinking, or raised children who stop attending school because of the language barrier.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

A government panel on who is responsible for Japanese-language learning

A working group held its first meeting on a planned Japanese-language and daily-living programme for foreign residents, with the division of roles between the state and employers on the agenda.

Sources: Yahoo! news, 2ch

Comments:

• "Another scheme to squeeze tribute out of the lower ranks."
• "Wouldn't it be better to make Japanese people learn English?"
• "There are American and British teachers at universities who've been in Japan for decades and still haven't learned any Japanese. What about them?"
• "Language matters, you know. It shapes how you think."
• "Send back anyone who can't pass the test."
• "I'd like it spelled out how many hundred million the budget is, what percentage gets skimmed off, and who cleans up."
• "Oh, so tax money teaches them Japanese as well now?"
• "It's obviously the individual's responsibility. If you don't like it, don't come. End of story."
• "Companies are the ones who want to hire them, so companies should pay!"
• "If they can't understand the language and end up refusing to go to primary school, of course the kids go off the rails ..."

FamilyMart's hijab policy and Hiroyuki's post

FamilyMart wrote hijab-wearing into its staff dress code, and commentator Hiroyuki answered the criticism by saying anyone unhappy could simply not use the shop.

YouTube

Sources: Sponichi

Comments:

• "Then never go to that shop again."
• "If you let it slide because it doesn't affect you, you get encroached on more and more."
• "It's the era where shops pick their customers now. Don't come, don't come."
• "Why get involved with a Japan you hate so much? Go enjoy yourself in France."
• "No, by that logic, wouldn't it be simpler not to wear the hijab..."
• "I just don't like it, so I don't go. That's all."
• "Foot in the door. They put demand after demand to you, and if you give one step they come in two or three. Accepting it bit by bit is exactly how France and Britain got where they are."
• "Hiroyuki has swung hard to the left since Takaichi took over. Could just be contrarianism because he hates her."
• "Right, right. Television also went with 'don't watch if you don't like it' and everyone left."

Residents block Red Cross vehicles in Ceuta

In the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, residents tracked and blocked Red Cross vehicles in an attempt to halt their operations.

Comments:

• "Migrants should just come to Japan. Japanese people welcome migrants." [Translator's note: sarcastic.]
• "Make sure you turn the Red Cross away when there's a disaster too, then."
• "They should come to Japan. Hokkaido has loads of spare land."
• "If they want to support illegal immigrants that badly, send them to the headquarters in Switzerland. It wouldn't last three days."
• "Reconquista." [Translator's note: the medieval Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, invoked here as a frame for the protest.]
• "In Japan, though, nothing happens, because nobody does anything."
• "If there's money for that, charter a ship and send them back to where they were born."
• "Rather than blaming the people running the soup kitchen, blame yourselves for failing to stop your own government. It's a democracy."