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December 23, 2024
 

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Ian Buruma
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2022
Was Trump or Brexit the bigger mistake? The answer is clear.
As Americans and Britons are discovering, nations can recover from bad elections far more easily than from bad referendums.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2022
Putin’s unconditional surrender should not be the goal
The Ukrainian demand that Russia withdraw its troops is a legitimate position to adopt. But it is a position, not an ultimatum; compromises should be reached once negotiations begin.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2021
America’s undimmed global cultural reach continues
The influence of American culture remains as strong as ever. The growth of a QAnon movement in Japan is the clearest example that some of its more paranoid ideas are spreading overseas.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / Beyond COVID-19
Dec 29, 2020
Overcoming Trumpism
The underestimation of Trump voters, and complacent belief in a Biden landslide, revealed the widening gulf between urban, educated America and rural, working-class America.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 22, 2018
Why is Japan populist-free?
Japan's middle-class mentality helps keep the dangerous populist politics roiling other countries at bay.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2013
Ian Buruma on 'Ai-no Borei (Empire of Passion)'
Nagisa Oshima is the best film director in Japan still making good movies. There are other good directors (Kon Ichikawa), but they are reduced to doing company hack-work. Oshima can still do the films he likes, partly because he gets financial backing in France from Argos Films, the producer of both...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2010
Eye to eye with the unwanted
NEW YORK — Baruch Spinoza, the 17th-century Dutch philosopher, Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th-century British prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the 21st-century French president, have one thing in common: All were sons of immigrants.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2008
Europe's mania for a black U.S. president
NEW YORK — Why do Europeans adore America's president-elect, Barack Obama? Stupid question, you might say. He is young, handsome, smart, inspiring, educated, cosmopolitan, and above all, he promises a radical change from the most unpopular American administration in history. Compare that to his rival...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2008
Austria's fear and loathing still democratic
NEW YORK — Two far-right parties, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Movement for Austria's Future, won 29 percent of the vote in the latest Austrian general election — double their total in the 2006 election.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2008
Europeans draw wrong lesson from Munich
NEW YORK — Seventy years ago this month in Munich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed a document that allowed Germany to grab a large chunk of Czechoslovakia. The so-called Munich Agreement would come to be seen as an abject betrayal of what Chamberlain termed "a far away country of...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2008
Disturbing reasons to put a nation to death
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — Belgium is in danger of falling apart. For more than six months, the country has been unable to form a government that is able to unite the French-speaking Walloons (32 percent of the population) and Dutch-speaking Flemish (58 percent). The Belgian monarch, Albert II, is...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2008
Soccer nationalism mirrors European society
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, New York — The late Arthur Koestler, born in Budapest, resident of many countries, and writer in several languages, once said there is nationalism, and there is soccer nationalism. The feelings inspired by the latter are by far the stronger. Koestler himself, a proud and loyal...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2008
Why do displays of compassion differ between East and West?
NEW YORK — Why are French, British and American warships, but not Chinese or Malaysian warships, sitting near the Burmese coast loaded with food and other necessities for the victims of Cyclone Nargis?
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2008
Is Tibetan culture slated for extinction?
NEW YORK — Are the Tibetans doomed to go the way of the American Indians? Will they be reduced to nothing more than a tourist attraction, peddling cheap mementos of what was a once-great culture? That sad fate is looking more and more likely, and the Olympic year already has been soured by the Chinese...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2008
Freedom and music go hand in hand
NEW YORK — North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is one of the world's most oppressive, closed and vicious dictatorships. It is perhaps the last living example of pure totalitarianism — control of the state over every aspect of human life. Is such a place the...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2008
War rages against 'elites' of tolerance
AMSTERDAM — When "tolerance" becomes a term of abuse in a place like the Netherlands, you know that something has gone seriously wrong. The Dutch always took pride in being the most tolerant people on Earth.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2008
China's top-heavy showcase
NEW YORK — It will be China's year in 2008. The Olympic Games — no doubt perfectly organized, without a protester, homeless person, religious dissenter or any other kind of spoilsport in sight — will probably bolster China's global prestige.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2007
Legislating history obscures the truth
NEW YORK — In October, the Spanish Parliament passed a Law on Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2007
Lucky little countries, or not?
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, New York — Western Europe's small democracies have, on the whole, been exceptionally fortunate. Freer and richer than almost anywhere else in the world, countries such as Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland would seem to have little to worry about. This is why the world normally...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2007
Believers make good rebels
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, New York — It has become fashionable in certain smart circles to regard atheism as a sign of superior education, of a more highly evolved civilization, of enlightenment.
Bankruptcies and suicides rise as Japanese struggle with mounting debt
Lawyers estimate that personal bankruptcies in Japan are on track to reach the highest since 2012 this year.
Honda and Nissan consider mutual production of vehicles, report says
Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe at the Japan Mobility Show 2023 at Tokyo Big Sight in October 2023.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

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