I found it quite astonishing to discovered that the first book about animal rights to be published in Japanese only happened in March, 2005. Incredible when you think the likes of BUAV have been active in the far less civilised British Isles for more than 100 years.
Dr. Helmut Kaplan’s animal rights classic “Leichenschmaus” (Funeral Banquet) was translated as “Shitai no bansan” in Japanese by Lydia Tanabe, of the seemingly deceased Small Animals Support Association (SASA) Japan. Dr Kaplan was born in Salzburg, Austria and holds a PHD in psychology and an M.A. in philosophy. He was one of the poineers of the Animal Rights Movement and since 1988 has written more than a dozen books on animal rights, ethics and philosophy in general. The author of more then 300 other publications who contributed substantially to making the philosophy of the Animal Rights Movement known in the German-speaking countries.
Animals are merely property, protected by hardly any laws at all. What laws do exist are largely not enforced. Business comes first. Only few years ago, SASA took a petshop to court for cruelty. Despite mobilising many supporters, the media and Members of Parliament the proceedings were stopped.
There was no way to win without a law being in place.
It is fair to say, pretty much thanks to America, animal ethics and moral considerations are nearly unknown in Modern Japan. This was certainly not true of Ancient Japan which had a primarily vegetarian, and probably a primarily vegan elite, for over 1,000 years (I do not believe for practical reasons it was 100%) thanks to its Buddhist tradition. Sadly, from business through education to law, Japan still emulates America and, in this area, the forced secularisation and commercialization of Japan has been a disaster for animal kind.
Animal issues in the East Asian region seems to be very undeveloped but many hope that Japan can become a kind of role model for other Asian nations because Japan has enough ethical historical background, and enough money, to do this if it wished to.
A strange statistic puts Japan’s pet boom in perspective: there are now more pets than children in the country. 100,000s of killed every year.
Pet shops in Japan regularly stock all kinds of monkeys, bats, armadillos, amphibious, moles, foxes, aardvarks, meerkats, exotic snakes, lizards, fishes, turtles or insects … almost every kind of exotic animals, including big cats like tigers and lion cubs. Animals that activists report they have never seen before their lives … and the bottom line is nobody knows how to care for them.
Many of these animals are said to be imported illegally from all over the world and that criminal groups profit from the trade. Where these animals go, and what happens to them after they are bought, no one seems to knows. One thing for sure is that many being left at animal refuges are transfered immediately to experimentation laboratories which, themselves, are largely unregulated.
Among the stumbling blocks AR groups have encountered are the mistrust of local authorities and government towards animal advocates, the lack of an ingrained charitable sector … and the inability of Japanese advocacy groups to work together.
mac