Second of two parts Multiculturalism entails much more than a spot of schmoozing with your friendly checkout counter migrant or splurging once a week on a spicy takeaway. Rather, it is an entire paradigm of social organization that offers and guarantees equality of opportunity ...

First of two parts The horrendous acts of terror perpetrated last month in Norway amount to an attempt to stem the tide of multiculturalism flowing throughout Europe. They were apparently committed with a mind to incite a white Aryan revolution against non-whites and Muslims. ...

“Nothing has changed from the time of the atom bombs. … It stands to reason that people are terrified of what they cannot see. I understand the hysteria. In the end, humans must not resort to the atom that they cannot control. The time ...

“Shinzo ni Ke ga Haeteiru Wake” is the intriguing title of a book published in April by Kadokawa. The book was written by my good friend, Mari Yonehara, and its title in English would be “That’s Why Hair Grows on the Heart.” In this ...

Why is this generation of young people in Japan so self-absorbed and seemingly unconcerned, to the point of distracted apathy, about the social and political dilemmas facing their country today? I have been trying to put my finger on the pulse of this generation ...

Exactly 30 years ago this month, I had an encounter with a man who became innocently involved in an international incident. That incident may be all but forgotten now, but it’s worth recalling here because it highlights the struggle of an individual of conscience ...

“The Japanese will someday outgrow their nuclear allergy.” I’ve never forgotten futurologist and Cold War military strategist Herman Kahn saying this to me on his visit to Japan in 1969, when I was his guide and occasional interpreter. The American author of the best-sellers ...

What does it mean to be an expatriate, particularly when you feel more at home and assimilated in an adopted country than in your own? The life of a man, born on June 27, 1850, can tell us a great deal about this state ...

Fifty years ago this month, I faced an agonizing personal dilemma. As president of the student body at my Los Angeles high school, I was obliged to lead my fellow students, teachers and staff in reciting the “Pledge of Allegiance,” the oath of loyalty ...

It’s depressing, I must confess. For more than 40 years, I’ve been writing about Japan and the Japanese — and a few other countries and nationalities thrown in for good measure — and I’m sometimes rudely reminded of the fact that many people around ...

“It’s not that I’m weak, it’s that the suffering weighs down on me too heavily.” This was said, in 1938, by a writer whose life and death bring together crowds all around the country every year on June 19 in rituals of celebration and ...

“Live your era, surmount your era!” With these words, written in 1935, the young woodblock artist Yoshio Fujimaki gave out a cry for genius. Certainly his words apply to the genius of Bob Dylan (whose 70th birthday was celebrated on these pages last week), ...