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April 29, 2024
 

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Pankaj Mishra
For Pankaj Mishra's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2016
Trumpism suffers a loss in London
Trumpism, or the politics of hate and fear, suffered a major defeat last week with the election of a Muslim as mayor of London.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2016
The chorus against the posh boys grows louder
The global elites' competence and moral legitimacy are being questioned like never before.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2015
Muslims should be grateful to Donald Trump
Like anti-Semitism, Islamophobia breeds in the swamp of fear and insecurity that is truly the modern world for many people.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2015
Beyond India's beef with beef, new hatreds grow
Religious extremism in South Asia is symptomatic of a larger phenomenon: the shattering of the postcolonial order under the stresses of a massive economic and demographic transition.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2015
Germany, a nation of refugees, opens its doors
The world, faced with the unexpected emergence of Germany as Europe's conscience amid the refugee crisis, is discovering some of the ways the country remade itself after World War II.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2015
Can Singapore save democracy?
The conditions exist for Singapore to move from being a showcase of efficient authoritarianism to an exemplar of that much-invoked but nearly extinct thing: democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2015
India and Israel start to see enemies within
Right-wing demagogues emerging in both India and Israel seek to forge a new national identity by stigmatizing particular religious and secular groups.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2015
Rise of the chest-thumping nationalist leaders
The leaders of India, China and Russia are promoting a nationalist ideology to hold their highly unequal countries together.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2015
Little Englandism goes big in British elections
The unraveling of British identify, which started when Britain lost its empire, will likely accelerate in the months to come.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2015
The harsh lessons of Nepal's quake disaster
Earthquakes plainly lie beyond the control of human beings. Yet the vast spectacle of suffering they reveal should make us ask larger questions of our actions.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015
Iran's long-postponed rise is all but inevitable
Only a cataclysmic war will prevent Iran from fulfilling its long-postponed destiny as a major economic, political and scientific nation.
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2014
The pope has a point in denouncing materialism
Pope Francis finds himself ranged against a pitilessly Darwinian outlook in Europe, which, maintained by self-interested political and business elites, seems to go unexamined by apathetic voters.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2014
Righteous sectarian hatred returns to India
With Indian state elections approaching, parts of Delhi are again awash with manufactured hate amid a resurgence of communal violence elsewhere in the country.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2014
Modi goes to Japan chasing a foolish crush
It is hard not to suspect naivete in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to model India's economy on Japan's postwar achievements. After all, Japan owes much of that economic miracle to America's willingness to open its own markets to Japanese manufacturers while turning a blind eye to Japan's blatantly protectionist trade policies.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014
Eurasia's 'Reagan revolutions' degrade democracy
The three boastful, rabble-rousing leaders of Turkey, India and Russia possess ideological bases like the one U.S. President Ronald Reagan had among Christian fundamentalists and neoconservative intellectuals.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2014
Israeli nationalism shows weakness, not strength
The conduct of its latest Gaza war suggests that Israel, which is blessed with a robust high-tech sector, embodies the greatest contradiction today between the imperatives of old-style territorial nationalism and a modern globalized economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2014
Success of Chinese reform is key to BRICS' rise
Last week, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) took a decisive step toward building institutions that could plausibly challenge the long geopolitical and economic ascendancy of the West. But Vladimir Putin's posturing at the meeting just hours before a Malaysia Airlines jetliner was shot down in Ukraine was one indication of the group's inability to offer an acceptable moral and political alternative to Western hegemony.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014
Megacities offer toxic mix of modern apocalypse
Exhibits at the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture demonstrate that the urgent challenge for many societies is to prevent the megacity from becoming a byword for multifaceted apoclypse, mashinging together poverty, corruption, violence and fundamentalism.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2014
World needs to take a dose of realism about Iraq
As imbalances of power, wealth and productivity become magnified in our age, ethnic and religious loyalties as well as notions of honor and dignity have become more seductive than iPhones and elections. Just ask the despots who've lost the monopoly of force in Syria and Iraq.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014
Capitalism facilitates but doesn't ensure freedom
As Democratic experiments in Thailand and Egypt collapse, there seems to be a building consensus among financial and political elites globally that authoritarian rule, rather than pluralism, is the path to happy endings.
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
In Japan, regional revitalization fails to halt population decline
Sakiyama elementary school in Tamba, Hyogo Prefecture, in March .Over the past decade, the government has directed efforts toward policies designed to give young people incentives to base themselves in rural areas.
Putin’s war will soon reach Russians’ tax bills
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Kyotographie's strong 12th edition shines light into the margins
Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, who goes by Yoriyas, turned to photography, shooting motion while in motion himself, after an injury forced him to give up his career as a professional breakdancer.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability
Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

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