http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23016366-661,00.html
Japanese pro-whaling video accuses Australia of racism
Article from: The Courier-Mail
Saffron Howden
January 07, 2008 10:27am
A JAPANESE pro-whaling video condemning Australia as a racist nation by using images of the infamous Cronulla riots has been launched on YouTube.
The 10-minute video, with English and Japanese subtitles, accuses Australia of white supremacy, exclusionist nationalism, a racist ideology and of prejudice towards the Japanese.
It shows graphic images of slain dingoes, a wallaby being killed by a child bashing it against a ute, and one horrific scene in which an Australian-looking man takes a baby kangaroo from its mother's pouch and stomps on it in the dirt.
It also reproduces famous photographs of angry young men lashing out violently during the Cronulla riots.
Watch the video below
(WARNING! CONTAINS SCENES THAT SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE)
The video will inflame already high tensions between Australia and Japan over the whaling issue.
"Australians must not use whales to justify the racist ideology," the video says.
"Australians have to eliminate prejudice and racism against the Japanese. Don't forget Cronulla race riots! These riots show the xenophobia and white supremacy. The next victims are the Japanese?"
It also criticises the former White Australia policy and the poor standing of indigenous people.
"Aboriginals and Asians are still treated as second-class citizens," it says.
The video ends by advocating a resumption of commercial minke whale slaughter.
"Eating whale meat is not barbaric," it says.
"Minke numbers are hundreds of thousands at least. They are not endangered. Minke whaling is sustainable."
The Japanese whaling fleet, which is in Antarctica hunting the sea giants, aims to slaughter up to 935 minkes and 50 endangered fin whales this summer.
The Australian Government said no amount of bullying would make it support whaling.
"Anyone who thinks that the Australian Government can be bullied into changing its opposition to whaling is dead wrong," a spokesman said.
The Federal Government's unarmed Customs vessel Oceanic Viking is understood to be leaving Fremantle early this week to monitor the fleet's activities and collect evidence for a potential legal challenge to Japan's so-called scientific research.
Plans to conduct aerial surveillance have been stalled while Skytraders, the firm that operates the A319 aircraft to be used to spy on the Japanese, awaits approval to conduct the low-altitude flights.
It only lodged its application with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority on Friday and may not get approval until next week.
Australia's own scientific research into whale populations using aerial monitoring - and the same aircraft - has been abandoned at the 11th hour because it is too late in the season.