Xenophobia is Also Hurting International Development By Shouting Down its Economic Rationale

Last week, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the country's main governmental agency for international development, announced that it was scrapping what it called the Africa Hometown Initiative. The initiative was originally intended as a city-to-city economic development partnership, with four Japanese regional governments being respectively paired with an African counterpart, so that Japanese resources and know-how can be shared at the grassroots level more efficiently and directly. The more bottom-up approach to international development promised an alternative to JICA's usual ways.

It did not take long for the country's right-wingers to spread false information about how the initiative would be a beachhead for millions of Africans to swamp Japan. By focusing on the use of the word "hometown," these individuals easily played into the growing fear among the Japanese public about the country becoming less Japanese over time through a surge of non-Japanese incomers. It did not help that the four local governments chosen for the initiative are not highly populated metropolises. Giving Africans a "home" in these areas could have easily changed the local demographics.

While various news outlets have covered the fiasco, most have only focused on the harm of fake news and how it can be quickly it can be spread through tapping into popular discontent. Yet, a bigger underlying issue is that, given that fake news and xenophobic sentiments are here to stay, especially in Japan, what happens to the people-to-people exchange underpins international cooperation. If the Japanese public makes a fuss every time there is a story of foreigners who might be showing up, then could any cultural exchange remain benign and apolitical?

The answer, even at this early stage, is a resounding no. Social media comments on the news coverage of the Africa Hometown Initiative's cancellation contained overwhelmingly negative responses from Africans. Many clearly took offense to the very idea that the Japanese public does not want them stepping into their country, retorting that Africa does not need Japan. After JICA built up goodwill on the continent through decades of donations and projects ranging from road-building to running medical clinics, all the positive feelings could be squandered in a few episodes of racist vitriol.

Scarier still is the possibility that know-how and resources are hoarded by wealthier countries no longer because of their selfishness. JICA's decades-long work is partly for Japan's post-war government to atone for the country's destructive role both before and during WWII, by sharing the country's post-war economic success with the rest of the world. Its success in helping countries like China develop made sense in that the newly affluent around the world would serve as a growing market for Japanese products and technologies in the future.

But now, economic logic is no longer what decides whether an international development project continues. The long-term economic calculations are rapidly taking a backseat to the immediate political needs of appeasing the right-wing. When the right-wing screams that funds used for international development are voting citizens' taxpayer money that could be used exclusively to invest in the citizens themselves, politicians do not have the luxury of talking about how helping foreigners will eventually help the citizens, too. 

In the world of "[add country name here] first" as an immediately galvanizing slogan to fire up the masses, there is just no room for rational conversations about how to engage with foreigners. Grievances about foreigners sucking up all the benefits while only returning the "favor" through perceived criminal activities only encourage a zero-sum attitude toward cultural exchange, where being patriotic is to not have any such activities at all. In the face of such reductionist thought, nuanced, multi-pronged approaches undertaken by the likes of JICA have little explanatory power.

I am not at all an optimist, especially when it comes to Japan's future relations with the world. Personal experience working in Tanzania taught me that development professionals already had a condescending attitude toward those they are helping, even before all the nationalist talk. Throw in the fear of foreigners ruining what natives believe to be a superior, more civilized culture, and the condescension becomes a motivation to build walls that are meant not to be crossed. In such an environment, the talk of diverse "hometowns" for all? Completely ludicrous.