The Last Samurai, Diversity, and the United Nations

Diversity, real diversity, the one we should all be preaching and defending is to be found in the intensity and defining richness of each individual and particular culture.

It was too late, when Emperor Meiji realized that a nation and its people must not forget who they are and where they came from. It was too late when he realized that in the name of “progress” he destroyed 700 years of tradition. In the pursuit of modernity, he did away with what was an emblem of Japanese culture, the Samurai.

A country that refuses to adopt technological progress is doomed to oblivion, as would have Japan had its leader refuse to incorporate a modern army. A country that forgets its history and neglects its culture plants the seeds of its own destruction, it is doomed to self-annihilation, as would have Japan had its Emperor continue with an absolute reformation of the nation.

What the last Samurai shows is the perennial battle between the globalists and nationalists. Between those who seek to homogenize the human population and those who truthfully believe in the magnificence of diversity. Those who seek to homogenize different cultures and create a “global order” sell their agenda under the slogan of “tolerance and openness”. They seek the homogenization of cultures through the dilution of their idiosyncrasies as they chant and preach the loftiness of diversity. What globalists sell as “diversity” is actually the lack thereof.

Diversity is not the merger between cultures and dilution of traditions. Diversity is not having different peoples within a given territory without a shared history and common traditions. Diversity is not to be found in the removal of borders, nor in the consolidation of nations (eg. the EU). Diversity – the fact of difference between two or more things or kinds; variety; separateness; that in which two or more things differ – is not to be found when two or more things converge into one.

Diversity might temporarily be found in a Japanese city flooded with Chinese, Arabs, Africans, and Japanese. Temporarily, because all those cultures will eventually merge into a diluted version of them through the erasure all variety between them. Temporarily, because the symbols and traditions of their original and individual cultures will eventually fade as the practices merge. Temporarily, because one of them might come out the dominant one, causing all the others to leave and settle elsewhere. Temporary, because what made the Japanese city a Japanese city was the traditions and peculiarities of its people, its laws and respect of it. Once its native people cease to be the natives, the culture ceases to exist and diversity is actually lost. Then, the Japanese city might be located in Japan but it will cease to resemble what once distinguished the Japanese culture and instead will resemble a Chinese, Arab, or African city. Perhaps it will resemble neither of those. In any case, the Japanese culture will be lost.

A Japanese city is characterized by its orderliness, its cleanliness, its technological advance and prowess. It is characterized by its ancient temples, shrines, and wooden houses. It is characterized by the simplicity and minimalism of their style, by its parks and seasonal flower displays. It is characterized by their polite, respectful, and disciplined people who take hierarchies seriously, who work diligently, are attentive to detail and value harmony. It is even characterized by its aging population and the collectivism and social responsibility they abide by. A Mexican tourist used to chaos and hecticness will find in Japan variety, diversity. Diversity because it is different, because he there finds what he cannot at home. Hence why the tourism industry was estimated at around $2 trillion USDs in 2024, because people travel to see different places and sceneries, to experience different cultures and customs.

Diversity, thus, is not to be found where individual cultures collide and merge. Diversity, real diversity, the one we should all be preaching and defending is to be found in the intensity and defining richness of each individual and particular culture. Diversity is to be found where idiosyncrasies are allowed to exist and a culture does not resemble any other and is not diluted with any other, it is to be found where traditions are protected, where customs are preserved, where a religions is protected, where a legal system is respected. Diversity is to be found where people are proud of their identity, their nationality, their nation and their history enough to protect it from foreign influences and interference. Diversity is to be found in a nation proud of its roots who carry on with their beliefs and way of being and living.

Diversity is having Indian people in India celebrating Diwali full of lights and colors, Mexican people in Mexico remembering their ancestors on el día de los Muertos with its rich food and colorful flowers, Brazilians in Brazil dancing at el Carnaval with extravagant costumes, Spanish people in Spain running from the Bulls at San Fermín. Diversity is having British people in Britain with their dark sense of humor going to pubs after work, German people in Germany boarding their trains running not a second late. Diversity is American people in the United States sticking flags in their front yards and drinking bud light at tailgates with their friends. Diversity is having different cultures in different places, all different and rich in their own way.

The strength of a country, and thus of its people, lies not in the erasure of the roots of a country nor on the dilution of its traditions, as Emperor Meiji found, but on its preservation and the protection of it. Diversity is not to be found in the congregation of dozens of cultures within Japanese borders. Diversity is to be found in the traditional kimonos worn by women, in their traditional tea ceremony, in the vibrant Matsuri festivals, in their sacred Shinto rituals, in their soyless sushi. Diversity is to be found in the Hanami – cherry blossom viewing, in the defining cleanliness of Japanese cities and respectfulness of their people. Diversity is to be found in each and every idiosyncratic tradition and scenery characteristic of Japan that can be found nowhere else.

Globalists are fighting for the end of such individuality and its richness. Whenever there is a fight “for” something, as Milan Kundera[ii] put it, there must necessarily be a fight “against” something. The fight “for” globalization, for a single global government and order, is a fight “against” nationalism. It is a fight against individual cultures, traditions, religions, systems, and people. The battle between those who continue to push for globalization and those who would like to see individual nation states strengthen is actually a battle “for” or “against” diversity. Those who, like the late Pope Francis and those at the World Economic Forum (WEF), seek a world without borders and without national differences, who seek to be absolutely modern are, in Kundera’s words, “the glorious allies of their own gravediggers.” Because once borders are erased, their culture will inevitably suffer the same fate.

The erasure of borders and mass migration means not the promotion of, but the destruction of diversity. The erasure of borders and the integration between several cultures means the dilution of individuality, the dilution of strength. It means the erasure of history and the obliteration of each and every root of any country that is integrated into the global order. That is why Mr. Portokalos refused to have her daughter Toula married off to Mr. Miller in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, because he understood that in doing so their Greek culture would be diluted and eventually lost.

Import sufficient immigrants who refuse to or fail to assimilate, and what the country ends up with is a single diluted culture and not necessarily the one that existed before the voluntary invasion of foreigners. Diversity is not a Mosque in a Catholic country or vice versa. Diversity is a grandiose Cathedral in a Catholic country, and a Magnificent Mosque in a Muslim one. Import sufficient Muslims into a Catholic country and what you end up is a new Arab state; allow enough Catholics into a Muslim country (not that it would ever be allowed) and what you end up is a new Catholic nation. Not to mention that some cultures are completely incompatible just as their coexistence impossible. Thus, if diversity is to be maintained, the protection of borders and the limitation of immigration with strict assimilation requirements is the only manner in which it will be achieved. More simply stated: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Unfortunately, the United Nations and several other global institutions are hell bent with the process of globalization and homogenization.

People worldwide must reject the push for globalization, while leaders must avoid Meiji’s fate and, before it is too late, start defending their country and people’s individuality. Else, they will remain the glorious allies of their own gravediggers and find themselves with a diluted culture and a lost nation. Diversity between cultures, not within nations, is what we ought to aim for.

REFERENCES

The Last Samurai – Edward Zwick, 2003

Immortality – Milan Kundera