On the 3rd of February 2021, at a meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Mr. Yoshiro Mori, the President of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, mentioned his personal view that women talk too long at meetings. He remarked, moreover, “we have to restrict their speaking time to some extent”. This remark triggered off a wave of protest across the world, and Mr. Mori has been criticised worldwide for his “prejudice against women”, “sex discrimination” and “contempt for women”.
I am one of those who are furious with him. The moment he said, at a later press conference, he refuses to resign as the President of the Organizing Committee, I signed an online petition against his sexist remark. By the 8th of February 2021, the petition gathered over 130,000 signatures, which mirrored the public uproar against his attitude. The petitioners have left a large number of sharp criticisms on the petition site. I was also going to leave a comment. But I paused when I saw one comment left by someone else.
"Rogai ( troublesome old person )"
This is a word that Mr. Mori also referred to at his own press conference. But it was my first time to see this word was used to attack Mr. Mori. This is a form of a hate speech against an individual who gave a hate speech. One hate speech leads to another. Such a vicious cycle of hatred and its negative impact on children are what Mr. Tupac Shakur, an American rapper, meant by the acronym “THUG (The Hate U Give)”.
A lesson we should learn from Mr. Mori being condemned as a “rogai” is neither “It serves you right” nor “You reap what you sow”. It is not necessary, I believe, to spit out abusive words when criticising someone. Unless criticism is clearly distinguished from discrimination, equality among the sexes, genders, generations, nationalities, ethnicities and religions will never be achieved. We should break the vicious cycle of hatred.