Japan and Dixie: What Two Peoples Subjugated by the Yankee Empire Have in Common

It is a difficult thing to watch, the political leadership of Japan and the South making themselves more subservient to the globalist regime in Washington City at such a crucial time, when the evils of the unipolar U. S. world order could be dealt a crippling blow: Sen Tom Cotton, Rep Chip Roy, PM Kishida, etc., are not making life better for the peoples of the world, or for their own.

But the deranged ruling class is one thing, and the normal folk of the traditional ethnoi whom they govern are another. It is at this level, the level of the plain folk, that the peoples of Japan and the South can engage constructively. And should they engage in a reasonably lengthy dialogue, they will find that they have a great deal in common.

The Sacred Land

Both Japan and Dixie view the creation as something more than dead, utilitarian matter. For Japan,

‘ . . . the land itself is characterized as divine. . . . it is easy to understand how the early Japanese might have come to feel this sense of immanent divinity. For natural beauty of scenery, Japan has few equals’ (Morton and Olenik, Japan: Its History and Culture, 4th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 2005, p. 1).

Amongst Southerners, one will find men like the farmer-writer Wendell Berry of Kentucky who dwells often on this theme in his poems and other works and who spells the word ‘Creation’ with a capital ‘c’ to show his reverence for it. The typical Southern feeling is put into words concisely by Edgar Allen Poe of Virginia in his poem, ‘Sonnet – To Science’:

‘SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?’

The creation seems ever on the minds of both peoples. In one of Japan’s most famous literary works, Tale of Genji, there are passages like this one:

‘Their room was in the front of the house. Genji got up and opened the long sliding shutters. They stood together looking out. In the courtyard near them was a clump of fine Chinese bamboos; dew lay thick on the borders, glittering here no less brightly than in the great gardens to which Genji was better accustomed. There was a confused buzzing of insects. Crickets were chirping in the wall. He had often listened to them, but always at a distance; now, singing so close to him, they made a music which was unfamiliar and indeed seemed far lovelier than that with which he was acquainted’ (Morton and Olenik, p. 44).

Even in the midst of overwhelming difficulties – her husband President Jefferson Davis cruelly imprisoned and her people and land desolated by the Yankee invader after the War of Northern Aggression had ended – Mrs Varina Davis, showing the irrepressible love of the South towards the creatures of God’s making, still devotes several lines in her letter to her husband on observations of the natural world around her:

‘I have just been interrupted by pretty ittie Paie coming in to beg me come out and “hear sing.” I went and heard mocking birds. Between the borders of jonquils and hyacinths, blue, yellow, and white, and over the dry leaves and ground powdered with plum blossom petals, for the trees have bloomed and shed their blossoms. The spireas are all in bloom, the periwinkles and the violets’ (Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889, H. Strode, edr., Da Capo Press, New York, 1995, p. 237).

Religious Pluralism

It is said of Japan,

‘Neither the Chinese nor the Japanese people have difficulty in regulating their lives by the ideas of more than one faith at the same time. An official might therefore attend a national festival such as the New Year ceremonies, conducted according to Shinto rites, but have a Buddhist service celebrated for the repose of his mother’s soul, and apply Confucian canons to his government administration, without the least sense of inner contradiction’ (Morton and Olenik, p. 29).

Anyone familiar with Dixie will see something similar here, where Roman Catholics, Protestant denominations of many kinds, and Judaism have all coexisted side-by-side without much problem since the early days of the South’s existence.

Simple Faith

Dixie and Japan have also both adopted an uncomplicated folk religion emphasizing simplicity and feeling rather than abstract doctrinal analysis:

‘Michinaga was an adherent of the Jodo or Pure Land sect of Buddhism. The school was brought into prominence in Japan in the tenth century by a learned monk, Eshin. It stressed neither elaborate ritual nor arduous study of abstruse doctrine; repetition of the sacred formula, “Namu Amida Butsu,” calling upon the Buddha of infinite compassion, was sufficient for salvation and would ensure being reborn in the Western Paradise or Pure Land. It was thus a religion of faith alone and not works, and it made a strong appeal to the common people and the unfortunate’ (Morton and Olenik, pgs. 40-1).

The low-church Protestantism that was adopted by much of the South during the early 19th century is very similar to this. It was based on a simple formula of placing one’s hope and faith in the mercy of the all-loving Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The simple phrase, ‘Lord, have mercy!’ is ever on a Southron’s lips.

A good illustration of the warm simplicity of the heart of the Southerner’s faith is found in Professor David H. Fischer’s book Albion’s Seed, detailing the licensing of a preacher in the backwoods of North Carolina:

‘PASTOR: Do you believe, brother Walker, that you are called of God to preach, “as was Aaron?”

WALKER: Most sartinly I does.

PASTOR: Give the Church, that is, the bruthering, the proof.

WALKER: I was mightily diffikilted and troubled on the subjeck, and I was detarmined to go inter the woods and wrastle it out.

PASTOR: That’s it, Brother Walker.

WALKER: And while there wrastlin, Jacob-like, I hearn one ov the curiousest voices I uver hearn in all my borned days.

PASTOR: You are on the right track, Brother Walker. Go on with your noration.

WALKER: I couldn’t tell for the life ov me whether the voice was up in the air ur down in the sky, it sounded so curious.

PASTOR: Poor creetur! how he was diffikilted. Go on to norate, Brother Walker. How did it appear to sound unto you?

WALKER: Why, this a-way: “Waw-waw-ker—Waw-waw-ker! Go preach, go preach, go preach, go preachee, go preach-ah, go preach-uh, go preach-ah-ee-uh-ah-ee.”

PASTOR: Bruthering and sisters, that’s the right sort of a call. Enough said, brother Walker. That’s none ov yer college calls, nor money calls. No doctor ov divinity uver got sich a call as that. Brother Walker must have license, fur sartin’ (Oxford UP, New York, 1989, p. 719).

The Ritual of Hospitality

This is revealed in a high degree in Japanese culture in the tea-ceremony room. A partial description notes,

‘Having entered, the participants behave in a formal and reserved but inwardly relaxed manner as they inspect and comment upon the ancient kettles, pots, and bowls used in the ceremony or admire the simple flower arrangement or single hanging scroll. . . . participants note the play of her [the hostess’s] hands and all her gestures as she carries out the anciently prescribed movements of preparing and offering the green tea, whisked to a froth, to each guest in turn. These movements are like a progression and sway of an antique ritual dance. . . . The combination of withdrawal from the cares of the world, artistic appreciation, intellectual conversation, and observance of a restful and loved pattern or ritual—and all of this in the atmosphere of Buddhist contemplation—gives to the Japanese soul a sense of refreshment and well-being’ (Morton and Olenik, pgs. 91-2).

The rituals associated with classic Southern hospitality – the multi-course meal, which usually included sweet iced tea; the entertainment that followed, whether dancing, listening to the piano, or the reading of poetry; and the good conversation throughout – share the same elaborateness as the Japanese tea ceremony.

Into the Future

There is more that could be said about the shared traditions of Japan and the South – hierarchy, the reverence for the farmer, the gentleman, and the warrior within the hierarchy, how both cultivated the wilderness lands that surrounded them, their great literary achievements, the important role of personal and familial honor in both societies. The South even has a burgeoning video game development hub in Austin, Texas, an area in which the Japanese have long excelled, to give a more modern example of the similarities between the two.

But the most important similarity between the two today is the collapse of the old religious systems of both peoples. St Nicholas of Japan, the apostle of the Orthodox Church to the Japanese ethnos, noted this in the 19th century during his missionary labors there:

‘St. Nicholas writes that, as opposed to Confucianism and Shintoism, Buddhism still has sincere followers in Japan; however, he noticed signs of decline, especially against the background of the spread of materialism, and he considered that the time of Buddhism in the country had passed. “It is falling; apparently it has completed its service and it’s time for it to step aside” (II, 28). “Buddhists have no sturdy foundation for faith, there is no one there for them to believe in; that is why Buddhists are in decline” (III, 222). Another time, commenting on the Buddhist’s initiative for the creation of clubs to support their teaching, he notes: “But Buddhism nevertheless remains a corpse, and it can’t be revived by any means when the dawn of Christianity has come to Japan” (III, 801).

‘In an interview with a Japanese newspaper the saint continues this thought, answering the journalist’s question: “Buddhism is in a revival. How do you view this?” His answer: “As any other blustery talk. Buddhism has died in Japan; the Japanese have outgrown this religion without a Personal God; in vain do they interpret that it is still alive and is being aroused to energetic action. This is the empty boastfulness of the bonza, who don’t believe what they themselves say” (IV, 641). “Buddhism has reached the final absurdity in Japan, a diametrical contradiction of itself, and is easily refuted based upon the simplest rationale of common sense” (IV, 705).’

It is the same in the South, where not only the moral stature and trustworthiness of the Southern Baptists has been harmed by sexual abuse scandals but even basic theological and historical moorings are breaking.

Well, there we are, two peoples sitting in a mud puddle, but the saints are waiting for both Dixie and Japan. St Nicholas beckons to the Japanese; St Alfred hollers after the South. They are waiting within the Orthodox Church for us – where there is freedom from the Yankee yoke of desolating spiritual bondage. Where the souls of our righteous departed kinfolk await us. Where the creation is transfigured by the beauty of God’s Grace. Where the good spirits, the angels, will greet us. Where the real sun goddess, the Holy Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin Mary, sits enthroned above the choirs of angels and saints. Where the true kami, the All-Holy Trinity, is revealed to us in His magnificent Glory. Where the Friend of mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, will make us wholly glad with the Uncreated Light that radiates in superabundant streams from His Most Precious Face and Body.

Shall we delay any longer? Let us, Japanese and Southrons, all go quickly to them.