Dec 20, 2020 (channelnewsasia.com) - Both governments have based their strategies on voluntarism, self-responsibility, and perhaps most importantly, the exceptional nature of their populations, says an observer.
One of the most striking things about the COVID-19 pandemic is just how dramatically different the responses have been from country to country.
In early 2020, when little was known about the virus, this difference was unsurprising. Today, with tens of thousands of research articles and cases of best practice to learn from, one would expect to see more convergence.
And yet some countries continue to resist popular strategies, such as lockdowns, and insist on going their own way – with varying degrees of success.
Two such countries are Sweden and Japan, which in 2020 have forged a different path to their neighbours on coronavirus and attributed their early successes to the assumed advantages of an inherent national character.
But today, both seem to be paying the price.
One factor that features in both the Japanese and Swedish responses is that of national exceptionalism. By exceptionalism I mean the understanding among a population that “we†are not only distinct from the rest, but in some way also superior.
Leaders in both countries have emphasised that their constitutions prevent violations of civil liberties, such as lockdowns and fines.
Instead, both governments have based their strategies on voluntarism, self-responsibility, and perhaps most importantly, the exceptional nature of their populations.
Sweden, famously, has left bars, restaurants and gyms open throughout the pandemic, as well as not requiring masks in any public settings. In fact, the official position in Sweden is still that masks may do more to increase the spread of COVID-19, rather than reduce it.
This view was common in many European countries at the start of the pandemic, but other governments quickly changed their minds and mandated mask-wearing in public places.
Like Sweden, Japan took the “no lockdown†route and refrained from imposing mandatory restrictions – though it closed its borders earlier this year. Unlike Sweden, however, virtually everyone in Japan voluntarily wears a mask, and the government engages in aggressive contact-tracing.
Still, in July, Japan implemented a domestic tourism campaign, Go To Travel, to encourage people to spend money and boost the economy.
It’s now feared that this campaign, which saw the government subsidise people’s domestic tourist trips, could be responsible for driving the country’s third wave.
Japanese exceptionalism was evident in the rhetoric used to explain the country’s relative success in mitigating both the first and second waves. In April, Prime Minister ShinzÅ Abe was quick to hail the success of the Japan model, which succeeded “in a characteristically Japanese wayâ€.
Deputy Prime Minister Taro AsÅ was more explicitly nationalist: His explanation was that Japan’s mindo was higher than the rest. Mindo, loosely translated as “quality of peopleâ€, is associated with Japan’s imperial era, when the Japanese saw themselves standing atop a civilizational hierarchy of Asian people.
This harks back to the discourse on Japanese exceptionalism, nihonjinron, which seeks to account for Japan’s uniqueness. All countries are unique, so it goes, but Japan is uniquely unique – and a little superior too.+
