Bonus Perspectives: Israel Remembers October 7, Japan's New PM Ishiba, 1960s Michael Caine, and "Formica Blues"
The world one year on from the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Japan has a new prime minister in town, and your weekly media recommendations.
Bonus Perspectives is a weekly column series containing my thoughts on the latest Western news and Japanese news, as well as film, television, music, book, and video game recommendations. It’s free for all subscribers to this Substack, but if you enjoy my writing, consider opting for a paid subscription. Doing so will give you access to exclusive in-depth pieces and my entire backlog of work. Your support is greatly appreciated!
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Some housekeeping…
Bonus Perspectives returns after a brief hiatus I took last week due to time constraints. While this edition of my column is thankfully more or less on time, I unfortunately still have yet to publish my next piece for paid subscribers, so I apologize in advance for the continued delay. Rest assured, it’s coming within the next few days and will be the first of a multipart travelogue series of lesser known destinations in Japan. My pieces covering Japanese topics tend to do the best here, so I hope they will encourage more to subscribe.
I don’t mention it enough as I should, but if you like Foreign Perspectives, please consider sending it to your family, friends, and colleagues who may be interested. Substack was primarily intended to be an email newsletter, so the best kind of growth is when I can get more email addresses subscribed. Bonus Perspectives will always be free to all, while paid subscriptions give you access to exclusive pieces and my entire archive of work. I’ve gotten some more freelance writing jobs lately, but Foreign Perspectives is really meant to be my bread and butter.
With that out of the way, I’ll use this space to provide an update on my intended posting schedule moving forward. I’ve really wanted to continue A Bit of Film and War, which began in April and was planned to be a recurring column. However, you’ve probably noticed that this hasn’t happened. There has simply not been enough time for me to write weekly editions of Bonus Perspectives, articles for paid subscribers, and other freelance assignments. So from this point onward, I’ve decided that in the place of Bonus Perspectives on the last week of every month, there will be a new entry of A Bit of Film and War instead.
This essentially means that there will be at least three Bonus Perspectives columns and one A Bit of Film and War column each month, while I hope to do an article for paid subscribers every one to two weeks. Some weeks will be busier than others due to my other freelance writing commitments, part-time job, and PhD program, but rest assured, more content is coming to Foreign Perspectives, not less. I once again thank everyone who has supported this project until now and appreciate your patience as things have occasionally been changed around. The next edition of A Bit of Film and War will be out at the end of October, but without further delay, let’s get into your regularly scheduled edition of Bonus Perspectives for this week.
Israel remembers October 7, yet antisemitism continues
This week marks one year since Hamas terrorists brutally murdered over 1,200 Israelis in a series of coordinated attacks that rocked the country to its core on Oct. 7, 2023. A larger part of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, “October 7” has entered the international lexicon the same way “9/11” did after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil. But while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were away from Americans in the months and years after 9/11, the people of Israel do not have the same luxury.
I should preface this segment of my column by once again stating that I have always been a stalwart supporter of Israel. I believe that Jews have a right to their own state and consider myself a Zionist even though there isn’t a drop of Jewish blood in me. While Palestinians deserve a better lot in life, the sovereign nation of Israel itself is never going away and any beliefs to the contrary are pure delusion. The conflicts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are complex territorial disputes that both sides will have to figure out, but deliberate massacres like October 7 are complete non-starters. Until the Palestinians choose better representatives for their cause, Israel has every right to defend itself from Hamas.
Enough people somehow need to be reminded of an obvious fact, but this is war. In war, there are winners and losers. Israel cannot lose this war because Hamas’ stated goals for decades have been the complete expulsion and eradication of all Jews in the Middle East. Supporters of the so-called “pro-Palestine” movement will always obfuscate or ignore this fact. Ideologically hijacked organizations that claim to be for human rights like Amnesty International demanding a “ceasefire” have no answers for what happens afterwards. At best, these groups and individuals are naive, useful idiots for an authoritarian Islamic theocracy which decapitates gay people. At worst, they are outright supporters of Hamas. Unfortunately for them, Israel will never surrender.
The IDF in September succeeded in dealing a critical blow to Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah by using remote explosives rigged to pagers and walkie-talkies held by hundreds of its operatives throughout the country. This month, an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other high ranking officials. Were there civilian casualties as a result of these operations? Yes, inevitably. Yet once again, this is war. Countless Russian civilians have perished as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but no one would fault President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for doing what is needed to defend his country. Well, some in the West are, but that’s a topic for a different day.
What is happening in Gaza and the surrounding regions is an absolute tragedy. Israel, however, is not engaging in bombings and tactical strikes with the intention of killing civilians. The deaths of Palestinians are the direct results of Hamas choosing to use its people as human shields as it wages its war against Israel. While the IDF does what it can to reduce civilian casualties, Hamas’ goal is to kill as many Jews as possible. This also bears repeating, but Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies for Iran to stretch its influence over the Middle East. The lives of civilians, Palestinian and Israeli alike, are of no concern to Tehran. As long as these terrorist organizations continue to be in operation, calls for a “ceasefire” or renewed talks around Palestinian statehood are useless cries into the void.
Of course, expecting people who live privileged lives in Western countries to understand any of this is an exercise in futility. Despite the genocidal goals of Hamas being available in writing and their stated intentions being anything but vague, millions across the world are being hoodwinked into thinking that Israel is the aggressor of the Middle East. This has lead to an unprecedented modern rise in antisemitism across the world. Attacks against Jewish places of worship and institutions are increasing, while TikTok has become a hotbed for Holocaust denial and historical revisionism around figures like Adolf Hitler.
To use a term popular with the zoomers, one may remember that rapper Kanye West was “cancelled” in 2022 for his antisemitic remarks. The irony is that if he had waited a year, he could have used pro-Palestine activism as a cover for his vile hatred and still be considered a socially palatable figure. One does not have to venture far into social media cesspools like Twitter (or X as it’s now called) to see that antisemitism is becoming increasingly normalized with both the far-left and far-right promoting it.
Amid these volatile times, I reaffirm my support of the Jewish people not just every year on October 7, but all year round. I also remember the roughly hundred people who are still being kept as hostages of Hamas, something that much of the world seems to have forgotten. Israel must succeed in destroying Iran’s terrorist proxies. What the Nazis did with the Holocaust could easily happen again if the world remains apathetic. The difference this time, however, is that the Jewish people have the means to fight back and not be helpless victims doomed to slaughter.
Shigeru Ishiba wants to radically change Japan, but can he?
Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is entering office with very low expectations that he will be around for long. Both the opposition and members of his own party are grilling the country’s fresh leader, calling into question the viability of his ambitious policies. Ishiba, who has been frequently described as a centrist and idealist, now seems to be walking back much of what he promised on the campaign trail.
The Asian version of NATO? It’s now on the back burner. Ishiba’s calls to crack down on corruption? He’s currently giving a wishy-washy response as to whether or not he will endorse ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers implicated in a slush funds scandal. If you were hoping that he would lead the charge on Japan legalizing same-sex marriage, don’t hold your breath on that one either. When asked on Oct. 8 about it happening, his vague response was, “We need to keep a close eye on public opinion, Diet discussions, and litigation status.” In other words, your classic Japanese politician who will wait and see while doing essentially nothing.
For the time being, Ishiba will need to first establish that he will actually be a leader here to stay. Both before and after the late Shinzo Abe, the position of Japanese prime minister has largely been a revolving door. The now disbanded opposition Democratic Party of Japan failed to govern competently or gain public confidence. The LDP returned to power, and Abe’s second term of over seven years has proven to be a hard act to follow. Yoshihide Suga was more or less a stopgap leader, but left behind an underrated legacy. The outgoing Fumio Kishida managed to be prime minister for a decently admirable three years, but inherited a Japan dealing with serious post-pandemic economic issues and depreciating currency. How much of this he was directly responsible for I’ll leave to the economists, but Shigeru Ishiba is not in an enviable position now.
How Ishiba will handle domestic policy remains to be seen, but as my field is foreign policy, I was recently asked by my former employer Korea Risk Group for their specialist site NK Pro to weigh in on how he will tackle relevant geopolitical issues. That piece is paywalled, but I’ll summarize my thoughts again here.
One of the key pillars of Ishiba’s ideology is less reliance on the United States and more control among the Japanese people around their own defense. His talk about the need for a more “equal” partnership has raised several eyebrows in Washington. Ishiba previously proposed sending Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to Guam who be given the same privileges as U.S. soldiers, but this raises questions around what it would exactly accomplish. His ambitious idea for an Asian version of NATO is also vague, as there are already existing alliances between the U.S. and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
Ishiba is also expressing interest in pursuing nuclear weapons sharing with the U.S. and other partners. Unsurprisingly, this is an extremely controversial notion among the Japanese public due to the country’s sensitive history around nukes. Shinzo Abe actually raised the idea of nuclear sharing during a talkshow discussion in 2022, but opposition both within the LDP and among its rivals remains strong. Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles state that the country will not possess, produce, or introduce nuclear weapons. Nuclear sharing would almost certainly come into conflict with this doctrine that Japan has adhered to for decades.
Still, it seems that Ishiba’s recent Diet sessions have calmed down potential worry in Washington for the time being. He appears to be sticking largely to the same script as Kishida in reaffirming Japan’s commitment to its alliance with the U.S. and stalwart support of Ukraine against Russia. The outgoing prime minister oversaw a significant increase in Japan’s defense spending, the effects of which are likely to be seen during Ishiba’s administration. Long known as a “military otaku” due to his extensive knowledge of military history, weapons, and equipment, Ishiba is bound to be pleased with the larger resources at his disposal and can use this opportunity for more realistic defense policy decisions before he can even think of pursuing his more radical proposals.
Much will also be decided based on who wins the upcoming U.S. election. A Kamala Harris presidency would likely try to keep the existing alliance terms in place, but Ishiba may find surprising agreement with Donald Trump who has criticized American allies for supposedly not paying their fare share. Either way, Ishiba has to reassure Washington that he will not try to enact changes that will harm the alliance amid regional threats from China and North Korea. Japan cannot afford to look weak or disorganized when tensions over Taiwan are still very much real.
Personally, I’m more inclined to believe that Ishiba won’t last long enough to enact any of his anti-LDP establishment or unorthodox policies. He’s facing a clear uphill battle to attract domestic support and at least anecdotally, a lot of Japanese people I talk to have little faith in his leadership abilities. On the other hand, it’s also important to remember that anything can happen in the volatile world of Japanese politics. Shinzo Abe saw great success after a failed first term, Shinjiro Koizumi has maintained a respectable political career despite his many gaffs, and Fumio Kishida managed to break the curse of one-year Japanese prime ministers. The ball is now in Ishiba’s court.
What I’m watching — Michael Caine’s 1960s films are underrated classics
I’ve been on a Michael Caine marathon lately. I mentioned in the last edition of Bonus Perspectives how he has become my favorite English actor, so I recommend reading that for my thoughts on him and his seminal debut as a leading man with Zulu. I’m now going through his filmography decade by decade to see how much Sir Michael Caine has evolved as an actor. I’m mostly trying to get to the important classics I’ve neglected until now, but I’m also watching some truly underrated films starring Caine that I want to bring attention to.
As Michael Caine has starred in roughly 150 films, I obviously can’t watch everything he’s been in. Most of his notable works are available in Japan, but others are on very rare out-of-print DVDs or sometimes only available on VHS, so undertaking this project has been somewhat of a challenge. My wife watches pretty much everything with me and she’s become a fan of Michael Caine as well, making Japanese subtitles a necessity. I’ll eventually write a piece on why physical media for films in Japan generally sucks, so stay tuned for that.
Still, I recently finished watching Caine’s 1960s filmography, which was when he was at the height of his popularity. After Zulu, he further proved himself as a serious actor with 1965’s The Ipcress File, a dark Cold War thriller based on Len Deighton’s excellent novel which I covered a few months ago on Bonus Perspectives. Bringing Deighton’s originally unnamed protagonist to the silver screen as Harry Palmer, I was correct in my assumption that the cinematic version of The Ipcress File would be a condensed retelling of the complex plot. Despite that, it instantly became one of my favorite films and its reputation as a classic is well-earned.
Caine’s deadpan and sarcastic delivery establishes Harry Palmer as someone very different from James Bond. While Bond is the idealistic, unattainable depiction of perfect masculinity, Palmer with his horn-rimmed glasses and affinity for cooking is a character more relatable to audiences. He’s in spycraft not for a noble cause, but because he needs to pay the rent every week. We’re told that Palmer is a British Army sergeant with a criminal record, suggesting that he’s not even working for the U.K. Ministry of Defence entirely out of his own free will. He’s less successful with the ladies than Bond, while his working class roots add a tinge of subtle social commentary when Palmer interacts with his more aristocratic superiors.
Differences aside, James Bond connections are also here aplenty. The Ipcress File shares the same producer Harry Saltzman and New Zealand actor Guy Doleman who played Count Lippe in Thunderball is here as Colonel Ross, as are 007 series veteran set designer Ken Adam and editor Peter R. Hunt who later directed On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. One also can’t mention The Ipcress File without bringing up John Barry’s score, a beautiful combination of mysterious jazz and electrifying guitar riffs. I immediately bought the soundtrack after finishing the film. Visually, the excellent cinematography by Otto Heller creates a constant sense of foreboding and paranoia, which is appropriate given the Cold War themes.
The Ipcress File was followed up with two sequels, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain. I plan to cover the Harry Palmer series in greater detail one day after I’ve read more of Len Deighton’s work, but long story short, they’re also good films even if they don’t quite match the first entry. Funeral in Berlin is a more standard spy caper, with the main highlight being Oskar Homolka’s eccentric performance as Soviet Colonel Stok. Billion Dollar Brain goes completely off the rails with its storyline of an AI supercomputer (man, was this film decades ahead of its time!) and an anti-communist Texan oil baron trying to insight popular uprisings in Eastern Europe, yet I can’t help but love it because the whole proceedings are so ridiculous.
Between the Harry Palmer entries, Michael Caine’s other most notable film at this time was Alfie. It, Zulu, and The Ipcress File are essentially the three works which showed that Caine was flexible in what roles he took and that he could be everything from a straight-laced soldier to a slimy womanizer. 2024 audiences will likely be baffled at how 1966 audiences were so receptive to Alfie given the protagonist being an unapologetic misogynist, but that would be missing the point. Alfie works because of Michael Caine’s spectacular performance. Being able to turn an ostensibly unlikeable character into one you actually start to have sympathy for is something even veteran actors struggle with, but Caine was able to do it with only two other leading roles under his belt.
Getting into Alfie, I thought it would just be a comedy about hooking up with girls, but it becomes a surprisingly poignant story toward the end. If you think the film endorses its character’s horrible behavior, its message completely went over your head. Being one of the earliest films to break the fourth wall, Alfie literally winks and tells the audience directly that he’s a selfish, petty man. All of his bad decisions have consequences, and it’s patently obvious that he’s a loser trying to put on airs as someone with class. That’s the entire joke. Despite coming out at the height of the 1960s craze of free love and women’s lib, there’s an argument to be made that Alfie can actually be viewed through a more conservative lens with its message that casual sex is not the key to happiness. There’s even a shockingly nuanced storyline of how abortion is a tragic decision for both men and women, but I won’t get into spoilers.
Beyond these films, I also watched Gambit, Play Dirty, The Italian Job, and Battle of Britain. Gambit is an extremely overlooked heist comedy starring Caine as a cat burglar with Shirley MacLaine, while Play Dirty is also unfortunately obscure. It and Battle of Britain proved that Michael Caine was a natural at playing World War II roles, with Play Dirty especially having some very impressive desert warfare scenes for the time. And what can you say about The Italian Job that hasn’t been said already? It ended the 1960s on the best note possible with its gorgeous Italian scenery and iconic British humor. Frequently imitated, but never surpassed.
I’ve already seen a few of Michael Caine’s films from the 1970s, but will temporarily be taking a break from this marathon until December. Sleuth, which Caine co-starred in with Laurence Olivier, is getting a brand new Blu-ray exclusively for the Japanese market around then. The legal rights around this film have been a nightmare for years, and this will be the first time Sleuth will be getting a high definition release at all. It’s quite the rarity for us to get a good home video release of these Western classics, so I’m looking forward to this one as I have yet to see it. Michael Caine’s final work, The Great Escaper, hits Japanese cinemas on Oct. 11, so expect a review in a future entry of Bonus Perspectives later this month.
What I’m listening to — Formica Blues is a sampling masterpiece
You can thank Michael Caine for introducing me to something else great beyond his incredible films. After constantly listening to John Barry’s soundtrack for The Ipcress File in my music library, I later learned that its iconic main theme was sampled by a short-lived British electronic music duo named Mono for their sole studio album Formica Blues. A sleeper hit released for the U.K. market in 1997 and overseas the following year, this is one of the most alluring compilations of electronic music I’ve ever listened to and it’s a shame that more people don’t know about it.
Formica Blues was heavily inspired by film and television soundtracks from the 1960s and the 1970s. The opening track, “Life in Mono,” takes Barry’s Ipcress File theme as a subtle backing piece and dances around it with harpsichord passages mirroring its pensive style. The next track, “Silicone,” is even more explicit with its sampling of Roy Budd’s main theme for Get Carter, the 1971 British gangster film starring Michael Caine in one of his angriest performances. It also incorporates elements of Isaac Hayes’ cover of “Walk on By” from his album Hot Buttered Soul in combination with original elements that beautifully come together.
The rest of the album continues to utilize similar techniques with everything from David Sylvian’s Everything and Nothing to Sheffield post-punk band Artery being quoted. The overall soundscape is something that paradoxically feels both retro and modern because of its sheer amount of sampling choices. Formica Blues’ tributes to the past are also more than just aesthetic choices too — it’s clear that Mono knew what they were doing. Everything from what kind of microphone utilized to accentuate Siobhan de Maré’s soft female vocals to the frequent preference of analog sounds over digital ones were creative decisions that could have only been done by someone with true reverence for the latter half of 20th century music.
The A side of Formica Blues is more accessible from a melodic standpoint, while the B side takes things in a decidedly more avant-garde direction. Some may argue that only the first half is worth frequently listening to as a result, but I still found the whole thing to be a cohesive auditory experience unlike anything I’ve ever head anywhere else. The album received greater attention after “Life in Mono” was featured in the 1998 film adaptation of Great Expectations, leading to high demand for it to be played on the radio and in clubs. Mono, however, broke up in 2000 after creative differences between composer Martin Virgo and vocalist Siobhan de Maré.
It’s a shame that Mono never went on to create anything else and that Formica Blues more or less has languished in obscurity since the early 2000s, but some of the best music you’ll ever find is often the lesser known stuff just hiding in plain sight. It wouldn’t surprise me if one day a film or viral YouTube video utilizes Formica Blues, once again leading to newfound popularity. Music sampling has historically been a legal gray area, but I’ve always been an advocate for it. All artists are constantly quoting others and sampling done in the right hands can be a sign of great respect instead of simple plagiarism. If you want for electric music what Paul’s Boutique is for rap, look no further than Formica Blues.
Recommended listening:
Formica Blues, the entire album on YouTube. Available on Apple Music, Spotify, and wherever music is sold.
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Interesting perspectives but i have some points regarding Palestine v Israel thingies Not all Palestinian supporters/sympathisers are horrible people caught by an agenda the same goes for Israel ones. I don't like the type of culture that the shout out to support something what they preach ended up only for brownie points. As a Palestinian sympathiser by myself no i don't want condone antisemitism just for make the lives of Palestinian better. We're need to do better than that. The fact you assumed that all Palestinian supporters (not to mentioned someone who contra against Columbus form your previous article) as "horrible people who don't know that the hell they're talking about" is just disingenuous and i'm afraid this will lead to us vs them mentality at worst. I don't like HAMAS as well as you do and i wish they'll be a nuance discussion about the said issue 'cuz this is just getting more depressive