Tokyo, that gleaming exemplar of civic virtue, has finally snapped. In a move that would make a Victorian headmaster blush, the city has introduced on-the-spot fines for litterbugs, part of a broader crackdown on the hordes of tourists who have, apparently, sullied its pavements with their uncouth ways. The fine is modest, a mere 2,000 yen, but the symbolism is weighty.
Are we witnessing a necessary restoration of public decency, or the first step toward a police state for the poorly mannered? Let us consider the historical precedents. The Fall of Rome, we must recall, was preceded by a decay in public morality, a loss of respect for the common weal.
Tourists, with their disposable coffee cups and their careless disregard for the social contract, are the barbarians at the gate. Yet Rome did not fine its barbarians; it absorbed them, until the empire collapsed under the weight of its own laxity. Tokyo, by contrast, is erecting barriers.
There is something admirable in this, a refusal to bow to the tide of degradation. But there is also something troubling. When a society begins to legislate manners, it admits that the unwritten code of civilisation has failed.
We fine people for what we cannot teach them. The Japanese, with their profound sense of collective responsibility, have long understood this. A litterbug in Tokyo is not merely a pollutant; he is a traitor to the social order.
And so the fine is a small exorcism, a way of cleansing the streets of spiritual filth. But let us not cheer too loudly. The danger is that this becomes a slippery slope.
Today, fines for dropping a wrapper. Tomorrow, fines for wearing the wrong socks. The tourist, already a reviled figure in many capitals, is now a walking wallet, fair game for any petty regulation.
I am reminded of the Victorian era, when the British invented the concept of 'public nuisance' to control the unruly poor. The poor, in our time, are the tourists, and we treat them with the same blend of disdain and opportunism. Tokyo's move is logical, even necessary.
But it is also a confession: that the age of spontaneous civility is over. We must now police our own instincts. The Emperor, one imagines, would not approve.
He would prefer a nation where fines are unnecessary. But we are not in that nation any more. We are in a world of mass tourism, a world where the sacred spaces of Japan are overrun by people who treat them as backdrops for selfies.
So fine them, yes. But also educate them. Or better yet, remind them that the highest form of respect is not fear of a fine, but love of order.
Tokyo has chosen the path of the law. Let us hope that it does not forget the path of the heart.
