What, precisely, is the origin of the differentiation between commercial and aboriginal whaling put forward by the U.S., Australia and New Zealand? Why is the former condemned and the latter welcomed and approved?

Clearly, the distinction cannot lie in ethics – death is death and an animal has no particular interest whether the harpoon that dispatches it is commercial or aboriginal in origin.

Nor can the distinction lie in culture. Japan has a whaling culture that stems from the Jamon period 5,000 years ago but all of its whaling activity is condemned. Simultaneously, the rights of U.S. tribes such as the Inupiat and Makah to take whales are being officially protected.

Neither can conservation explain the disparity. Japan and Norway- two nations regularly condemned for their whaling – focus their activities on the numerous and unendangered minke, while the Inupiat kill and harvest one of the most marginal of the world’s cetaceans, the truly endangered bowhead.

Perhaps the answer lies partly in the history of colonization. Japan and Norway, who were not colonized, are denied all access to whaling. Colonized entities, such as the Inupiat and the Makah must, however, now be protected and allowed to press ahead with their historical whaling legacy. The bowhead and gray whales, it seems, must now carry the burden of the white man’s guilty conscience.

If, by some quirk of history, European migrants had successfully settled in Japan, the voting seen this week in Shimonoseki would have been markedly different. Japanese coastal whalers would presumably now qualify for a quota from the IWC.

Today, the descendants of the colonizers from the USA, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are colonizing again, albeit in a less obvious manner. Their victims this time are Japan’s coastal whalers. The new "social colonizers" proclaim some great virtue in preventing a small number of foreigners from earning their traditional livelihood of hunting whales.

Perhaps in the future the descendants of today’s delegations from these countries will give extra special rights to Japan’s coastal whalers as a form of reparation.

Hypocrisy and double standards are plain for all to see at Shimonoseki. As soon as their U.S. master calls, the social colonizers change their principled position. So-called ecological and ethical platforms are brushed aside in a mad rush to prove subservience and loyalty by approving kill quotas for U.S. citizens. Of course, as they will explain, this is aboriginal, not commercial, killing. Has anyone told the bowhead?