Tom Gill Lecture No
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Meiji Gakuin Course No. 3505/3506 Minority and Marginal Groups of Contemporary Japan Tom Gill Lecture No. 6 Burakumin 被差別部落民 PART 2 1985: Demanding a Basic Law on Buraku liberation A very successful movement Still no Basic Law, but the government has been shamed into taking a series of measures to improve life for Burakumin: Burakumin-related Legislation • 1969 Law on Special Measures for Buraku Improvement Projects • 1982 Law on Special Measures for Regional Improvements [5 year validity] • 1987 Law on Specific Governmental Budgetary Measures Concerning Projects for Dôwa Regional Improvements [5 years, later extended to 10] Serious spending • 1969-1994 Over 17 billion yen spent on Special Measures projects in housing, health and education. The Special Measures Laws 1. Better housing (kairyo jutaku) with heavily subsidized rents in Buraku areas. 2. Grants to finance higher levels of education for Burakumin youths. 3. Soft loans for Burakumin-run businesses. 4. Libraries, culture centers, sports facilities etc. Education 1972: First mention of Buraku issue in school textbooks… until then ignored. Nowadays, a standard item in high-school social studies courses. See the paper by John Davis, ‘Blurring the Boundaries of the Buraku(min)’, in Globalization and Social Change in Contemporary Japan (ed Eades, Gill, Befu, 2000) for a ground-level account of life in the new, improved environment… Or check out these photos by Ian Laidlaw of a Buraku district of Osaka Ian’s comment The Buraku areas are now really quite nice looking places to live in. It is a huge contrast to the slums that they were 30 years ago. The changes are as a result of the dedicated efforts of the regional Buraku Liberation League, and the money that was allocated from the Special Measures Laws. Taisetsu-na jinken mamorou, jibun kara The photo looks towards the local BLL headquarters and the message above the figure reads "Let us protect the important human rights on our own initiative" Facilities include a spacious gymnasium 30 years ago people walked around this Buraku to avoid it, and there were few facilities available for the people living within it, but now people are actually coming into the Buraku from the surrounding areas to use its facilities. These people are not Burakumin, and this is one of the keys to removing Buraku discrimination - to get non- Burakumin to enter into the Buraku communities and get to know the people there so that the myths about Buraku people are dispelled. The complex is also used as a gathering place for the Buraku children, where they can support each other and participate in the extra-curricular activities that are run for them by the local BLL. There are still gaps in academic achievement between Buraku children and non-Buraku children so after-school catch-up classes are also run for the Buraku children who are behind, and literacy classes are run for Buraku adults who did not attend school when they were children and never learned to write (this is still a big problem for the Burakumin). Roof-top swimming pool in Buraku district You can see surrounding non-Buraku areas in the background. Facilities such as this one, as with the sports halls, help to bring in non-Buraku children to mix with the Buraku children so that they do not grow up with prejudice in their hearts. From Ian Laidlaw’s home page: http://www.geocities.com/gaijindo4dan/ Making taiko 太鼓 drums – a traditional Buraku occupation Ikari 怒り(“anger”) ...a group of Buraku taiko drummers Reference The Other Japan: Voices Beyond the Mainstream By David Suzuki and Keibo Oiwa Fulcrum Publishing, 1999 (first published 1996) Chapter 6, “Shared Blood, Different Futures” (pp. 125-168) is an ethnography of Osaka Burakumin, including interviews with Ikari members. Keibo Oiwa Meiji Gakuin anthropologist, International Studies Dept The Burakumin have always been the people who made the Taiko drums (because making the drums involves leather production which was an outcaste occupation), but they were not allowed to play the drums until now. Ikari is one of the first Buraku Taiko groups to have emerged and when you sit in there and watch them play, you can feel the anger and the spirit of the Buraku people, coming back now to fight against hundreds of years of oppression. Meat-processing facility in a Buraku district of Osaka The SML is very well intentioned and has had some good effects … however, THREE serious problems have emerged. Problem #1 How do you decide who gets the goodies? It is defined by location. So what about Burakumin living outside the Buraku? And what about non- Burakumin living inside the Buraku? The Japan Communist Party (JCP,日本 共産党) wants the latter to get the benefits… but the Buraku Liberation League (BLL, 部落開放同盟) says no… the BLL gets its way but the argument continues. Problem #2 By providing social benefits specifically to Burakumin areas, the SML perpetuates the distinction between ordinary people and Burakumin… postponing the date when Burakumin can finally and completely merge with the mainstream… … if that’s what they want. Key point: “Burakumin” is a term created by the mainstream in order to discriminate. It is not like being black, or being gay, or speaking a foreign language. The only thing distinguishing Burakumin from other Japanese is that they are discriminated against. So… Do they really want to be “proud to call themselves Eta” (as in the Suiheisha Declaration) … or would they in fact be much happier and better off if the entire concept ceased to exist and they could be viewed simply as ordinary Japanese (which to nearly all intents and purposes, they are)? … an imponderable philosophical challenge that plagues the movement to this very day. Problem #3 Ironically, the SML actually created a new kind of discrimination against Burakumin. Since there were plenty of other poor people living in or near Buraku districts, but who did not get the subsidized housing and other benefits, they not surprisingly became jealous of the Burakumin… … a phenomenon known as netami sabetsu 妬み差別 or ‘envy discrimination’. Sometimes it seems like… …you just can’t win. I came across a classic case of “envy discrimination” in Osaka. In the day laboring colony of Kamagasaki, workers would have to pay about ¥1,000 a night to stay in a filthy doss-house. Next door was a “dowa chiku” 同 和地区where a decent apartment with 2 bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom could be rented for about ¥30,000 a month… if you could prove that you were of Burakumin ancestry… … of course, ¥30,000 a month is the same as ¥1,000 a night. The day laborers of Kamagasaki resented this difference in treatment. “We are discriminated against too, and we are much poorer than them, yet they get the special treatment.” Dualistic discrimination? Is it too fanciful to see a parallel between these two mutually critical discriminated groups (day laborers and Burakumin) and the feuding Hinin and Eta of the Tokugawa Era? Is there a pattern of dualistic discrimination, creating divisions among marginal people, running through Japanese history to the present day? 1992 The BLL announces that It will NOT campaign for any further extension of the Special Measures Laws… with the result that they lapse in 1997. The BLL decided… … that the SML had served its purpose, in dramatically raising the standard of living of Burakumin. Now it was starting to do more harm than good. Ultimately the Burakumin would have to give up the goodies as a sacrifice in the pursuit of assimilation. … which has been going fairly slowly Year All-Buraku Buraku / non- marriages Buraku marriages 1919 97% 3% 1963 64% 36% 1993 42.5% 57.5% … compared with Korean assimilation, for instance. Year All-Korean Korean- marriages Japanese marriages 1960 66% 33% 1970 56% 43% 1980 42% 57% 1990 16% 84% 1995 17% 83% There’s also a big gender gap: Female Burakumin are reckoned 2 to 3 times more likely then males to marry outside the Buraku… … which naturally means that it’s getting harder for Burakumin men to find marriage partners. The Movement Divides The Buraku liberation movement has always had a tendency to schisms. In recent years that process has accelerated, with mixed responses to the BLL’s decision to let the Special Measures Laws lapse. Today the Buraku liberation movement is divided into at least 4 factions: 1. 部落解放同盟(解同本部派) Buraku Kaiho Domei (Kaido Honbu-ha) 2. 全国自由同和会 Zenkoku Jiyu Dowa-kai 3. 全国部落解放運動連合会(全解連) Zenkoku Buraku Kaiho Undo Rengokai (Zenkairen) 4. 部落解放同盟全国連合会(全国連) Buraku Kaiho Domei Zenkoku Rengokai (Zenkokuren) 1. 部落解放同盟(解同本部派) Buraku Kaiho Domei (Kaido Honbu-ha) Buraku Liberation League, Headquarters faction The original mainstream BLL: in recent years shifting line to accept the end of the Special Measures Laws. Officially claims a membership of 200,000; an activist told me the true figure was probably more like 150,000. 2. 全国自由同和会 Zenkoku Jiyu Dowakai National Freedom and Assimilation Association A group directly affiliated to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and hence on the conservative end of the spectrum. Interested in winning breaks for Buraku businesses. Membership may be around 50,000. 3. 全国部落解放運動連合会(全解連) Zenkoku Buraku Kaiho Undo Rengokai (Zenkairen) The National Buraku Liberation Federation (NBLF) Affiliated to the Japan Communist Party (JCP, 日本共 産党), which believes that Buraku discrimination will wither away as Japan moves towards a classless society. Membership may be about 20,000 (?). Scrapped c. 5 years ago, replaced by general Human Rights group. 4. 部落解放同盟全国連合会(全国連) Buraku Kaiho Domei Zenkoku Rengokai (Zenkokuren) Buraku Liberation League National Federation (BLL-NF). Hotly opposes the other groups, calling for all- out action to denounce anti-Buraku discrimination and revival of the SML.