Interview with K____, of the Asia Pacific Human Rights Information
Center.
Conducted on the 1st of August 2000 at the Asia Pacific
Human Rights Information Center, Osaka.
Japanese Section Translated by Ian Laidlaw.
I - Ian Laidlaw
K – K____
Interview Begins
I: What exactly is your job?
K: My job? Since I joined this organisation, my main job is to edit the Japanese newsletters, but I had not so much experience of editing newsletters or documentations, so it was quite exciting at first. I made several mistakes, but now I’m getting used to it little by little. Still, I’m in charge of first Japanese newsletter, and then maybe the next main job for me is to take care of the web-site. Now in Japan there are many organisations who create [web-sites] and our organisation definitely demand information technology because we are the information sector. So somehow I became the chief person to take care of the computer technology. I was not so much specialised in this field, but maybe I was trained in this organisation too. I think I did my best, I didn’t start the web-site, there was a web-site [that] already existed, but I put more contents [into it]. To me it is a very interesting job I think, so those two are my main jobs. But since there are not so many staff, sometimes you have to do something else besides [the] jobs [that you are] in charge [of].
I: The APHRIC seems to be aimed at educating people?
K: There is a term, “digitalified”. Some people know very much, but some people are left behind the technology. I think that this issue must be always remembered, we have to always be concerned about this. Maybe in Japan there are quite a lot of people who do understand this technology and do actually enjoy this technology, but in some countries, developing countries, the rate of providing computers is very low, so when it comes to the human rights movement, we have to be always be careful about this fact. Not always do many people in all countries get access to information technology. So even if we provide a lot of information through our web-site, that does not necessarily mean that all people who need that information can get access to that information.
I: So how much are you focussed on international human rights issues,
and how much are you focussed on just Japan’s human rights issues?
K: At the establishment of the Asia Pacific Human Rights Information Centre, there were two objectives. One, I think, is to promote the human rights in Asia Pacific region, and the other is to raise human rights awareness in Japanese society. There are two objectives I think. But I guess, and other staff also, reviewed our past 5 years activities, and we reviewed that our main, maybe the percentage of our activities a little too much depend on the domestic activities, and little less emphasised the regional activities. So this is our regret. Maybe we should have taken care of much more about regional matters, and as you said, we cannot cover all the issues in all the regions internationally - so maybe we should narrow down the focus to the Asia Pacific region. But still, when it comes to the Asia Pacific, it is still very vast, issues are very vary many and Asia is very diverse area in terms of religion, ethnicity, culture. We should focus on Asia Pacific, and our regret is maybe we should shift our emphasis a little to the regionally. Maybe, when I think about all the activities of our organisation, maybe the human rights education in schools program in Asian Pacific region is maybe our only main program in the region.
I: And you are still running that program now?
K: Yeah, it is continuously, we are undertaking that program. Besides that program we need to [pay] more attention to the Asia Pacific region.
I: With regard to the human rights education programs in schools, with
those educational programs, I was interviewing another person the other day who
said that the government is not very supportive of human rights education in
schools because human rights education is often…the state, the government,
doesn’t like it because if you educate people about their human rights then the
state loses power, or it undermines the states power, because people start
realising that they want their rights and they attack the state for it. Do you agree that the government doesn’t
like the progression of human rights education, or would you say that that is
an unfair sort of a view and that they do help out?
K: I see. My opinion about this, maybe I think that J____ has much more insights about human rights education, even in the situation in Japan, but my opinion about your question is that I once heard from J____ that Japan is in a sense very characteristic. “Why is it characteristic?”, I asked him. He said, “Maybe Japan is the only country where the government, especially the local government, support very much the human rights education program. In other countries in Asia, it cannot be expected, such a thing”. So I though that it’s a very interesting comment, and I could not compare with Japan and other countries so it was a very fresh idea to me at the time. So in that sense I think, yes, the government, especially the local government, make quite a lot of efforts to support, or they themselves create the programs of human rights education. Another example is the attitude of the central government, for example the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Ministry of Education, Monbusho. We get involved in some human rights education workshops, regional or sub-regional programs and I heard that, for example, there are some UN sponsored programs of human rights education, and because it is the UN they invite some delegates or representatives from the Ministry of Education or Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the attitude was very bad. Sometimes they are not so much interested in the progress of human rights education regionally or sub-regionally. They are not so much, put so much attention on that. And sometimes the delegates of that Ministry don’t know well about the situation or don’t know well about human rights education.
I: So the local governments are supportive, but the national one isn’t?
K: Yes.
I: Why do you think that is?
K: Take for example, within this Osaka prefecture, it depends on the small cities. Some cities do very well, but some cities don’t have many problems. So it depends on the place. So in Japan it depends on the prefecture or it depends on the cities. But, as far as I can say, the central government, I have to be very critical to.
I: Do you know why they are not very supportive?
K: Not only in the field of human rights education, but also other fields relating to human rights. I think the attitude is not good, I am not at all satisfied with the government attitude.
I: Why do you think that the government have that kind of attitude?
K: Maybe they don’t want to change, or if they change according to the request of NGOs or citizens, they think the established system will turn out to be what they would not like, or, I don’t know, they might think the system would collapse. So they fear. But I really don’t agree with that idea. You must change, we need change, but it seems that they don’t like that change. It’s closely related to Japanese politics, but that means I don’t like the present situation of Japanese politics.
I: Okay, to go off onto another thing now, the reason I brought this
book [The Status Discrimination in Japan by Juichi Suginohara] along is because
there is a quote in here I just wanted to ask you about. It says that “An idea of discrimination or a
sense of superiority come into play being formed by a discriminative social
structure, but are not inherent in man”.
So that’s what Suginohara said.
Basically he means that if people were just people without the State or
the Government or anything then there would be no discrimination, but it is
because of the structures that are put in place by the government, it is
because of the systems they have, that discrimination occurs. Do you agree with that? There are two sides really, either people
discriminate because that’s what people do, or people only discriminate because
the government makes society like it is and then society makes people
discriminate. Which one do you think is
correct?
K: Maybe, as you probably already know, the history of the Buraku people and Buraku discrimination, I’m not quite sure, but there are some different ideas about the origin of the discrimination. But I think the Buraku discrimination was created by the power at that time.
I: With other forms of discrimination in general, do you think that
every form of discrimination is created by a government, or do you think that
it is people that do it?
K: I think that in peoples’ minds that there is some feeling. Somehow it is created in the society. Sorry, I’m not so sure about the general, but as far as Buraku discrimination I agree with that idea, I think it was created by that power at that time 300 years ago or 400 years ago. Actually I want to say, I am a Burakumin, I was born and raised up in one Buraku in Osaka city area near the Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute, that place is in a Buraku area. I was living near that, the name of the place is called N____. N____ is sometimes discriminated against because one, it is a Buraku area, second it has quite a lot of Korean people, and third, there is a place of day labourers town, that is supposed to be a very dangerous area.
I: Oh, I passed there the other day.
K: It is a very dirty area. So there is a lot of discrimination against them, homeless people. So those elements created that N____ is a very negative place. There are a lot of derogatory ideas against N____, so I was born in N____ and I was born in a Buraku also. Since I was young I had many, many experience when I say, sometimes people ask, “where are you coming, where are you from?”. When I say, “yes I’m from N____”, the reaction from them is very, you know, “oh you are coming from that very dangerous area”, or, “that very bad area you are living in”. So I have quite a lot of experience like that. But still, I want to stick to think about this problem. Maybe I can get out of the town and it’s not so difficult, but I want to stay and stick to that problem. To be continuously to be called, “Oh you are living there!”, but I want to think about that continuously.
I: Why is that?
K: Because the town is my town. Everyone has only one home town, I don’t know [maybe] someone has two or three home towns, but most people, I think, has only one home town, and must be precious memory. I do have precious memory of childhood in that area where people think as a very dangerous or dirty area, but to me it is very precious memory there. So I want to stick to that problem.
I: You do seem like you feel that there is part of you that wants to
get away from it as well.
K: Yes, in my mind sometimes I don’t want to think about it sometimes. Sometimes I feel like getting out of my home-town and living in other places. Sometimes.
I: There are a lot of people who do that aren’t there. There are people who do move away.
K: There are many, many people. Many, you know, my bosom friends, many people get away. Sorry, get out of the Buraku area, especially young people. I am living in an apartment now and there are about 120 houses in that apartment and when I started living there when I was 12 years old there are many children of the same age. But now there are not so many, very few youngsters are still living there. People are getting old in Japanese society and in Buraku as well, so there are many old people. So not so many. The community itself is not so strong and powerful when the vitality is less.
I: That’s quite sad.
K: So I think that living in N____ is very unique, very characteristic matter. This feeling is very difficult to be understood by other people I think. Only those who are living in N____ can understand that feeling.
I: Your friends, you said, who moved out. Did you stay in contact with them afterwards? Do you still see them or do you still talk
to them sometimes?
K: We have some communications sometimes, and sometimes we meet.
I: Do you know how they feel about having moved out?
K: I will say to them my opinion. I will say to them that I want to stick to living in the Buraku, or living in N____.
I: So what do they think?
K: Did they react?
I: No, how do they feel about having moved out?
K: I think recently, they don’t have a negative idea about moving out. They think it’s okay to live anywhere, not so much pay attention or concern about the place they live. There are some people who are very active in the Buraku liberation movement or the human rights movement, whereas they don’t live in a Buraku. So even if they live outside a Buraku, sometimes they are active still.
I: Talking more about the actual Buraku problems, what do you think at
the moment would solve the Buraku problem or discrimination? Is there something you think would solve the
problems?
K: Resolve?
I: Yes, is there something you think would do that?
K: I think that the situation is getting better, I think. Maybe better than 10 years ago, than 20 years ago, 30 years ago. But some people say that there is no more Buraku issues, discrimination against Buraku people. But I think it’s wrong, there is still discrimination. Actually two years ago, maybe as you probably heard already, there is some discrimination research against Buraku people. Or not only Buraku people, but also the research, job applicants religion or political ideology. So not only the origin of the applicants, such a situation happened two years ago.
I: Is that like the chimei sokan?
K: Yeah, like that. Some research company checked a lot of information about the job applicants. So I think there are still problems, discriminations. But it’s getting better.
I: What do you think would resolve the problems?
K: Maybe the movement, education movement.
I: Like the Buraku Liberation League, or just the education?
K: I think totally, not only the Buraku Liberation League, but also other human rights organisations made certain strong efforts so far, so I think that’s the main reason of the change of the situation.
I: Some people say that Japan doesn’t need the Buraku Liberation League
any more, that they should get rid of it and just have human rights education
and anti-discrimination laws.
K: I think that the role of the Buraku Liberation League, the BLL, has been very great and sometimes they have some, there is some incident, they are strongly against that incident. Somehow the way they protest is criticised by ordinary people, but I think the strong willing against, to protest the discrimination and if it is the matter of yourself, if you are the person who [is] discriminated [against], maybe the anger of that person is very strong, the anger of the Buraku people is very strong, so I think that anger is very important when we think about discrimination. That anger creates the movement which eventually reduce the discrimination. So yes I know there are some criticism against the Buraku Liberation League’s way of movement, but I think still that anger, if the BLL has anger, the BLL is a kind of a front-runner of that movement. It is very important, people cannot ignore the people who are actually discriminated [against]. So the important thing is how the people who are actually discriminated, how they move, or how people think about that people. Without thinking about the people who are discriminated [against], maybe the movement will not be in a good direction. Doesn’t go to a good direction.
I: The last question I have is that the Buraku Liberation League is
trying to get a Fundamental Law passed to stop discrimination against them and
there have been people who have said that if that law is passed then the state
will have more power and the Buraku Liberation League and other organisations
will have less power because that law will be controlled by the state. Then it might make the problem worse in some
ways because they say it might drive the problem underground. For instance, in 1971 when the koseki were taken away from the public,
the chimei sokan appeared. So creating that law against people looking
at the koseki created the chimei sokan which made the problem
worse in some ways because it is harder to control. So do you think you get problems like that if you try to get a
law passed, or do you think that it really should be passed?
K: I must say that maybe I do not follow what’s going on about that law, but the BLL is trying to [get] the law passed, enforced by the government. So maybe you are saying the government will try to create…
I: Well, it will have more power if the law is made.
K: Yes, by that law maybe the government will have more power. I don’t think that the government is meaning to get that law passed. I think maybe the BLL is making effort to get that law passed. I’m not so sure about it. But my feeling is that when it comes to human rights education of human rights movement or Buraku Liberation movement, I think the bottom up approach is very important, not the top down.
I: So you mean aiming at the individuals rather than…
K: Yes, the BLL is strongly willing to create that law, but we must be always careful when the government make the law, the law means a lot. Sometimes the government will do something from top down, but I think that things do not really change by that approach. That does not apply only to human rights movement or Buraku liberation movement, but also other citizens movement or social movement. I think the bottom up approach is important in this era in Japan, especially in Japan.
I: Can you explain just a bit what the bottom up approach is?
K: I think, looking at some situations in Asian countries, we can some changes in the people or citizens and we can see that change in direction. We can see the situation in Iran, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, but how about Japan. It’s so much different, we cannot see the trend of great change, people are still docile in a sense, but I think maybe civil society is not created in Japan so much yet. The key is to create that civil movement, or the willing of the citizens is very important, so in that sense I think the bottom up approach is really the key of creating the change in this society. So that is my personal opinion.
[Interview switches to Japanese from this point]
I: What exactly is the bottom up approach?
K: It is good for the various regional movements, as well as for the Buraku liberation movement and also, for example, the movement to support foreigners as there are a lot of them here now. Apart from that almost anything qualifies. I think that citizens movements are very important. Citizens at the moment probably think things like they are very busy with work and there are far too many who think that they cannot commit to [solving] the social problems that relate to them. So I think that the citizens movements are very important. If we didn’t have them then I think that we could not have real change. Compared to other countries, Japan is quite behind in this area, which I think is a bit of a shame. Right now I think, while there is human rights education as well, the most important thing is critical thinking.
I: That is the most important thing?
K: Yes, the most important, I think recently. We have to have people thinking critically about things. That is not the kind of thinking where people are opposed to anything, but rather where they think “Is this okay?” and doubt things, that kind of critical thinking. Also, there can’t be movements with only that kind of thinking, I think that it is important to act on things that are related to oneself. That is to say that you have to include your own [thinking] as well.
I: Is that sort of thing being promoted at an educational level?
K: At schools…in my opinion I do not think that it is being used very much. Right now in Japanese schools that kind of thing is quite a big problem. In education it is a problem, they keep saying “we can’t change it, we can’t change it”. There isn’t very much support for the Liberal Democratic Party’s proposed education reforms. It is because they keep trying to change things from above, and I don’t think that there isn’t much substance to it. It is always in the papers, “do this, do that”, and when everybody reads it they do not think that it is going very well.
I: Is there anything that you want to add or say?
K: International exchanges are extremely proliferate right now, like the one you are doing here, for example, Buraku problem study exchanges and human rights problem exchanges, these international exchanges I would like to be a part of as well, I think, so I am very happy that you have come here to study the Buraku problem.
I also have also had chances to go overseas, and will have more chances in the future, I would like to go to talk about human rights issues. That is where my interest lies. I feel that it is very important to be connected to human rights issues. I think that in places that do not have human rights, they can be even more strongly connected. Why I think that is because with human rights, in the lifestyles of those people, well, to put is more strongly, in their lives they are very strongly related [to human rights issues] and so I think that they will be even more strongly connected to [human rights struggles] in the future.
Last year in Mie prefecture there was a “youth village” which was sponsored by the Management and Coordination Agency and there were 150 Japanese people and groups of 10 people from 15 other countries from every region, Europe, Africa, Asia, who all lived in Japan who all got together there. The program in Mie was all about human rights problems and they debated about them in ways that came close to fighting. I think that kind of thing is really great. For example, just to exchange differences in clothing, language, cooking and that kind of stuff is interesting, but to just stop there doesn’t get us anywhere. But to debate human rights problems, and there are a huge number of them, it opens up a lot of antagonism. If we do exchanges with that kind of content then we can begin to connect to each-other. That’s what was learned last year.
So instead of just coming to tour around Osaka, and instead coming here like you to look at, talk about, and research into Buraku problem or human rights problems, to come with that kind of purpose makes me as an individual really happy.
I: I also believe that if we had more people doing this sort of study
into human rights then it may pave the way to ending human rights problems.
Interview Ends