Interview with M____, of the International Movement Against All Forms
of Discrimination and Racism.
Conducted on the 10th of August 2000 at the IMADR
Headquarters in R____, Tokyo.
I - Ian Laidlaw
M – M____
Interview Begins
I: Was IMADR started in Japan by the BLL [Buraku Liberation League]?
M: That’s right.
I: And then it spread through to other countries?
M: Right, right.
I: When I was speaking to the JCP yesterday and when I was reading
through this [Connect Volume 4 Summer 2000 Issue] yesterday, it comes across
like a lot of people outside the BLL think the BLL is not realistic in their
expectations of what they can achieve, or that they are aiming too high, or
maybe they are too idealistic. Do you
see that at all?
M: I think it depends on what you mean by idealistic, I don’t know what people are referring to in this case by [using the term] ‘idealistic’, but I personally do not think so and probably that’s because I have seen [that] the BLL has become over the years, or the past decades, more realistic than before.
For instance, they are now aiming towards more realistic achievements in terms of the new legislation that they are seeking, although they still retain this slogan to enact the Fundamental Law for Buraku Liberation, but what they are actually pursuing is to first of all get this new legislation for human rights education and a human rights protection system [to be passed] and that’s where they are putting certain resources. I don’t know, but I think people are aware of the difficulty of obtaining a new comprehensive legislation although they may not say it openly, publicly. I think that although they may have idealistic goals, at the same time they have these realistic strategies.
I: Okay, that brings up another question that I have. In their push for trying to get this
legislation introduced it has come across that a lot of people in the BLL are
frustrated that the Government and Monbusho [The Ministry of Education] are
very reluctant to introduce anything to do with human rights education. One of the people who I talked to said that
they think that the Government doesn’t want human rights education introduced
because it weakens the power of the state.
This is because if human rights education is introduced then people will
start realising what their rights are and then attack the State because the
State imposes on those rights.
M: This is only a speculation but that may be one reason because that is a general tendency of the bureaucrats in Japan. They would like to restrict the autonomous thinking and the claims for rights from the citizens of Japan as much as possible because they would like to retain their own vested interests and the power that they have. So that’s why they try to be autonomous even from the politicians, even from elected representatives. They think that they are the ones who are running the country, which is true, which we [IMADR] think must be changed, and a lot of Japanese people think that way now. So in that sense that kind of comment may have some relevance, although it may not be that the bureaucrats are thinking directly that people might attack the state and threaten their interests, but there is, I think, a tendency not to trust people.
I: The Government’s general line on such legislation recently seems to
have been that they have not finished coordination with regional laws and so
the legislation can not yet be introduced.
Do you think that is a fair enough sort of reply from the Governments’
perspective?
M: I think that’s just an excuse because according to the Japanese constitution, once the Government ratifies an International Convention, that must be applied domestically. Although there are different opinions as to the fine lines between the provisions in the international conventions and the Japanese laws, still nobody can deny that the Government has obligations to implement the provisions of the International Conventions once ratified.
I: There was an International Convention ratified in 1997 or 1998
wasn’t there?
M: The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was ratified in 1995.
I: Didn’t that Convention require human rights legislation to be passed
within two years?
M: Yes.
I: Has any legislation been passed?
M: No, no new legislation. No new measures were introduced after the ratification.
I: So are people still pushing for...
M: Yes, yes. Although Japan made a reservation on one article in that Convention which is about prohibiting incitement to racial hatred, propaganda and so forth. That is always a contentious controversial issue, striking the balance between the freedom of expression and prohibiting incitement to discrimination.
I: Doesn’t the constitution provide for prohibiting incitement to
racial discrimination?
M: That’s the racism Convention, not the constitution. The constitution provides for nothing like this. The convention provides for this. They can’t directly apply the two parts of this article. It is separated into three parts and on the first two parts, Japan made a reservation.
I: Does that mean that they do not have to go along with it.
M: Yes, although we can continuously push the Government to lift the reservation and do something about it, but it’s up to the Government to make the decision. Nobody has a binding force over the Government.
I: Why do you think that they made the reservation?
M: This is a very controversial article and the general argument is that this may violate the constitutional provision of the freedom of expression and freedom of association so this, legally speaking, is very difficult and politically speaking it’s even more difficult, but most of the European countries which ratified this convention made some kind of adjustment to the domestic laws to accommodate this provision.
I: Right, and that’s what Japan was saying, that the adjustment with
the domestic laws was not yet complete?
M: Right, and the reason for the Japanese Government’s hesitation of introducing new legislation at the time of the ratification of the International Convention is that, not all of the ministries, but the important ministries think that that would mean that the International Conventions would override the Japanese laws. That’s something that they do not want to accept. But there is still argument as to whether it is overriding the domestic laws or not and although nobody would publicly say it, we know that the Supreme Court is resistant to introducing legislation in accordance with the International Conventions. Although it’s very funny and not acceptable because the Supreme Court is a judicial branch, they should not violate the other branches of theirs. That’s why people do not say it publicly, but we know that the Supreme Court has been resisting this for years.
I: Do you think that it will be introduced eventually, and is IMADR
pushing for it as well?
M: Yes we are pushing for it, but it may take many more years before Japan can be ready for it, especially for this article. Our understanding is that western European countries have introduced some kind of legislation to deal with this although they have the constitutional provision to ensure the freedom of expression and freedom of association. There are some contradictions in the domestic laws but still they have enacted these laws to regulate the speech and regulate the other inciting acts. Why? I think it’s because of the past experiences that Europe went through. So, politically they are motivated to do something about it, although legally they may have many problems. Compared to that, Japan does not have similar experiences although there are facts of discriminated against and inciting hatred towards foreigners, especially Koreans. They even killed a lot of Koreans in the aftermath of the 1923 earthquake. But, that kind of experience is not really shared in the Japanese public right now so things may be different if Japan faced, ironically, more racist overt acts done by, for example, some right wing organisations like we are witnessing in Europe for instance. Then there may be reactions to it, but unfortunately or fortunately, I don’t know, our right wing organisations do not resort to assaulting foreigners so that’s why the issue is always under the surface in Japan. But, it is there and discrimination is there and people do have very racist ideas about certain peoples.
I: Has the US ratified the convention?
M: They have but with a lot of reservations.
I: The free speech concept in the US is really big so I guess they
would have had the same sorts of issues.
M: Yes, from the beginning of course on this article and on many other articles they made reservations to the extent that it was almost useless to ratify the convention.
I: I can understand why people would have reservations, because while
New Zealand people are not as big on free speech, people get really up in arms
as soon as someone tries to clamp down on things like that. So I can see why, especially politically, it
would be a very risky thing to ratify.
At the same time, from my own perspective, people in the State, in
power, should be more responsible.
The next question I have is that one of the complaints that the JCP has
about the BLL is that they focus too much on just the Buraku community, and I
know that the JCP having communist ideals wants to focus on everybody, but I
sort of got mixed messages because it seems like, after talking to people
involved in Dowa education, the BLL isn’t really focussing on Buraku people
alone any more, they are in fact focussing on the widespread community. The JCP also said that the BLL are actually
inciting racism because of their continual focus on the Buraku communities and
that while the communities started on a level below that of mainstream society,
now some of them have progressed to a level above that of mainstream
society. The JCP says that it is
reverse discrimination and that the BLL has gone too far. What are your opinions on that?
M: First of all I think it’s not fair to say that the BLL is focussing only on Buraku issues. In different areas whether education or housing conditions for instance, they are trying to incorporate the wider interests of the local residents or the wider interests of the target groups, whether schools or teachers or students.
I: Historically the BLL were reluctant to allow any financial gain,
from the SML laws for instance, to go to other residents of Buraku communities
who weren’t Burakumin themselves. There
was a period where that happened.
M: Especially in the early years in the 70s after the Dowa Sochiho was passed, maybe depending on the region there were areas where people only let Burakumin benefit from this, but in the end that law was intended for the improvement of the living conditions of the Buraku people so I think, in principle, even if they insisted that this is only to benefit the Buraku people, I would say, legally speaking, that’s correct because that law was intended for it and the Buraku people fought for it. But I would also assume that there are some cases where Buraku people were too narrow minded and did not actually care about the people living around them [even though they were] experiencing similar living conditions.
But what I wanted to say was that over the years, the BLL has changed its policy and regardless of the BLL’s policy or platform, people on the ground actually tried to incorporate other people’s interests too. Maybe that began to surface only in recent years, only since the mid-80s or something, but still people do realise, on the ground, that they would have to incorporate other people’s interests if they were to survive, because people are worried about the overall deteriorating social security, social safety-net, that affects everyone of course, but especially the vulnerable groups including Buraku.
The second point about the reverse discrimination, this is a very old controversial problem. Personally, I do not agree with the idea that Buraku people should not become rich or should not enjoy higher standards of living because that is not just. People can be rich, people can enjoy higher standards of living and because they were poor, just because they were under certain living conditions that does not mean that should not elevate their living standards, there is nothing wrong with it. But, when it comes to formulating public policy which should be fair and which should be just, things would get more difficult than that. It is true that in certain areas still, Buraku communities enjoy very low rates of housing grants and other services still although in many communities now they are disappearing. Even since the early 1980s in Tokyo and Saitama and other areas in the Kanto region, those services were already being cut down. But it’s true that there are still certain communities that enjoy unreasonably low rates compared to their current income level for example, or living standards. So I think this should be adjusted and as far as I know this is the policy of the BLL right now, to adjust the excessive benefits and people are now trying to review which services we actually need to retain, which services we don’t need, and which services should be newly created in accordance with the change of times. That’s something that people are doing only right now, and I think that should also be fairly judged, and usually JCP people do not see that side.
I: You sort of still need the JCP because it’s good to have an opponent
to any organisation to bring tome middle ground into it.
M: Yeah, but their criticism is not really fair because they only focus on the very narrowly cut aspects and they cut out all the other different diverse complex things happening in the BLL. The BLL is not a very monolithic organisation, it contains various shades and is very complex and diverse.
I: I read a book by Juichi Suginohara, who advocated disbanding the BLL
on the grounds that most of what they wanted to achieve they have now achieved
and any more that they do now would incite discrimination. I guess an alternative to that would to be
to reform the BLL into an organisation more like IMADR but looking across the
board in Japan on all human rights issues and not focussing on just the Buraku
any more. Do you think that’s a viable
option, to get rid of the Buraku focus to prevent discrimination happening
again and to form an organisation that is looking at all human rights like
those of the Ainu and Okinawans and women?
M: Well, first of all, in a way the BLL is changing to that kind of human rights oriented organisation and as you might have found already, if you go to different communities, what they are doing in the community is just amazing. You can’t really say that it’s just a Buraku organisation any more. People are doing different things on their own and both Buraku and non-Buraku people are working on different projects. So in a way it’s changing and I think it’s inevitable and I think that in some ways Mr. Suginohara is right in saying that the BLL has achieved most of what they wanted to achieve because the BLL was focussing on raising the living conditions, focussing on the material side, although retaining the kyudan tactics.
But after all it has been operating within the modernisation paradigm. What we are trying to do is to modernise Japan in a sense so that there will be no discrimination amongst Japanese first of all, and of course there shouldn’t be any discrimination in the modern world. So, in a way this is a difference between Buraku discrimination and other discrimination, for example against Ainu and Okinawans and Koreans, because there is this question of ethnicity here, different culture, different history, but for Buraku people Burakumin are part of the majority Japanese so it’s the question of how we can modernise Japanese society and people. So, it’s no wonder that the BLL has achieved to a certain extent what they wanted to achieve.
But over the years people began to wonder ‘then, what is liberation, what is the liberated status for Buraku people?’. It’s not only the question of material conditions, it’s the question of education or it’s the question of people’s psychology, it’s the question of Japanese culture or it’s the question of the more general Japanese legal system that failed to address these issues. So that’s why it was, I think, in a way a very natural course of development for the BLL not to focus too much on the Buraku but to go into other fields. So, I think that’s why IMADR was created. IMADR was part of that kind of overall change of the BLL, but that doesn’t mean that the BLL should disappear, it’s up to the Burakumin people or it’s up to the members of the BLL to decide whether they still need the BLL or not.
I would say that people still have very strong identities of being Burakumin, especially in the older generations, so I don’t know about 20 or 30 years from now when my generation becomes old. I think that there is great diversity amongst younger generations as to their identity about being Burakumin. But I think it’s definitely true that people are thinking in a larger context now for instance we know many young Burakumin students who are interested in different human rights issues and not just the Buraku issue, but who still have the Buraku identity.
I: With the kyudan sessions you mentioned before, I know that the BLL
have always held onto the kyudan as a very important way of dealing with
discrimination. I think that they were
legalised as long as they were run in a certain way, but there are a lot of
people who are very critical of the kyudan sessions because of, for instance,
the suicide of the principal in S____ and the incident where they went to the
school and injured a lot of people.
There is a lot of criticism that the kyudan are to extreme a way of
dealing with discrimination. I know the
JCP said there is more of a need to talk to people and to solve problems in
that kind of way and not to use extreme measures such as kyudan. So, what is your opinion on the kyudan.
M: First of all, currently the BLL employs very severe guidelines on the kyudan sessions, so usually these days, it depends of course on each session and who guides it, but generally speaking you would not have such an impression of the remarks you get from the JCP and so forth if you take a look and participate in the kyudan sessions today. In the older days, in the 70s for example, I know that there were extreme cases which I think were wrong. Some people do publicly criticise the method and call for the complete abolition of the method. Of course they would have to deal with some discriminatory cases in some way but the question is that in the kyudan sessions the ones who did the discriminatory act, they have to face the Burakumin people in the same room and usually the Buraku people are greater in number so naturally they feel a little threatened, and I think that that’s a natural emotion that people get usually. As a method it may not be the most effective way because if people feel threatened then they will try to defend themselves and that would not lead to true dialogue and I do not personally think that the kyudan is a kind of dialogue, it’s not two way. Although the people are exchanging views, people are talking to each other literally, exchanging words. There is already guidelines that the BLL have adopted based on past experiences, both successes and failures, and maybe the successes extremes which I think is good but the existence of this manual itself indicates that the session is to be conducted in a certain prescribed way which I think is not a true interaction between any group of people. I think we should rather aim at true interaction if we really want to educate those people.
I: So how do you think this can be achieved?
M: I don’t know how that can be done, I’m not really sure.
I: Do you mean that if somebody commits a discriminatory act, instead
of doing kyudan, do you still focus on that single person with a different
method?
M: I think it depends on the person, but there is no reason not to approach that person personally.
I: But there needs to be a different way?
M: Yes, a different way, maybe with a smaller number of people, maybe not in public but in private, maybe employing different ways of approaching the person and maybe over a longer period of time because changing people takes time.
I: One of the reasons that the BLL defend the kyudan sessions is
because there is no legal pathway to go down at the moment.
M: That is one reason and I think that there should be some legal measures available but I don’t think litigation, especially, is the best kind of answer to deal with this situation.
I: In an interview with BLHRRI they identified the main problems facing
Buraku people nowadays as still being in marriage, employment and education,
but here in Tokyo at the BLL Headquarters they identified the major problem as
the Buraku areas that were not identified as Dowa areas and were still in quite
an unreasonable condition. Marriage
still faces problems regionally, in that Buraku people seldom marry people from
neighbouring areas, but the JCP said that these problems said that these
problems would probably filter out once the generation that was born around 30
years ago dies out. In other words the
problems are just being held down by the older generation and will equalise
once they disappear. What do you see as
being the main problems now, are the BLL just holding onto the
marriage/employment/education thing because that is what they have
traditionally done, or is there a more urgent problem now with the non-Dowa
areas? The other thing is that whose
responsibility is it to deal with the non-Dowa areas as well because they are
still being very held back? Should the
BLL be approaching them?
M: Well, the second question is rather difficult. The general trend is that there will be no more designation, there will be no more laws.
I: In that case then they may have missed out.
M: Yeah, they missed out unfortunately. Still, I think that the BLL should continue to try to organise people living in non-Dowa areas although it’s up to the people living there. It’s the principle within the BLL, if people want to do something then they have to fight for it, they have to organise themselves. [As to whether or not it is] one of the more urgent problems, I don’t know. Because of the widening gaps within the Buraku people, some people have become economically fairly well off, some people are in the middle class, some people are still stuck in the poverty cycle, and the older generations, yes, we will probably face problems with the people over 60 years of age, those people who would not be able to work but do not have any meaningful source of income and will still suffer from the past discrimination and will not be able to enjoy full pension.
So these are the people who will probably face the great economic difficulties from now, those who are in their 60s or 70s right now, and maybe in their 50s now, but for people under their 40s I think there will be a great more variety amongst the Buraku people so I think their urgent needs may be different from person to person. But I would say that marriage will still remain as one the major problems for many years to come because even now it is already 30 years since the Tokubetsu Sochiho [Special Measures Laws] were passed and with so many changes in the Japanese society, still about half of the people surveyed answered that they would not marry a Buraku person if their parents opposed it.
So this is not only the question of Buraku discrimination I think. The same psychology, the same structure applies to other issues, the discrimination against Koreans, foreigners, the Ainu, Okinawans and other people. This is a more general question that we have as Japanese. When you think about it people do not even know about Buraku, they have not even seen the Buraku people. They do not have the picture of what Buraku people are but still they can’t resist this prejudice.
I: This brings up an interesting question that I hadn’t thought about
in that is this discrimination, because, as you said, it’s not just aimed at Burakumin
it’s aimed at other people as well, is this discrimination not actually being
aimed at Burakumin but being aimed at, as you said because they don’t even know
who they are sometimes, it’s just being aimed at the unknown. So it’s a completely different form of
discrimination and maybe the BLL focus on the marriage of Burakumin is aiming
at the wrong thing?
M: This is getting very difficult with such a political question, but I think it’s related to who Japanese people think they are, their own identity. Non-Burakumin, non-Korean, non-Ainu, non-Okinawan are the Japanese people and probably there is a difference in discrimination between the Burakumin and other ethnic peoples. I think it’s different, because people usually know nowadays that Buraku people are within the same Japanese population.
Discrimination is associated with something that is related to being filthy or being polluted or something like that. Of course that is not the whole thing, but there is this element.
I: There is an opinion where a writer said that discrimination does not
come from people, it comes from the State.
The State creates a social structure that generates discrimination but
is the social structure wasn’t there then people wouldn’t discriminate. The question is whether or not that is
correct or whether discrimination is inherent in people, what is the seed that
generates discrimination?
M: I take the view of the structural approach to the issue of discrimination so I generally agree that discrimination comes from the structure that the State created, so it’s very political. But discrimination doesn’t just pop up all of a sudden, the rulers and the State usually utilise the already existing cultural notions in the social structure in order to reformulate the social structure. So in this case the already existing cultural and probably religious norms were used to reinforce this type of discrimination against a certain group of people in Japan. So that’s why I said that the cultural notion of pollution and uncleanliness is not the whole thing because that is not the origin of discrimination in my view, but that is an element that was used. Intentionally or unintentionally that was taken advantage of. But one thing which is common to all discrimination against Koreans and Ainu and Burakumin is that the Japanese people think that, as people usually say, their family tree would be polluted if there was a marriage to a Burakumin or a Korean and that is, I think, quite deeply routed in Japanese peoples’ psychology.
I: There are some people who said that that only just came in at the
end of the 19th century when European influence brought Darwinism in
and the idea that, due to evolution, some races were more evolved and some were
not. Some people have said that that’s
the origin of the pollution idea and not so much the introduction of Buddhism
back in about the 7th Century, which may have been the origins of
Buraku discrimination. With the notion
of uncleanliness and pollution of family tree, was that around before the Meiji
period, before the opening of Japan?
M: I honestly do not know, I have never read anything related to that. I would assume it was at least quite different in the Edo period, the notion of the family tree. During the Edo period people did not even know the existence of the Emperor, they just didn’t know and for the majority of people, except for the ruling samurai class, they would not have reason to thing about the purity of their family. So it’s true that this notion of family purity came to take root in ordinary Japanese people maybe with the Meiji period, maybe with the modernisation period because that’s when the emperor system was recreated. So I think it’s more natural to think that way, so it might be very interesting to prove if that’s the case.
I: It links in with something another writer was talking about, about
Japanese when they reach a new period there is a tendency to forget history and
to start again and to create a sort of pseudo-history to justify a certain
social situation and then build on that as if it is a deep rooted sort of thing
when it is not actually that deep rooted at all. So maybe it ties in with what we were just talking about. Do you want to add anything to that?
M: It’s a very difficult question because it touches the very core of what it is. What is it? What’s the origin of discrimination? I can’t think of anything to add.
I: The last thing I have written down here is, just out of interest,
there was a whole lot of opposition to IMADR being granted NGO status from the
Zenkairen, do you know why?
M: Simply because they wanted to reduce the influence of the BLL. I don’t know what they actually thought, but from what they stated and what they wrote, it is clear that they wanted to curtail the influence of the BLL on the general human rights issues and international human rights issues.
I: What do you think about that then?
M: It’s nonsense. It is really a pity, and as I said, I was involved in that whole process, I was at the UN meetings defending IMADR’s application, trying to explain to people who had never heard of the Buraku question at all before, trying to explain the difference between the Buraku Liberation League and the Zenkairen and then the whole history of the JCP and the BLL and explain what IMADR is trying to do and so forth. I spent four full years dealing with that and in that sense I think it was a waste of time for both of us, so in that sense I would say that it was really a pity and nonsense.
I: What do you think the Zenkairen should have been doing?
M: If they wanted to curtail the influence of the BLL in the international arena, they should have formed their own international organisation and the pursued their own activities, what they think would be the best way. And if they want to criticise what IMADR is doing, not the BLL, they should direct that to us and we will respond to that reasonably.
I: So you don’t think they went through the proper channels?
M: Normal exchange of views, if not dialogue, normal interactions. We were ready for that and we even called for that, but they never responded, it was really unfortunate I think, and I don’t know why they’ve stopped doing that from a certain time and I don’t know the true reason, but they should not waste their resources and time doing that. It doesn’t produce anything even for them.
I: Have they achieved any results from your perspective?
M: I don’t think so.
I: Do you think they’re more a political tool?
M: I think that if I was in the Zenkairen at the time then I would have opposed that campaign, because you can clearly see that by opposing IMADR’s application you can’t really achieve the goal of curtailing the influence of the BLL. IMADR is not the BLL. IMADR will be doing something different from what the BLL is doing domestically so there is no point in opposing IMADR.
Maybe they feared that the BLL would use IMADR in order to advance what they wanted to achieve at the international level but a more careful analysis would probably reveal that that would not be either possible or they would not be achieving much.
I: So do you see the Zenkairen as being a group like the BLL coming
from a different perspective and achieving things or do you seen them as more
like political opposition and not so much of a pragmatic group?
M: Well, I haven’t talked to many Zenkairen people so I don’t know. It seems that it’s more of a political obsession and I truly hope for more direct interactions and dialogues between people belonging to the two different organisations.
I: So if Zenkairen wanted to open up a dialogue with IMADR then IMADR
would generally be quite open to that?
M: Oh yes, we even invited them to become a member of IMADR and they refused.
I: The last thing is a general question about IMADR itself. In your opinion, what is IMADR currently
trying to achieve and where is the organisation going?
M: Projects that we are now putting a lot of stress on are the Global Action for Dalits and the two projects in Sri Lanka, one for the displaced women because of the war, and the other is protecting the rights of migrant women going abroad to the Middle Eastern countries especially and the project in Guatemala where we are working through the Mayan indigenous organisation and smaller projects in America, Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay to assist indigenous groups there. What we want to achieve is to facilitate the understanding of our members of the situations in these different countries and their problems and to try to come up with some kind of joint campaigns on which people can work on internationally in order to advance whatever interests they are pursuing in local projects whether India, Sri Lanka, Guatemala. That’s what we are trying to achieve.
The other thing which is very important but has been very difficult is to connect the local level activities with the international advocacy. There are many organisations based in Europe and the US working on the international level doing advocacy work but who have no direct ties with the grass roots movements but out uniqueness is that we have both grass roots peoples organisations and the structure to deal with international advocacy. But to connect these two levels is indeed very difficult for obvious reasons, for the people on the ground it’s very hard to imagine what the lobbyists are doing at the UN level. It’s so far away, although it has a close link to what they are doing on the ground, it’s just so difficult to imagine and to tie up with their own day to day activities. They are dealing with people [who] are dying or people [who are being] harassed. They have to survive day by day. And what the UN is doing, what we are doing at the UN level, it’s very difficult to tie up. Although I think any international advocacy must be based, grounded on the experiences of the grass roots movements. But how to link those two? We have been struggling, it’s very difficult.
I: So that’s one of IMADR’s goals right now then, trying to bring those
two levels closer together?
M: Right, right.
I: I guess the World Conference Against Racial Discrimination in Africa
will help.
M: Yes, that’s why we think this
conference is very important, we’re trying to do the two levels. One, very political professional lobbying
advocacy activities, but the other one will be more grass roots oriented,
bringing people together. Providing
people with space for meeting each other, getting to know each other and coming
up with some joint campaigns in the future.
So two quite different things we’re pursuing.
Interview Ends