How to Define Japanese Nationalism

That’s what “barely acknowledged” means.

Oh well, it’s still better than negative acknowledgment.

concerned Filipino,

I would still like to know what Eric means by the “very existence” of “minorities” being “barely acknowledged”. So far you have answered for him but that is an attempt at mind reading. I want to know what he means by this vague statement.

Ponta,

Are you really accusing Canada and Australia of “ultranationalism”?
Whatever, there are both similarities and differences between the way that indigenous peoples have been treated in Japan, and they way they have been treated in North America and Australia.
One difference is that the Japanese co-existed for a centuries, though not always peacefully, with the Ainu, but Europeans (mainly English of course) came very suddenly to colonize the latter places mentioned.
But, when Japan did embark on its own colonial expansion, rather than simply exploiting the lands (I have in mind Hokkaido and Okinawa) that it expanded into, there was a concerted effort made to completely assimulate the indigenous people. I once had an older Okinawan student, a retired university professor, who did a presentation in our English class on the “dialect tags” (方言札)that he remembered being forced to wear in kindergarten if he spoke Okinawan rather than Japanese. The dark side of that kind of assimilation is that it meant the erasure of both the indigenous culture and language of the people colonized. That erasure has very nearly been a complete success.
Another difference is education. People in North America and Australia get all kinds of information about how badly the indigenous poeples in their countries have been treated, both through education and popular culture. People in Japan gat all kinds of information about how badly the indigenous peoples have been treated…in North America and Australia.

Sorry.
p might might be wrong too.
→P might be wong too.
In other words, if it is not the case indeginious people of the US, and Canda etc is not an instance of Ultra-nationalism , it is not the case that Ainu is an instance of nationalism. That is what I am saying.

The problem higher rate of rape of Indigenous people
→The problem of higher rate of rape of Indigenous people…

As evidences,

Native American and Alaska Native American women
continued to suffer disproportionately high levels of
rape and sexual violence, but faced barriers
accessing justice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/28_05_08_amnesty.pdf

No future for some indigenous towns says intervention taskforce
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23898074-601,00.html

I am saying if Japan’s case is a case of nationalism, then it is not unreasonable to call the case of these countries the case of ultra-nationalism.
You don’t call it an instance of ultranationalism, in the U.S.and other countries while you wants to call Ainu as an instance of Japanese nationalism, do you?
I am asking if so, why.

But in truth, what I am wondering is if calling the minority issue the case of nationalism is adequate.

Okay recent　article on guardian says.

Saying sorry for slavery isn’t enough
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/31/race.usa

Really why？ Japan paid the reparations to the Korea and set up the houses for Burakumin and granted subsidies to Ainu.
Why not in the U.S and U.K.?
Is it related to U.S. and U.K nationalism?

Ponta,

By bringing up the “Stolen Generation” you are proving my point about the kind of information there is available about indigenous peoples in popular culture. The stolen generation is well known in Australia and around the world largely because of two Australian films: Philp Noyce’s “Rabbit Proof Fences” (2002) and Darlene Johnson’s “Stolen Generations” (2000).
Let’s look at Japan. Last month I was teaching an English class of two students, one of them a lawyer and the other an elementary school teacher. They are both very good English speakers, well-educated, well-informed, generally knowledgeable, and have opinions about things. I was using a textbook put out by Oxford University Press and the lesson that day started with a couple of questions. Here’s the first one:

“The Aborigines are a well-known minority group in Australia. Can you name any other indigenous populations and the countries they live in?”

The students had no trouble with this question. We discussed Native Americans, the Maori, and Hawaiians at length. Here’s the second question:

“Is there a group like this in your country? Who are they? What problems do they face? Will their traditions and way of life survive?”

Silence. I had to actually prompt the students by saying, “Well, what about the Ainu?” But these two well-educated, intellectually curious Japanese seemed to genuinely know very little about the indigenous people of their own country, while being very knowledgeable about those of some other countries.

Of course, teaching history is problematic because the enormous breadth of the subject necessitates picking and choosing what to teach. When I was in high school in America, there were three lessons that our teachers made a special effort to impress upon us by actually putting the textbooks away. One was the holocaust: a Jewish group came to our classroom to give us a special talk on the subject. The second was the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WWII: we were shown the T.V. movie “Farewell to Manzanar”, adapted from the 1972 novel that Jeanne Wakatsuki wrote with her husband, based on her experience as in intern in the Californian prison camp. The third was the unfair treatment of Native Americans: we were shown the 1975 T.V. movie “I Will Fight No More Forever”, the moving story of the Nez Perce’s narrowly thwarted bid to escape from Gen. Oliver Howard’s army into Canada.
As for American popular culture, the tome-like book “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” which chronicles the many atrocities committed against Native Americans in the late 19th century was a huge best-seller when it was released in 1970. “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” is also the title of a song by Buffy Sainte-Marie and the title of Albums by Gila and Yoriyos. There was a big change in the Hollywood depiction of “Indians” in the 1970s. The film “Little Big Man” starring Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George was released in 1970. It cast the Cheyenne, the tribe that was depicted in the story, in a very dignified light, and the “white man” as the real savage.
Anyway, my original point was that “the fact of the very existence of minorities in Japan is still barely acknowledged.” I think that’s true, but on the other hand the situation is vastly improved. I came to Japan at the tail end of the bubble economy when Prime Minister Takeshita was embroiled in the Recruit scandal. He was of course the successor of Yasuhiro Nakasone.
Nakasone explicitly denied the existence of minorities in this country, insisting that Japan was a 単一民族国家. I remember often being told during the bubble that Japan’s strength was being a “one race country” and that was the reason it was besting the U.S., a “mixed race country”, economically.
As I said earlier, the situation has vastly improved since those days. Speaking of “ethnic nationalism” in general, I haven’t heard anyone say that “Japan has a unique culture” for years. But still today, most Japanese know much more about how the Western powers have mistreated varous peoples in and outside of their countries than the way that Japan has mistreated various peoples inside and outside of Japan. Because I’ve seen great changes in the consciousness of the average Japanese toward minorities during the time I’ve lived here I’m confident that one day when colonization or indigenous populations are mentioned most Japanese will react by saying, “the Western powers did a lot of terrible things, but actually we’ve got a lot to answer for too”. But that is still in the future.

And don’t forget Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States voted against Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples but Japan promoted it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on_the_Rights_of_Indigenous_Peoples
And if you are interested in the how the minority perceive the movie in which the minority are on.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/%e7%99%bd%e4%ba%ba%e3%81%a3%e3%81%a6%e3%82%b5%e3%82%a1%e3%83%bb%e3%83%bb%e3%83%bb%e3%81%a9%e3%82%93%e3%81%a0%e3%81%91%e3%81%87%ef%bc%9f
the link provides a personal but honest opinion of it by the minority(I wonder why he wrote it in Japanese)

Ponta,

First of all, I don’t read the New York Times. I base what I say on my experiences in Japan. Secondly, you keep going off topic, and when you do, proving my point. I’m not talking about the treatment of minorities, I’m talking about the acknowledgment and also awareness of their existence in Japan.
When I came to Japan about 20 years ago, there was not just a lack of acknowledgement of their existence, there was outright denial of it. That is an extreme form of discrimination. Happily, in the last 20 years the situation has greatly improved. There is much less discrimination than there used to be. But there still are problems. The government delayed for much too long to designate the Ainu an indigenous people, and many Koreans born in Japan are still considered foreigners.
And, the situation in other countries regarding these issues is really immaterial: I was talking about Japan.

you keep going off topic, and when you do, proving my point

May I ask what what proved your point?
I have no intention to deny that there are probably still oppressed voices unheard in Japan,
I told that average Japanese as well as Americans didn’t have sufficient knowledge about the history of the minority.
I told that—you say I keep going off the topic– Japan built the houses for burakumin to improve their standard of living and grants subsidies for Ainu and promoted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and there are only 2.1% utari(ainu) who felt discriminations lately while in the U.S “[r]ampant sexual abuse at reservation schools continued until the end of the 1980s” —the times you say popular culture was acknowledging the tragic history of the minority—and still, “Native American and Alaska Native American women continued to suffer disproportionately high levels of rape and sexual violence, and yet, the U.S. rejected voting for the declaration on the right of Indigenous people, and I introduced an African descendant’s blog in which he denounced such movies as “GOODBYE BAFANA(2007)”"Dances with Wolves”(1990)”Battle of Mogadishu (1993) The Alamo (2004),The Four Feathers (2002)as hypocritical.
Remember American Indian’s voice about thanksgiving holiday?
I am inclined to judge on this matter by what they do rather than what they say. May I ask what point of yours I proved by keeping off the topics?
You say, ” People in North America and Australia get all kinds of information about how badly the indigenous peoples in their countries have been treated” Are you still sure?
You asked, “Are you really accusing Canada and Australia of “ultra-nationalism”?
And comforted by the facts above , now you say “the situation in other countries regarding these issues is really immaterial”
I am wondering why you hesitate to answer the simple question if the U.S. with the facts above is the country of nationalism, or even ultra-nationalism by your standard .
I am just asking to apply the same standard to your mother country. I am just asking to criticize Japan just as you criticize your mother country, checking facts, taking history context into consideration. Am I asking too much?