Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 33, October/November 1983
Japan is an imperialist nation which has for years past attempted to dominate oppressed nations in South East Asia. Today it has renewed that drive and become the major financial power in South East Asia. In addition it is embarking on a large scale arms build-up to defend its imperialist interests both from the oppressed nations and from its imperialist rivals. As with all imperialist nations racism is an intrinsic part of Japanese society. As this article, submitted by a Japanese comrade living in Britain shows, racism in Japan is directed against the peoples from nations oppressed by Japanese imperialism.
During the second imperialist war the Japanese government invaded many Asian countries. It caused enormous damage and devastation for which it has never even attempted to compensate these nations. On the contrary it now justifies the invasions and authorised school textbooks say that Japan ‘went into’ these countries. The word invade is banned and books containing it are censored.
Japanese imperialism has always oppressed Korea. It set up a puppet government and merged Korea into Japan. As ‘Japanese’ —although as second class Japanese — Korean people were forced to move to Japan to fill job vacancies caused by enforced conscription. They were sent to the most dangerous jobs such as mining. Countless people died from medical neglect, starvation and accidents. Today there is a ‘digging up movement’ to show the people’s history by excavating the mines and decently burying the murdered Koreans and other prisoners found there.
Those Koreans who managed to survive the war hoped to see the liberation of Korea after the war. But many could not return due to the confusion there and the later partition of Korea by US imperialism aided by the British Labour Government. Today, Koreans in Japan are discriminated against. They are obliged to have identity cards and when they are renewed, to give fingerprints. Even the Koreans who worked for the Army as enforced ‘Japanese’ cannot receive a soldier’s pension. Nor are Koreans included in the national pension and insurance system. They find it hard to get work and are forced into the worst jobs. Many are organising against this and groups fighting to defend Korean human rights are being set up.
There is also discrimination against the Ainus, whose islands were invaded by Japan. They were forced to leave their land without compensation so that the Japanese government could exploit the gold there. Since then they have been forced to live as an oppressed minority in Japan. The ownership of the Kuril Islands is disputed between Japan and the USSR. The Japanese government is campaigning to ‘recapture the northern islands indigenous to Japan from the USSR’. In doing so it is fanning anti-Soviet feeling and using it as a pretext to build up its armed forces. Are these islands indigenous to Japan? No. They were stolen from the Ainus!
Fierce racism is directed against the ‘Buraku’. In the past the lowest ranks were called ‘Senmin’ (today they are called ‘Burakmin’). They were treated like the Untouchables in the Indian caste system. Burakmin cannot work for small companies let alone the large firms that control the economy. Companies employ detectives to investigate applicants’ histories, particularly to check if they are Burakmin or Korean. Burakmin cannot get a job and have to live together for protection.
Why does racism not disappear? It is not enough to say that old-fashioned thought dies hard. Far from being old-fashioned racism is renewed by a ruling class and government which can fish in troubled waters. How can racism be overcome? The history of oppressed peoples’ struggle tells us. Before 1914 the Senmin (Burakmin) organised themselves and insisted that they are Senmin and that Senmin is great. Those who take their position at the lowest can shoot furthest!
Seiju Nakajima
