Discrimination against Ainu in Japan

The Ainu argon a class of throng in northernern lacquer whose handed-down life was based upon a search- fishing and plant-gathering economy. Starting from the ordinal snow the Ainu suffered the opinionated encroachment and subsequent colonization by the japanese. After the Ainu Shinpo (new rightfulness) was enacted in 1997, there were hardly a(prenominal) positive changes square upn by Ainu mass in Hokkaido. However discrimination against the Ainu still is a major fond problem in life of indigenes.In this paper we will check into the conflicting narratives of identity, account statement and contemporary reality. enchantment broadly tracing the come outlines of Ainu history and the resolution of Hokkaido, the main boot is on the making and remaking of Ainu identity by whatever(prenominal) the dominant Nipponese and the Ainu themselves. By charge on the dynamics betwixt racialisation and tender mobilisation inside the context of compound relations of domina tion, we will con stancer Ainu culturality as a response to racism.Discrimination against Ainu in Japan The Ainu, desc stop overants of the earlyish inhabitants of Japan, were slowly muckle off the main is demesne over the historic layover and tied(p)tually settled in Hokkaido. Accounts of the take to the woods to conquer the Ainu appear in historic records as early as the one-eighth century. The office of the shogun was originally established to subject the barbarians, baseborning the Ainu (Nomura, 1996). In the Tokugawa period, for instance, the Tokugawa shogun allow affair rights to one of the northern feudal lords.The feudal domain gradually tightened its economic enclose over the is down, reducing the native Ainu to a condition of semislavery and compelling them to harvest oceanic products (FRPAC). Although altogether about eighteen grand of the Ainu now live in Hokkaido, the northern or so island of Japan, this commonwealth was much larger in the agone and their homeland included at least southern Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands, northern move of Honshu (the main island of Japan), and adjacent argonas.Despite outsiders frequent pulmonary tuberculosis of the blanket term the Ainu, Ainu civilisation was affluent in intraethnical variations (Seligman & Watanabe, 1963). Not only was their hunt club-gathering economy vastly diverse from that of their outlandish neighbors (the Nipponese, Koreans, and Chinese), they spoke a lyric of their own, and well-nigh of their physical characteristics were thought to distinguish them from their neighbors. The suspicion of Ainu identity continues to press today without a definitive answer (FRPAC). The Kurile Ainu were the hardest-hit victims of the Russians and the Nipponese the abide of them died in 1941.Sakhalin south of 50 N had been the homeland of the Sakhalin Ainu, while the stain north of 50 N belonged to the Gilyaks and stocker(a) pecks. The Sakhalin Ainu, estimated to expendit ure up been surrounded by 1,200 and 2,400 in subjugate during the prototypical half of the twentieth century, most seeming moved from Hokkaido, possibly as early as the first millennium A. D. , still definitely by the thirteenth century (Nomura, 1996). They were in close progress to with supposed native populations twain on Sakhalin and on the Amur, such as the Gilyaks, Oroks, and Nanays.The history of contact with outsiders is equally complicated for the Hokkaido Ainu, whose territory at a time included north-eastern Honshu. As the Nipponese rudimentary disposal was formed and its force grow toward the northeast, the Ainu were gradually pushed north a look from their territory (FRPAC). Systematic contact between the Ainu and the Nipponese started at the end of the sixteenth century with the establishment of the Matsumae clan, which claimed as its territory the south-western end of Hokkaido and the adjacent atomic number 18as.In 1799 the Matsumae territory in Hokkai do came nether the rank control of the Tokugawa shogunate for the invention of protecting Nipponese interests against Russian intricacy southward. Administrative control changed again in 1821 to the Matsumae and then back to the shogunate in 1854 (Nomura, 1996). Most drastic and enduring changes excessivelyk move lightly later the establishment of the Meiji regimen in 1868. It brought Hokkaido under the central presidencys direct administration and set out to shelter Nipponese firmness of purposes and develop the islands economy.The Ainu lost their land and their hunting and fishing rights. In holy order to Japanize the Ainu, the government banned traditional Ainu practices and oblige Ainu children to learn Nipponese in the drill system (Layland, 2000). In 1875 the central and northern Kuriles came under the political control of the Japanese government, which made several attempts to protect the Ainu, simply without success and practically with adverse feeling up on them (Nomura, 1996). The new government abolished the residential labor for both the Ainu and the Japanese, who could then live anywhere in Hokkaido.It withal advance the Japanese to immigrate to Hokkaido in order to practice its natural mental envisionrys. The Ainu were enrolled in the Japanese numerate registers and forced to attend Japanese civilizes established by the government. Beginning in 1883, the Ainu were uprooted from their settlements, granted plots of land more suited for agriculture, and encouraged to take up agriculture (Layland, 2000). In the post-World War II twelvemonths, a causal agency among the Ainu to conserve their culture, vocabulary, and way of life emerged.The lead of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido has requested the Japanese government to guarantee the basic rights of the Ainu mess and esteem their heathen and ethnic identity (Layland, 2000). just as the Ainu contacts with the Japanese went finished a series of historic changes, so d id the Japanese attitude toward them. Since the Ainu homeland is located in what used to be Japans northern limit a hinterland for many Japanese until recently the Ainu stood outside of the reflexive construction of the Japanese during earlier historical periods.By the eighteenth century, however, the Ainu had clearly become one of the marginalized up kingdom other(a)s within Japanese order of magnitude (Nomura, 1996). historic agents directly involved in this ferment were the Japanese governmental officials of different historical periods and the Japanese in the Ainu land. They viewed and represented the Ainu as uncivilized or unenlightened. But the primitive al slipway have a nonher side &8212 for some Japanese, especially those in separate of Japan distant from the Ainu homeland, the Ainu were and ar even today the exotic other.This is especially so with Ainu women, animateness in nature, whose deep-set eye had exotic sexuality a beaten(prenominal) picture in almost every geek of colonial-colonized or majority- minority relationship (Nomura, 1996). The Japanese perception and theatrical of the Ainu atomic number 18 most systematically expressed in a series of Ainu Japanese artists portrayals of the Ainu and their lives that appeared during a period of a little more than a century, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the mid 19th century, that is, at the height of Japanese efforts to colonize Ainu territory.The hallmarks of discreteness depicted in these paintings include hunting scenes, the rest ceremony, womens tattoos, mens body vibrissas-breadth and surviveds, and Ainu use of je heartyery. In contrast to the Japanese, whose deities are primarily plants, the supreme deity of the Ainu is the bear a sign of Ainu proximity to animals. The standstill the Japanese made between the Ainu and animals is withal seen in their painstaking representations of the bodies of Ainu.The Japanese, who do non have much body hair, often poi nt to the abundant body hair of the Ainu, as well as of Westerners, and use it as evidence that these people are close to animals (Layland, 2000). The dispossession of the Ainu, which had largely been fulfil by 1890 through the expropriation of Ainu land (and fishing grounds) as the primary economic resource on which colonial development was based, was transfer by the depicting of the Protection proceeding of 1899 (Nomura, 1996).With the Law for the Protection of Native Hokkaido Aborigines, a policy of assimilation was forced upon the Ainu. As a consequence, their social structure and living surround went through a number of drastic changes as restrictions were put on their usance, oral communication, and fashion of livelihood. The 1899 police contained new land policies that vio latterlyd the Ainus territorial integrity. It banned traditional subsistence strategies such as deer hunting and salmon fishing, and overly forced the Ainu to cultivate rice for the Japanese main land.The law also prohibited the practice of ancient Ainu customs and Ainu spoken communications with no writing system of their own, these prohibitions furthered the heathen destruction of Ainu orderliness. There has also been a high rate of marriage between Ainu and Japanese that has contributed further to the erosion of the Ainu language and culture. It is not surprising, then, that traditional Ainu society had been largely destroyed by the beginning of the twentieth century. In the last 100 years, Ainu traditional modus vivendis have largely disappeared, and their rights have been overlooked within Japanese society.The traditional Ainu settlement kotan sack no longer be seen, and the traditional grass thatch Ainu huts chise are almost non-existent, the exceptions being tourist plains where medicament and dance performances or handicraft souvenirs are offered (Weiner, 1997). The Protection make up focused on three main areas of Ainu policy agriculture, knowledge and w elfare assistance, notably in the area of medical care. Ainu families engaged, or wishing to engage, in agriculture were to be granted up to five hectares of un develop land as an allotment (kyuyochi) without charge (Article One).This did not mean full rights of ownership various restrictions were fit(p) on the transfer of the allotments which could not be sold or used to inexpugnable a mortgage, although they were exempt from land adaptation fees, local tax revenue and land tax for thirty years (Article Two). Land not developed within fifteen years, however, would be repossessed (Article Three). Agricultural tools and seeds were to be made addressable for needy families (Article Four). Education was to be provided through the medium of special Native Schools (Kyudojin gakko) to be constructed at bailiwick expense in Ainu villages (Article Nine).Financial assistance was available for school fees (Article Seven). For the destitute, sick, and people too old or too young to suppo rt themselves, medical fees would be paid. Funeral expenses were also covered (Articles Five and Six). few of the money for these measures was to come from the profits of Ainu communal property, which was under bureaucratic control, the rest from the national treasury (Articles Eight and Ten). Article football team empowered the Governor to issue natural law ordersfines and periods of imprisonmentwith regard to protection matters (Weiner, 1997).Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, interest in ethnic tourism and in the Ainu people began to grow. This increase researchs about the substance and meaning of Ainu cultural identity in relationship to the culture and identity of the more numerous Japanese. The image of Ainu with their traditional costumes and exotic facial features became increasingly prevalent through the development of tourism. crowd photographs taken with Ainu chiefs in traditional costumes reflected the spell with difference within the Japanese population.Many touristic souvenirs comprised Ainu bear woodc tons and couple dolls (Kindaiti, 1941). Thus, the increase in post-war tourism, and its focus on the Ainu as commodity and symbols of innate Japan, contributed in a positive way to some modest revitalization within the Ainu community, but also raised question about their position in the social and political hierarchy of Japan (Weiner, 1997). The earthly concern of the Ainu is virtually ignored elsewhere in the society, most conspicuously in the classroom.A constitution conducted in 1993 showed that only ten out of twenty high school Japanese history textbooks mentioned the background of contact between the Ainu and mainstream Japanese and the assimilation policies forced upon the Ainu since the nineteenth century only quad mentioned the Hokkaido antecedent Aborigines Protection Act (Weiner, 1997). However autochthonal rights are becoming more astray discussed and cultures of original peoples are becoming recognized throughout the world, the Ainu indigenous movement has also been raised to the international level, urging radical reforms to expand their leverage, recognition and rights at home.In 1993, the year before the International Year of the Worlds autochthonal People, Nomura Giiti, the President of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, was invited to participate in an international meeting organized by the United Nations (Layland, 2000). In his speech, Nomura shared Ainu concerns with other indigenous groups, including the experience of the Ainu under the Japanese governments policy of assimilation after the late 19th century. He called for the United Nations to set international standards against discrimination and support the Ainu people in negotiating with the Japanese government.The Ainu Shinpo (meaning new law) was drafted and proposed in 1984, and finally passed on 8 May 1997. It states that The law aims to realize the society in which the ethnic pride of the Ainu people is respected and to contribute to t he development of various cultures in our country, by the implementation of the measures for the promotion of Ainu culture, referring to the situation of Ainu traditions and culture from which the Ainu people ensure their ethnic pride Ainu goal in this law means the Ainu language music, dance, rafts and other cultural properties that have been genetical by the Ainu people as well as other cultural properties developed from these (Weiner, 1997). Thus, the Japanese government had finally disposed(p) limited formal recognition to the Ainu as the indigenous minority within Japanese territory, at least in Hokkaido. The planetary reaction from the Ainu at the time of the minute of the new law was that it was late in coming and did not include ample concrete change.Yet with this initial gradation, both Ainu and Japanese people assumed and anticipate more cultural preservation of language and traditions, as well as juristic protection for traditional land use, anti-discriminatio n policies, and a general good in Ainu social status. After the Ainu Shinpo was enacted in 1997, there were some positive changes seen by Ainu people in Hokkaido. They saw an increase in financial support for various kinds of cultural activities and conference, exhibition, and cultural exchanges with other indigenous groups in other countries increased.This provided the Ainu with opportunities to enhance their indigenous status in Japan, and to build contacts and share information with indigenous people some the world (Layland, 2000). With the portraying of the Ainu Culture advancement Law, the Japanese government took a significant step towards officially acknowledging the creation of the Ainu as an ethnic minority. The law is Japans first legislation to acknowledge the existence of an ethnic minority in the country and, unlike the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act which the new law replaces, the Ainu were involved in the process of its enactment.This preliminary mov e, however, stopped short of recognising the Ainu as an indigenous people as defined by the United Nations. The Hokkaido Ainu and so remain virtually invisible in a country they have inhabit for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. One venue that plays a vital role in the representation of the Ainu in Japan today is ethnic tourism, which centres on tourist villages scattered across Hokkaido (Layland, 2000).The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC) was established in 1997, almost at the same time as the enactment of the Ainu Shinpo. The FRPAC started with an endowment of JPY100 meg (of which JPY 90 million is from the Hokkaido government and JPY 10 million is from 62 municipalities in Hokkaido that include Ainu residents) allocated to support diverse activities (FRPAC). With their two offices in Hokkaido and Tokyo, FRPAC operates under the four basic policies in promoting Ainu cultural traditions in Japan and the rest of the world (Weiner, 1997).During t he past few years, FRPACs work has included providing different kinds of publications such as textbooks for primary and junior high schools, a handbook on place names (terminology) in Ainu language with relevant elaboration. Also, exhibition catalogues, monographs on Ainu history and culture (in different languages) for Japanese and foreigners, as well as other cerebrate materials, have been published with the support of FRPAC. A number of comprehensive exhibitions were co-sponsored by oversea institutes for the enhancement of public interest in Ainu culture in Japan (Weiner, 1997).According to the 1999 population survey, the percentage of Ainu students who attended high school was 95. 2%, that rose up from 69. 3% in 1979, and the percentage that went on to college was 16. 1%, from 8. 8% in 1979. These figures are glower than the 1999 national average figures of 97. 0 and 34. 5%, respectively (Layland, 2000). Despite some improvement during the last three decades, further step-d own of the education gap will be necessary for the improvement of the Ainus social status.Since the changes that occurred after the 1997, Ainu culture is now facing some other critical period. The survival of Ainu culture, whatever form it will take, depends on how the indigenous rights of Ainu are interpreted at both case-by-case and national levels on how seriously the Japanese government implements the laws protecting indigenous and minority rights and cultural heritage and on whether Ainu as other remain important to the Japanese in the articulation of their identity (Weiner, 1997).The Ainu Shinpo and institutions such as the Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture, already represent a step in a new direction in Ainu Japanese relations. The cultural park establishment as well as the reterritorialization of the iwor (traditional hunting ground of the Ainu) (in Hokkaido at least), represents some other concrete and progressive measure allowing the Ainu personal control of their natural resources, reaffirmation of their identity, and legitimization of their lifestyle and customs.Despite continuing challenges, we are sure to see new cultural forms generated from the interaction between Ainu self-determination and the larger Japanese society (Layland, 2000). Doubtlessly, what has changed most since the 1997 is the awareness among the Ainu that they need to preserve their cultural traditions for their descendants (Weiner, 1997). However, as declared above, there remain so few Ainu who are able to speak Ainu as their mother tongue, and most are no longer practicing their traditional ways.As in the case of other ethnic minority groups around the world, the Ainu in Japan require an environment in society in which they can express how they think and ask for what they expect. I think that exhibitions in Ainu museums, broadcast programs for Ainu language and cultural exchanges in the form of playacting arts have to be nonionized today. Then Ainu culture will be more visible and give people the impetus to think about what it means to be Ainu. The Ainu should adapt to modern ways since it is not easy or operable to live in the old ways.