Maidhc's Journal

The Folly of Japanese Foreign Policy

2007-01-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

Maidhc Ó Cathail studies peace with Johan Galtung

Japan’s foreign policy is “totally insane,” according to one of the world’s leading peacemakers. Speaking locally last October, Johan Galtung, the Norwegian pioneer of peace and conflict research, said it is “madness” for Japan to “risk falling between the two stools” of a declining American empire and an emerging East Asian community.

Galtung, the 76-year-old veteran mediator of over 50 conflicts around the world, was in Osaka to conduct a workshop for Transcend, an NGO he co-founded in 1993. The group’s mission is “to bring about a more peaceful world by using action, education/training, dissemination and research to handle conflicts creatively and nonviolently.”

In a public lecture entitled “Searching for Another East Asian Community,” Galtung focused on the North Korean nuclear test claim of October 9, and the impact this would have on his vision of an East Asian Community, envisaged along the lines of the European Union. Speaking in English, Galtung was interpreted by his wife, Fumiko Nishimura, a former UNESCO official, and his colleague at Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University.

“We are in a period of regionalisation, not globalisation,” Galtung said. An East Asian community is inevitable, he said, but Japan may not be a member unless it first “reconciles” with its neighbours. Reconciliation, Galtung said, would require the Japanese government to introduce “decent textbooks,” stop the “Yasukuni provocations,” and “learn to occasionally say no to the United States.”

Galtung repeatedly criticised the role of the media in conflicts. “Japanese are very badly informed about the world,” he said. For this, he blamed the organisation of Japanese media, with its clubs for each ministry, which allows the Foreign Ministry to “indoctrinate” journalists. “You will be exposed to years of propaganda,” Galtung said, referring to his belief that the government wishes to develop nuclear weapons. “And you will never hear the points I’m making - until you get an independent media.”

Galtung, visibly enraged, called for the resignation of Kyoto University professor of international politics Terumasa Nakanishi, who advocated Japan’s nuclearisation in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. He accused Professor Nakanishi, an outside advisor to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, of misunderstanding the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis. That crisis was solved not by a U.S. threat to use its weapons against the U.S.S.R., Galtung said, but by the U.S. compromise of removing its threatening nuclear weapons from Turkey. Likewise, the North Korean nuclear issue would not be helped, he argued, by Japan developing its own nuclear capability. The only solution, according to Galtung, is bilateral negotiations between the United States and North Korea leading to a peace treaty.

The United States has employed a divide-and-conquer strategy in East Asia, Galtung said. Fear of Japan and China becoming friends
was America’s greatest “nightmare,” according to Eugene Rostow, a high-ranking State Department official during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Thus, keeping these two East Asian giants at loggerheads has been the core of U.S. policy, Galtung asserted. “They wanted to keep that enmity,” he said. “For that reason they need North Korea. In that sense, the nuclear bomb came in very handy for them.”

Galtung contrasted the attitudes of North Korea and Japan toward the United States. While North Korea is unwilling to submit to Washington, Galtung maintained that Japan “wants to be treated like a beaten dog.” Why does Japan act so submissively? “You get used to it,” he said. “Where is my master? And they expect the stick in case they show any independence. And they use that stick in order not to become independent.”

“That means one needs more mature politicians,” Galtung added. As an example, he praised Spain’s Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, for his courage to defy the United States by withdrawing Spanish soldiers from Iraq. What Japan needs is a Japanese Zapatero, he seemed to be suggesting. Galtung was unwilling to comment, however, on whether the Yamazaki faction of the LDP, which invited him to speak in June, might produce such a leader.

As to what Japanese people could do, Galtung wistfully recalled the success of the once massive Japanese peace movement in preventing a visit by President Eisenhower in 1960. “Condi Rice is coming on a weekly basis,” he informed his listeners, mischievously adding, “So there will be a need for much activity.”

Despite acknowledging the seriousness of Japan’s worsening relations with its neighbours, Galtung closed on an optimistic note. “It can all be stopped by a courageous approach,” he said.

In 2000, Galtung predicted that the U.S. empire would fall in 2025, later revising it to 2020 a few months into George W. Bush’s presidency. Considering that he anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union ten years before the event, perhaps Japan should start making alternative plans for its security. Galtung believes that membership of an East Asian Community is “the best future” for Japan. But first it must loosen its ties to a “crumbling” American empire. How likely is Japan to liberate itself from its postwar keeper? As Galtung, with typical candour, put it, “A rat with sufficient sense should leave a sinking ship.”

Educating for the Next War

2007-01-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

Maidhc Ó Cathail studies the government’s education reforms

Revision of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution is passionately resisted by those who fear the country’s remilitarization, but the government’s proposed amendment of the Fundamental Law of Education could be equally fatal to Japanese pacifism.

No less an authority than the chief founder of the Japanese army and Meiji Prime Minister, Yamagata Aritomo, thought that education, as a means of inculcating patriotism, was as essential as military preparation in the preservation of Japanese interests. And the wars that followed from the pursuit of those perceived
national interests were, as Horio Teruhisa has argued, the “logical and necessary outcome” of the Meiji educational system.

And now it seems that Japan’s rulers are hell-bent on repeating the sins of their grandfathers, by finally dumping the post-war democratic reforms in education, which successive governments have persistently attempted to subvert, and replacing them with something that disturbingly resembles the pre-war patriotic education regime, epitomized by the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) which exhorted subjects: “should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State.”

An editorial in the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun on April 29, 2006 casually dismissed such concerns: “Looking back at Japan’s history as a pacifist country since the end of World War II, it no longer makes sense to drag up the spectre of pre-war Japan.” But with Koizumi’s provocative visits to Yasukuni; his successor, Abe Shinzo, threatening pre-emptive strikes against North Korea; and the strengthening military alliance with an imperialist United States, the spectre of pre-war Japan is increasingly haunting Asia.

Most media controversy surrounding the proposed amendment to the Fundamental Law of Education (1947) focused people’s attention on the inclusion of “patriotism.” The changes planned for Article 1 are, however, even more revealing of the government’s illiberal conception of education, and seem to indicate their desire to use it as a means to mobilize the nation for war yet again.

The authors of the existing Fundamental Law believed that citizens educated to think for themselves would be an effective bulwark against the re-emergence of a militaristic Japan, so Article 1 sets out the aim of education as the development of people “who shall love truth and justice, esteem individual value, respect labour, have a deep sense of responsibility, and be imbued with an independent spirit.”

Yet in the government’s bill, all these liberal values are replaced by a disconcertingly vague “necessary natural endowments.” Given the increasing rhetoric from LDP politicians about the need to restore “pre-war values”, isn’t it safe to assume that these “necessary natural endowments” might include unquestioning loyalty and selfless dedication to the state?

Far less credible are some of the reasons the government has given for educational reform. In a country whose schools are infamous for their conformity, the LDP blames Japan’s burgeoning social problems on the “excesses of individualism,” supposedly a legacy of the post-war education system, which is slyly derided as a foreign imposition. “We are still under the mind control of the occupiers,” says Abe Shinzo, appealing to chauvinist sentiment. But he has no such qualms about deepening military dependence on those same occupiers. And while liberalism may be a foreign concept to Japanese elitists, liberal ideas of education were debated here long before the Occupation.

To better understand the educational options open to Japan, Horio Teruhisa’s Educational Thought and Ideology in Modern Japan is an indispensable guide. Horio views the history of modern Japanese education as an ongoing struggle between two fundamentally opposed philosophies of education, which imply conflicting views on the proper relationship of the individual to the state: the conservative believes the purpose of schooling is to produce obedient citizens for the state; and the liberal counters that education should foster critical individuals, who ensure the state does the right thing. This tug-of-war for the minds of Japanese children can be traced to the debate over the aim of education exemplified by two prominent Meiji intellectuals and politicians, Mori Arinori and Fukuzawa Yukichi.

“Education,” according to Japan’s first Minister of Education Mori, “should not be undertaken in response to the demands of the child himself, but must be moved entirely by the direction of others.”
For such advocates of “enlightenment from above,” education (kyouiku) was to serve as a means of producing virtuous subjects (shinmin) who were primed to “willingly give their lives for the State.” Scholarship (gakumon) was to be the preserve of an elite who would be trained to govern these “educated” masses.

Fukuzawa (who is on the 10,000 yen bill), on the other hand, advocated “enlightenment from below.” In Fukuzawa’s thinking, there was no opposition between the needs of the state and the needs of the individual; on the contrary, a healthy state requires dissenting
citizens. In contrast with Mori’s paternalism, he believed that, “All of the citizens of the nation must join in political discussions and come to hold their own ideas on what constitutes good politics and good government.”

As it was in the late 1880s, Japan is once again at a political crossroads. And the educational choices before it now are remarkably similar to what they were then. If Japan reverts to the authoritarian path of Mori, a people “educated” not to question authority could be more easily led to war again. But if it chooses to wholeheartedly pursue the liberal educational vision of Fukuzawa, an independent-minded Japanese generation might finally be able to earn the trust of its neighbours and ensure peaceful coexistence in the region.

Japanese ODA: Who Benefits? (Revised)

2006-06-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

Maidhc O'Cathail takes a critical look at Japanese
development aid

Japan celebrated 50 years of Official Development
Assistance (ODA) in 2004. The world's second largest
donor, Japan has disbursed over $230 billion in the
last five decades. So it would seem that Japan has
good reason to feel proud of its generosity to less
fortunate nations. But who benefits from Japanese ODA?
How effective is it? And to what extent is it
motivated by humanitarianism?

"ODA is administered with the primary objective of
promoting the economic development and welfare of
developing countries. Every donor country has the
obligation to uphold this principle," wrote Kazuo
Sunaga, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a 2004
discussion paper titled The Reshaping of Japan's
Official Development Assistance (ODA) Charter.

But is this just empty rhetoric? It appears so. According to Euroact
Japan Ltd., which offers consulting services to
companies on the tendering process for lucrative ODA
projects, “Since the [ODA] Charter does not have force
of law, it can be - and in fact is - applied rather
flexibly.”

A 1998 comparative study on bilateral aid entitled Who
Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why? is also at variance
with official ODA pronouncements. The study criticises Japan as a donor which seems "to care mostly about UN votes", does "not particularly reward good policies or institutions", and is "less reactive than other donors to the income level of the recipients.” But most damningly, it finds that Japanese aid “has little relationship to poverty or democracy."

Moreover, Japan ties “a relatively large amount of
aid” to the condition that the recipient uses it to
buy products from Japan, according to a United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) report, Aid in the 21st
Century. "Recipient countries lose out from tied aid
on several counts. The absence of open market
tendering means they are denied the opportunity to get
the same goods and services at a lower price
elsewhere," explains the UNDP report, which estimates the cost of tied aid at $2.6 billion a year for low-income countries.

Despite ODA being a honeypot for many sogo shosha
(large trading firms like Sumitomo, Mitsui, and
Mitsubishi), Japan still fails to meet its
international obligations to the poor. Although the UN
Millennium target for development aid is 0.7 per cent
of Gross National Income (GNI), Japan contributed only
0.19 per cent of its GNI in 2004. That's a mere 19 yen
in every 10,000 yen that its economy produces. Only
the United States and Italy are more niggardly toward
the poorest.

One might expect more generosity from Japan, the only
G7 country to have once received ODA. And contrary to
its self-image as a peace-loving nation, Japan spends
almost five times more on its military than it does on
development aid.

On 19 January 2006 Foreign Minister Taro Aso gave a
speech with the instructive title "ODA: Sympathy is
not merely for others’ sake." After quoting the
Japanese proverb “Nasake wa hito no tame narazu” (One
who is kind to others is bound to be rewarded), Aso
defended a less altruistic motive for aid: “ODA is
essentially about having other countries first use the
precious money of the Japanese people for the benefit
of the Japanese people later on.” One might add that some Japanese people - namely, the LDP, Keiretsu (big business) and bureaucratic Iron Triangle - are more likely to benefit than others.

Aso identified two types of benefits for Japan. First,
he defended Japan’s "chequebook diplomacy" as a means
of spreading Japanese values such as what he called
“Japan's original philosophy on labour.”

Aso referred to the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters)
in which Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess, saw gods
working in heaven. “Given that even the gods work,
labour is regarded as a natural deed that will do good
to the people,” Aso concluded, as if this were a
uniquely Japanese perspective.

The Foreign Minister’s two years spent mining diamonds
for his family business in Sierra Leone in the early
1970s seems to have confirmed his prejudice about the
superiority of Japanese ways. “I did not see many
Europeans or Americans who worked hard together with
the local people, contrary to Japanese people,” Aso
recalled.

Having established the cultural benefit to Japan of
disseminating its superior work ethic to the world,
Minister Aso went on to describe the strategic
benefits of “sympathy”.

In India, the largest recipient of yen loans for the
past three years, Aso witnessed the construction of an
ODA-funded subway system in Delhi. India is
collaborating with Japan on UN reform, he said. Both
countries have been seeking permanent seats on the UN
Security Council.

And helping to build Pakistan's infrastructure, the
Foreign Minister said, would create “stability in Afghanistan
and central Asia and also has the value of conserving the
distribution routes in the surrounding region,” . Japan, in
other words, needs Pakistan to help feed its oil habit.

China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and India -
the top five recipients of Japanese ODA in 2003-04 -
are countries with varying commitment to democracy and
human rights, and significantly none of them are among
the world's 50 Least Developed Countries - those who
are most in need of assistance.

Even more disturbing is Japan’s willingness to aid
authoritarian regimes like that of Islam Karimov’s Uzbekistan,
widely condemned for its complete disregard of human rights.
Most infamously, the central Asian government is alleged to have
boiled to death two Muslim prisoners after they refused to stop
praying.

The 2003 Revised ODA Charter lists four priority
issues : poverty reduction, sustainable growth,
addressing global issues, and peace-building.

But is Japan’s own economic growth sustainable?
On a per-capita basis, Japan uses 2.7 times more than
its fair share of the world’s energy resources. It has
an average ecological footprint of 4.3 hectares,
almost double the global average. That’s how much land
and water area a given population occupies to produce
all the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste.
There are only 1.8 hectares available to each person
in the world. If everyone on Earth were to live like
the Japanese, we would need nearly two and half
planets.

Thus, Japan’s promotion of “sustainable growth” through
its ODA might better be understood as an export of its
doken kokka (construction state) and unsustainable lifestyle
to its “less-developed” neighbours. Indeed, Taro Aso’s
enthusiasm for ODA construction projects may not be
unrelated to the fact that his brother is CEO of Lafarge-ASO
Cement Co., the world’s largest producer of cement.

Research by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) also
raises doubts about the compatibility of the ODA’s
priority issues of poverty reduction and “sustainable”
growth. The report entitled Growth Isn't Working,
released in January 2006, argues that redistribution
of wealth, not growth, is the key to reducing poverty.
”Redistributing just one per cent of the income of the
richest 20 per cent of the world's population,” the
report claims, “would have the same benefit as world
growth of 20 per cent without redistribution.”

Donor countries generally give aid because it is in
their own interest to do so. Japan is no different,
though it appears to be particularly self-serving. The
Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 21 of the
world's richest countries based on their dedication to
policies that benefit poor nations. Japan ranked last
for the past three years.

Japanese ODA: Who Benefits?

2006-03-30T07:27:00.000-08:00

Maidhc O'Cathail takes a critical look at Japanese
development aid

Japan celebrated 50 years of Official Development
Assistance (ODA) in 2004. The world's second largest
donor, Japan has disbursed over $230 billion in the
last five decades. So it would seem that Japan has
good reason to feel proud of its generosity to less
fortunate nations. But who benefits from Japanese ODA?
How effective is it? And to what extent is it
motivated by humanitarianism?

"ODA is administered with the primary objective of
promoting the economic development and welfare of
developing countries. Every donor country has the
obligation to uphold this principle," wrote Kazuo
Sunaga, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a 2004
discussion paper titled The Reshaping of Japan's
Official Development Assistance (ODA) Charter.

But is this just empty rhetoric? According to Euroact
Japan Ltd., which offers consulting services to
companies on the tendering process for lucrative ODA
projects, “Since the [ODA] Charter does not have force
of law, it can be - and in fact is - applied rather
flexibly.”

A 1998 comparative study on bilateral aid entitled Who
Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why? is also at variance
with official ODA pronouncements. It criticises Japan
as a donor which seems "to care mostly about UN
votes", does "not particularly reward good policies or
institutions", and is "less reactive than other donors
to the income level of the recipients.” But most
damningly, it finds that Japanese aid “has little
relationship to poverty or democracy."

Moreover, Japan ties “a relatively large amount of
aid” to the condition that the recipient uses it to
buy products from Japan, according to a United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) report, Aid in the 21st
Century. "Recipient countries lose out from tied aid
on several counts. The absence of open market
tendering means they are denied the opportunity to get
the same goods and services at a lower price
elsewhere." The UNDP report estimates the cost of tied
aid at $2.6 billion a year for low-income countries.

Despite ODA being a honeypot for many sogo shosha
(large trading firms like Sumitomo, Mitsui, and
Mitsubishi), Japan still fails to meet its
international obligations to the poor. Although the UN
Millennium target for development aid is 0.7 per cent
of Gross National Income (GNI), Japan contributed only
0.19 per cent of its GNI in 2004. That's a mere 19 yen
in every 10,000 yen that its economy produces. Only
the United States and Italy are more niggardly toward
the poorest.

One might expect more generosity from Japan, the only
G7 country to have once received ODA. And contrary to
its self-image as a peace-loving nation, Japan spends
almost five times more on its military than it does on
development aid.

On 19 January 2006 Foreign Minister Taro Aso gave a
speech with the instructive title "ODA: Sympathy is
not merely for others’ sake." After quoting the
Japanese proverb “Nasake wa hito no tame narazu” (One
who is kind to others is bound to be rewarded), Aso
proclaimed a less altruistic motive for aid. “ODA is
essentially about having other countries first use the
precious money of the Japanese people for the benefit
of the Japanese people later on.”

Aso identified two types of benefits for Japan. First,
he defended Japan’s "chequebook diplomacy" as a means
of spreading Japanese values such as what he called
“Japan's original philosophy on labour.”

Aso referred to the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters)
in which Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess, saw gods
working in heaven. “Given that even the gods work,
labor is regarded as a natural deed that will do good
to the people,” Aso concluded, as if it were a
uniquely Japanese perspective.

The Foreign Minister’s two years spent mining diamonds
for his family business in Sierra Leone in the early
1970s seems to have confirmed his prejudice about the
superiority of Japanese ways. “I did not see many
Europeans or Americans who worked hard together with
the local people, contrary to Japanese people,” Aso
recalled. “While I should refrain from generalizing, I
can say that it was only us Japanese who had taken an
approach to work together with the local people,
eye-to-eye.”

Having established the cultural benefit to Japan of
disseminating its superior work ethic to the world,
Minister Aso went on to describe the strategic
benefits of “sympathy”.

In India, the largest recipient of yen loans for the
past three years, Aso witnessed the construction of an
ODA-funded subway system in Delhi. India is
collaborating with Japan on UN reform, he said. Both
countries have been seeking permanent seats on the UN
Security Council.

And helping to build Pakistan's infrastructure would
create “stability in Afghanistan and central Asia and
also has the value of conserving the distribution
routes in the surrounding region,” the Foreign
Minister said. Japan, in other words, needs Pakistan
to ensure the oil keeps flowing to fuel Japan’s
enormous production and consumption.

China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and India -
the top five recipients of Japanese ODA in 2003-04 -
are countries with varying commitment to democracy and
human rights, and significantly none of them are among
the world's 50 Least Developed Countries - those who
are most in need of assistance.

The 2003 Revised ODA Charter lists four priority
issues : poverty reduction, sustainable growth,
addressing global issues, and peace-building.

But is Japan a good role model for sustainable growth?
On a per-capita basis, Japan uses 2.7 times more than
its fair share of the world’s energy resources. It has
an average ecological footprint of 4.3 hectares,
almost double the global average. That’s how much land
and water area a given population occupies to produce
all the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste.
There are only 1.8 hectares available to each person
in the world. If everyone on Earth were to live like
the Japanese, we would need nearly two and half
planets. Clearly, it's not ecological sustainability
that the ODA Charter means by “sustainable growth.”

Research by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) also
raises doubts about the compatibility of the ODA’s
priority issues of poverty reduction and “sustainable”
growth. The report entitled Growth isn't Working,
released in January 2006, argues that redistribution
of wealth not growth is the key to reducing poverty.
”Redistributing just one per cent of the income of the
richest 20 per cent of the world's population,” the
report claims, “would have the same benefit as world
growth of 20 per cent without redistribution.”

Nef concludes that our current economic obsession with
growth is not only the “self-serving rhetoric of the
rich,” but ultimately self-destructive: “We cannot
afford to continue with a system which sacrifices the
environment on which we all depend for our very
survival to give yet more to those who already have
too much, in the hope that a few more crumbs will fall
from the rich man's table.”

Donor countries generally give aid because it is in
their own interest to do so. Japan is no different,
though it appears to be particularly self-serving. The
Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 21 of the
world's richest countries based on their dedication to
policies that benefit poor nations. Japan ranked last for the past three years.

Shopping While They Drop

2006-01-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

Maidhc Ó Cathail interviews filmmaker Jenise Treuting

Have you heard the one about the police inspector who helped protestors write their slogans? No, it’s not an Irish joke! It actually happened during Bush’s recent visit to Kyoto. Jenise Treuting, who organized the protest, wanted to write “Kyoto rejects you too, Bush” in Japanese, so she asked the chain-smoking man she thought was a Hankyu department store executive to write “kyohi” (reject). He kindly obliged, and then inquired, “Jenise-san, aren’t you cold?” The concerned stranger who knew her name introduced himself. Assigned to observe the protest, M-san had clearly done his homework.

A graduate of Ritsumeikan University and working as a freelance translator, Jenise Treuting has just made her first documentary. In Ultimatums and Invitations, her interviews with ordinary Americans and Japanese (on the streets of Kyoto, San Francisco and New York) about their perceptions of each other provide a fascinating insight into the love-hate relationship between these peoples, while subverting many of the familiar stereotypes.

Despite being interviewed by an American, many of the Japanese respondents didn’t hesitate to criticize America. “I was surprised by how forthright many of them were,” Treuting said. Americans also defied her expectations. “The stereotype, I think, is that Americans always have an opinion on everything. But many said they didn’t know, or didn’t have enough information to form an opinion.”

The “ultimatums” in the film title partly refer to the neo-conservative attitude toward the world, typified by Thucydides’ words in the Melian Dialogue: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Merging the political with the personal, Treuting draws an analogy between Bush’s ultimatums to Saddam and her own impatience with her Japanese husband’s procrastination. It might not be a comforting thought, but she believes, “Our leaders are not so different from ourselves.”

The success of the neocons’ imperial project may ultimately depend on an “invitation to empire” from the weak, the “invitations” in the second half of Treuting’s title. “Americans are like movie stars,” says a middle-aged Japanese man. A group of Kyoto teenagers express their devotion to hip-hop in their words and dress. America’s attractiveness to foreigners is what political scientist Joseph Nye calls its “soft power.” Without it, Treuting’s film suggests, America’s “hard” military power might founder.

Newspaper headlines documenting both US intransigence and Japanese support for the Iraq war, are juxtaposed with mundane scenes of people on trains, bicycles and escalators going about their business. “I wanted to depict the disconnect between our daily lives and the destruction we are ultimately responsible for in other countries,” Treuting explains.

An understandable and common reaction to all this destruction is despair. Jenise Treuting, however, eschews despair, and hopes her film will highlight our responsibility for the perilous state of the world. “People are killing and dying while we’re shopping and going to work, because we are letting them do this.”

If you would like information about screenings of the documentary or to get a DVD of Ultimatums and Invitations, you can e-mail Jenise Treuting: jenise_treuting@yahoo.co.jp

God’s Politics

2005-06-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

If I said to you, I’m reading God’s Politics by American evangelical Jim Wallis, how might you react? If you were a liberal, you might think, “Not another paean to Bush’s divinely ordained rule!” Or if you were a conservative, you might think, “Thank God! Here’s a decent book that celebrates America’s goodness.” But you’d both be wrong.

Then, what the hell is God’s politics, you might ask? Well, as the book’s subtitle “Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It” indicates, the author damns both Republicans and Democrats: the former for warping Jesus into a pro-rich, pro-war apologist; the latter for failing to see the potential of progressive religion to transform the political discourse. But faith should not be partisan: “The best public contribution of religion,” he believes, “is precisely not to be ideologically predictable.”

Wallis challenges secularists who see religion as inimical to a peaceful and sustainable world. He reminds us that “Be not afraid” were the words spoken most frequently by Jesus, words significantly absent in George’s gospel. As Thomas Merton observed, “The root of war is fear.”

More importantly, evangelicals are becoming increasingly concerned about “the stewardship of creation,” Wallis argues. Humanity desperately needs an ecological vision that can unite believers and non-believers to ensure our survival. To quote the Good Book, “Without a vision, the people perish.”

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an educator and freelance journalist living in Osaka.

Hope at the End of the Rainbow

2005-06-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

When Milan Kundera wrote, “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” he might well have been referring to the Karenni.

An indigenous people from the Burma-Thai border, who are among the least known of the forty-five million refugees in today’s world, the Karenni call themselves “the forgotten people.” Not forgotten, however, by the Karenni Rainbow Foundation (KnRF), a group of Kansai residents who struggle to counter that oblivion by their tireless campaigning.

Orwell once described Burma as an “earthly paradise,” but for many Burmese it has been a living hell since the military junta took over soon after independence in 1948. The regime has been accused of forcible relocation, the use of forced labour, and more recently, the use of chemical weapons. The ethnic minorities, such as the Mon, Shan, Karen, and Karenni peoples, are the most damned.

The Karenni have a saying: “Give bread to those who are hungry. To us who have bread give a hunger for justice.”　With such a “hunger for justice,” Fiona Eastley joined the charity organization a year after it started in 1998, and is renowned in Kansai for her fundraising efforts. So far, the group has raised more than ６million yen.

This money is used to fund community-based projects, such as adult literacy programmes; educational projects, one of which enabled the first Karenni student to leave the refugee camps to study for a higher education; emergency assistance to those internally displaced by the Burmese military, often as a result of development projects funded by Japanese ODA; and international liaison development, which allows Karenni leaders to promote their cause overseas.

The KnRF is a group of energetic activists who meet one Sunday each month in Tenjimbashisuji 6-chome, Osaka to discuss the progress of their projects in Thailand as well as to organize various fundraisers, which include a monthly lecture series for high-level English learners held in Suita Workers Center (Kinroushakaikan).

“It’s a great group for anyone who wants to learn about the Karenni (or refugee issues in general),” enthused JET teacher Sarah Fick, “and to meet some cool, knowledgeable, passionate, committed and fun people in the Kansai area.” Dance instructor Elizabeth Rose acknowledged that her involvement “somewhat mitigates my relatively extravagant cushy existence of English teaching in Japan.”

Although meetings are conducted in English, this is not a gaijin-only club: Tadayuki Kubo, an anthropology student, reported on his experience of spending seven months with the Karenni refugees in Mae Hong Son, Thailand; later, history teacher Makoto Uchida told me the difference between Karenni, Karen, Kayah and Kayan (which would take a separate article to explain). And they always welcome new members to add even more colour to this Rainbow.

“They make you realize the insignificance of our little daily complaints and the importance of loving life,” Ms. Eastley said of the Karenni. In spite of their having endured decades of human rights abuses, she praised them as “the most generous, positive people I have ever met.”

One could say the same about the members of the Karenni Rainbow Foundation. And due to their ceaseless efforts to remind us of a largely forgotten people, there may be some hope at the end of the rainbow for the long-suffering Karenni.

The Karenni Rainbow Foundation meets one Sunday each month in Tenjimbashisuji 6-chome from 11:00 to 13:00. For more information, contact Fiona at 070-5436-3469, Uchida-san at 06-6921-7375 (in Japanese) or e-mail karennirainbow@yahoo.com.

The Cinema Shall Set You Free

2005-06-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

“Political language,” wrote George Orwell, “makes lies truthful and murder respectable.” The recent slew of American films which accuse the Bush administration and the corporate media of doublespeak can now be seen and discussed at the political movie night run by the Democrats Abroad Japan Kansai (DAJK).

Inspired by their successful showing of Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine in April 2004, the DAJK political movie night has been a regular monthly event every third Thursday at Osaka’s Tocca a Te since July when they screened Robert Greenwald’s debunking documentary, Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War.

Ron Andrews, who organizes the film night, sees it as an enjoyable way to “share with interested people films that express or explore some of the political issues facing us all today, since politics affects all aspects of our lives.” Ron makes no apology for the “democratic” bias of the films: “I feel it's necessary to take a side – evolving it as new info and awareness emerge - and then continually fight for what you believe in, preferably from a stance that benefits more than just you alone.”

Another objective is promoting awareness as a crucial first step to becoming active members of our global community. Ron hopes it will provide a forum “to explore and share with each other such core progressive values as freedom, fairness, open communication, community-building, cooperation, honesty and trust.” The movie nights are open to all, regardless of nationality or political inclination, making them “one small but effective outlet” to cultivate what Bertrand Russell called “a vivid sense of citizenship of the world”.

“Question authority. Examine the status quo. Expose the truth.” Guided by the these “mantras” in choosing the films he plans to show, Ron’s list is impressive: Mark Crispin Miller’s A Patriot Act and Noam Chomsky’s Distorted Morality: America’s War on Terror scrutinize Bush’s America; the upcoming The Ground Truth, Control Room and WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception probe the Iraq war; and La Battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers), the classic study of anti-colonial revolution, should be chastening viewing for would-be imperialists.

Tired of war? Then, there’s The Take, written by the nemesis of corporate globalization Naomi Klein, which documents the struggle of Argentinean workers to prevent the closure of their factory; and globalization is satirized in The Yes Men (2003), two pranksters whose parody of the World Trade Organization website was so convincing, they were invited to numerous conferences as bona fide WTO representatives.

Following its screening of The Fog of War in February, the DAJK movie night honours St. Patrick this month with its seasonable showing of Bloody Sunday on March 17. Paul Greengrass’ award-winning documentary-style drama depicts the shooting dead of thirteen civilians by British paratroopers during a protest march against internment without trial in Derry on January 30, 1972. Ireland’s Fallujah offers a salutary lesson to those who trust in punitive military force as the remedy for terrorism.

In The Roots of War and Terror, Anthony Stevens warns that “life on this planet has become a race between consciousness and catastrophe.” Attending the DAJK political movie night at Tocca a Te is one way to ensure consciousness expands sufficiently to win that race for survival.

Bloody Sunday will be shown on March 17 (Thu) at 7 pm (doors open at 6) at Tocca a Te in Umeda. Check the map on their website: www.toccaate.com. Tel/Fax: 06-6365-5808. Admission is ￥1,000, which includes a free drink and free homemade popcorn. Open discussion after the film. Visit www.demsjapan.jp or e-mail kansai-movies@demsjapan.jp for flyers and further information on the DAJK movie night.