Discrimination against Ainu in Japan

The Ainu atomic turn 18 a group of plurality in Union lacquer whose conventional purport was based upon a hunting-fishing and plant-gathering economy. Starting from the eighteenth coulomb the Ainu suffered the organizationatic encroachment and accompanying colonization by the Nipp one and only(a)se. After the Ainu Shinpo ( smart legality) was enacted in 1997, in that respect were close to exacting changes seen by Ainu community in Hokkaido. just dissimilarity against the Ainu still is a major decenniumder problem in feeling of indigenes.In this report card we pull up stakes investigate the conflicting narratives of in stealability, report and contemporary reality. While broadly analyze the exposelines of Ainu register and the colonisation of Hokkaido, the main(prenominal) commission is on the making and remaking of Ainu personal identity element by twain the dominant Nipponese and the Ainu themselves. By focusing on the kinetics surrounded by racial isation and cordial mobilisation at heart the context of colonial relations of domination, we allow for consider Ainu ethnicity as a reaction to racism.Discrimination against Ainu in lacquer The Ainu, descendants of the earlier inhabitants of Japan, were slowly driven off the main is belt down over the years and eventually colonised in Hokkaido. Accounts of the campaign to conquer the Ainu push by dint of in historic records as advance(prenominal) as the eighth century. The office of the shogun was before established to subdue the barbarians, sum the Ainu (Nomura, 1996). In the Tokugawa period, for instance, the Tokugawa shogun granted trading rights to one of the northern feudal lords.The feudal domain tonus by step tightened its stinting book over the is realm, trim down the native Ainu to a condition of semislavery and get them to harvest marine products (FRPAC). Although only just active eighteen thousand of the Ainu now withstand in Hokkaido, the northern so me is background of Japan, this population was unt old(a) larger in the past and their m melodic lineive get to taked at least southerly Sakhalin, the Kurile Is landed estates, northern parts of Honshu (the main island of Japan), and nigh atomic number 18as.Despite outsiders frequent use of the blanket edge the Ainu, Ainu culture was rich in intra pagan variations (Seligman & Watanabe, 1963). non only was their hunting-gathering economy vastly distinguishable from that of their agri ethnic neighbors (the Nipponese, Koreans, and Chinese), they spoke a vocabulary of their own, and some of their physical characteristics were thought to distinguish them from their neighbors. The question of Ainu identity continues to press right aside without a definitive answer (FRPAC). The Kurile Ainu were the hardest-hit victims of the Russians and the Nipponese the last of them died in 1941.Sakhalin south of 50 N had been the homeland of the Sakhalin Ainu, while the grunge north o f 50 N belonged to the Gilyaks and another(prenominal) communitys. The Sakhalin Ainu, estimated to bring on been amid 1,200 and 2,400 in number during the first half of the twentieth century, most likely moved from Hokkaido, possibly as early as the first millenary A. D. , but definitely by the ordinal century (Nomura, 1996). They were in close shock with so-called native populations both on Sakhalin and along the Amur, such as the Gilyaks, Oroks, and Nanays.The history of conflict with outsiders is equally complicated for the Hokkaido Ainu, whose territorial dominion once include north-eastern Honshu. As the Japanese telephone exchange government was plaster casted and its jampack expanded toward the northeast, the Ainu were gradually pushed north away from their territory (FRPAC). Systematic contact between the Ainu and the Japanese started at the end of the one-sixteenth century with the cheek of the Matsumae clan, which claimed as its territory the south-western en d of Hokkaido and the adjacent areas.In 1799 the Matsumae territory in Hokkaido came downstairs the direct control of the Tokugawa monocracy for the purpose of hold dearing Japanese inte balance wheels against Russian expansion southward. Administrative control changed again in 1821 to the Matsumae and then back to the one-man rule in 1854 (Nomura, 1996). Most drastic and allow changes took place shortly contemporary-fashionedr the establishment of the Meiji government in 1868. It brought Hokkaido on a lower floor the primordial governments direct administration and set out to foster Japanese settlements and develop the islands economy.The Ainu upset their land and their hunting and fishing rights. In golf-club to Japanize the Ainu, the government proscribed tralatitiousistic Ainu practices and constrained Ainu children to learn Japanese in the naturalise system (Layland, 2000). In 1875 the central and northern Kuriles came under the political control of the Japane se government, which make several attempts to protect the Ainu, but without success and often with inauspicious effect upon them (Nomura, 1996). The unexampled government abolished the residential restriction for both the Ainu and the Japanese, who could then inhabit anywhere in Hokkaido.It overly bear out the Japanese to immigrate to Hokkaido in order to utilize its natural resources. The Ainu were enrolled in the Japanese census registers and labored to attend Japanese rails established by the government. Beginning in 1883, the Ainu were uprooted from their settlements, granted plots of land much(prenominal) conform to for tillage, and encouraged to take up agriculture (Layland, 2000). In the post-World War II years, a doing among the Ainu to preserve their culture, nomenclature, and way of life emerged.The leadership of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido has requested the Japanese government to guarantee the basic rights of the Ainu battalion and respect their cult ural and ethnic identity (Layland, 2000). Just as the Ainu contacts with the Japanese went through a series of historical changes, so did the Japanese attitude toward them. Since the Ainu homeland is turn up in what use to be Japans northern frontier a hinterland for umpteen Japanese until recently the Ainu stood outside of the self-referent building of the Japanese during earlier historical periods.By the eighteenth century, however, the Ainu had clearly become one of the marginalized internal others indoors Japanese troupe (Nomura, 1996). Historical agents directly complex in this process were the Japanese governmental officials of different historical periods and the Japanese in the Ainu land. They viewed and represent the Ainu as uncivilized or primitive. tho the primitive always stick out another(prenominal) side for some Japanese, particularly those in parts of Japan distant from the Ainu homeland, the Ainu were and are even instantly the exotic other.This is es pecially so with Ainu women, living in nature, whose recessed eyes had exotic sexuality a familiar picture in around every case of colonial- colonized or majority-nonage kinship (Nomura, 1996). The Japanese perception and representation of the Ainu are 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 descent of the eighteenth century to the midnineteenth century, that is, at the height of Japanese efforts to colonize Ainu territory.The hallmarks of otherness depicted in these paintings include hunting scenes, the bear ceremony, womens tattoos, mens clay hair and beards, and Ainu use of je come upery. In contrast to the Japanese, whose deities are primarily plants, the supreme god of the Ainu is the bear a sign of Ainu law of proximity to animals. The association the Japanese made between the Ainu and animals is also seen in their painstaking repr esentations of the bodies of Ainu.The Japanese, who do not live with much dust hair, often point to the abundant soundbox hair of the Ainu, as well as of Westerners, and use it as evidence that these wad are close to animals (Layland, 2000). The dispossession of the Ainu, which had largely been accomplished by 1890 through the expropriation of Ainu land (and fishing grounds) as the patriarchal economic resource on which colonial victimization was based, was institutionalised by the enactment of the tribute Act of 1899 (Nomura, 1996).With the Law for the security nib of primal Hokkaido Aborigines, a insurance of assimilation was strained upon the Ainu. As a consequence, their social structure and living environment went through a number of drastic changes as restrictions were present on their customs, language, and means of livelihood. The 1899 law contained new land policies that violated the Ainus territorial integrity. It banned traditional subsistence strategies such as deer hunting and salmon fishing, and also forced the Ainu to cultivate rice for the Japanese mainland.The law also prohibited the practice of antique Ainu customs and Ainu languages with no writing system of their own, these prohibitions shape uped the cultural destruction of Ainu lodge. There has also been a elevated rate of matrimony between Ainu and Japanese that has contributed further to the eating away of the Ainu language and culture. It is not surprising, then, that traditional Ainu society had been largely destroyed by the beginning of the 20th century. In the last hundred years, Ainu traditional lifestyles have largely disappeared, and their rights have been overlooked within Japanese society.The traditional Ainu settlement kotan can no long-lasting be seen, and the traditional grass thatch Ainu huts chise are roughly non-existent, the exceptions being holidaymaker areas where music and dance performances or work souvenirs are offered (Weiner, 1997). Th e Protection Act cogitate on three main areas of Ainu policy agriculture, education and welfare assistance, notably in the area of health check care. Ainu families engaged, or indirect request to engage, in agriculture were to be granted up to five hectares of undeveloped land as an allotment (kyuyochi) without charge ( bind One).This did not mean full rights of ownership discordant restrictions were placed on the transfer of the allotments which could not be sold or used to secure a mortgage, although they were exempt from land registration fees, local tax and land tax for thirty years (Article Two). bolt down not developed within cardinal years, however, would be repossessed (Article Three). Agricultural tools and seeds were to be made available for posity families (Article Four). Education was to be provided through the medium of special primaeval Schools (Kyudojin gakko) to be constructed at national outlay in Ainu villages (Article Nine).Financial assistance was availab le for school fees (Article Seven). For the destitute, sick, and people too old or too young to get themselves, medical fees would be paid. Funeral expenses were also covered (Articles quintette and Six). Some of the money for these mea accepteds was to come from the loot of Ainu communal property, which was under bureaucratic control, the rest from the national treasury (Articles Eight and Ten). Article Eleven empowered the Governor to bonk police ordersfines and periods of imprisonmentwith regard to fortress matters (Weiner, 1997).Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, wager in ethnic tourism and in the Ainu people began to grow. This elevated questions about the substance and meaning of Ainu cultural identity in consanguinity to the culture and identity of the more legion(predicate) Japanese. The image of Ainu with their traditional costumes and exotic facial features became increasingly prevalent through the victimization of tourism. Group photographs taken with Ainu chiefs in traditional costumes reflected the fascination with difference within the Japanese population.Many touristic souvenirs comprised Ainu bear woodcrafts and couple dolls (Kindaiti, 1941). Thus, the increase in post-war tourism, and its focus on the Ainu as good and symbols of autochthonous Japan, contributed in a positive way to some modest revitalisation within the Ainu community, but also raised question about their position in the social and political hierarchy of Japan (Weiner, 1997). The existence of the Ainu is virtually ignored elsewhere in the society, most conspicuously in the classroom.A report 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 cardinal mentioned the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act (Weiner, 1997). However natural rights are decorous more widely discussed and cultures of indigenous peoples are becoming recognized throughout the terra firma, the Ainu indigenous movement has also been raised to the international level, rede constitutional reforms to expand their leverage, intelligence and rights at home.In 1993, the year before the International class of the Worlds Indigenous People, Nomura Giiti, the President of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, was invited to go in in an international meeting organize by the unify 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 fall in Nations to set international standards against discrimination and sustenance the Ainu people in negotiating with the Japanese government.The Ainu Shinpo (meaning new law) was drafted and proposed in 1984, and eventually passed on 8 May 1997. It states that The l aw aims to urinate the society in which the ethnic superciliousness of the Ainu people is respected and to contribute to the learning of diverse cultures in our country, by the performance of the measures for the promotion of Ainu culture, referring to the situation of Ainu traditions and culture from which the Ainu people find their ethnic pride Ainu refinement in this law means the Ainu language music, dance, rafts and other cultural properties that have been inherited by the Ainu people as well as other cultural properties developed from these (Weiner, 1997). Thus, the Japanese government had finally get togethern limited formal recognition to the Ainu as the indigenous minority within Japanese territory, at least in Hokkaido. The general reaction from the Ainu at the quantify of the endorsement of the new law was that it was late in coming and did not include enough concrete change.Yet with this initial step, both Ainu and Japanese people put on and expected more cultur al preservation of language and traditions, as well as legal protection for traditional land use, anti-discrimination policies, and a general improvement in Ainu social experimental condition. 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 randomness with indigenous people around the instauration (Layland, 2000). With the enactment of the Ainu Culture forward motion Law, the Japanese government took a significant step towards officially acknowledging the existence of the Ainu as an ethnic minority. The law is Japans first legislation to hump the existence of an ethnic minority in the country and, unlike the Hokk aido Former Aborigines Protection Act which the new law replaces, the Ainu were involved in the process of its enactment.This preliminary move, however, stop short of recognising the Ainu as an indigenous people as defined by the United Nations. The Hokkaido Ainu thus remain virtually imperceptible in a country they have inhabited for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. One locus that plays a vital role in the representation of the Ainu in Japan today is ethnic tourism, which centres on tourist villages dissipate across Hokkaido (Layland, 2000).The Foundation for look 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 one million million million (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 the past few years, FRPACs work has included providing different kinds of publications such as textbooks for primary and junior high schools, a vade mecum 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 related materials, have been published with the support of FRPAC. A number of comprehensive exhibitions were co-sponsored by overseas 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 lower th an the 1999 national average figures of 97. 0 and 34. 5%, respectively (Layland, 2000). Despite some improvement during the last three decades, further reduction of the education gap pass on be necessary for the improvement of the Ainus social status.Since the changes that occurred after the 1997, Ainu culture is now veneering another critical period. The survival of Ainu culture, whatsoever form it will take, depends on how the indigenous rights of Ainu are interpreted at both individual and national levels on how staidly the Japanese government implements the laws protecting indigenous and minority rights and cultural heritage and on whether Ainu as other remain definitive 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 reterritorializatio n of the iwor (traditional hunting ground of the Ainu) (in Hokkaido at least), represents another concrete and progressive measure allowing the Ainu private control of their natural resources, reassertion 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 stated above, there remain so few Ainu who are able to handle 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 train an environment in society in which they can express how they think and bespeak for what they expect. I think that e xhibitions in Ainu museums, hand out programs for Ainu language and cultural exchanges in the form of performing arts have to be organised 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 feasible to live in the old ways.