Pearls and Irritations

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Our Leaders Fiddle While Australia Burns

    As homes and communities go up in flames, Australian politics descends into new depths of silly-season absurdity. Enough is enough. It is time for Australia’s leaders to face up to the nation’s greatest security threat. (more…)

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Australia, the US, the Yellow Peril, and the Baby-Strangling Chinese: A Cautionary Tale.

    As the Morrison government moves ever closer to the Trump administration’s approach to our region and the world, it is time to look more closely at the ‘expertise’ that underlies Trump’s China policy. It draws on some very curious sources. (more…)

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Manus Island – Mr. Turnbull, Just Say ‘Yes’

    The nightmare scenario that everyone has predicted for months is now unfolding. Desperate and frightened refugees are digging in the ground for tainted water. Hundreds of men who are dependent on psychotropic medication because of neglect and mistreatment now have less than a month’s supply of medication left. But there is a small window of hope. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern has offered to take 150 of the refugees, possibly opening the way to other resettlement arrangements. Malcolm Turnbull meets Ardern on 5 November, and has the choice of accepting this offer, or slamming the door in the faces of the refugees. Mr. Turnbull, just say yes. (more…)

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Australian Roulette: The Games our Government Plays with Asylum Seekers’ Lives

    As the former refugee detention centre on Manus Island is closed down, asylum seekers there are being encouraged by the Australian government to “volunteer” for removal to Nauru. This confronts them with a pressing and terrible dilemma. Should they stay without support in the dangerous environment of Manus, or put themselves back into de facto detention in a place whose conditions have condemned as unsafe by the UNHCR? The Australian government is forcing them to gamble with their lives. (more…)

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Anti-PC gone mad.

    The moment you condemn something or someone for being “Politically Correct”, you have transformed yourself from being a billionaire businessman, a media pundit, or the bloke down the street, and have instantly become a champion of the oppressed silent majority against the murky and invisible forces of darkness that are supposedly imposing Political Correctness on us.   (more…)

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. The ‘information war’ hits Sydney.

    This action by a small number of Japanese in Australia harms the Japanese community itself and demeans the work of those in Japan and elsewhere who have fought so long and hard for historical truth and justice.  (more…)

  • TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Trump: it’s time to go back to basics.

     

    The election of billionaire and reality TV host Donald Trump to the most powerful political position in the world has created global shockwaves. As countless commentators have already observed, Trump’s election is a stunning reminder of the depth of social division in the United States. For millions of Americans, particularly in the rust-belt states and rural areas, Trump’s candidacy provided a golden opportunity to stick a finger up at the political establishment that has so long neglected their needs and anxieties. And the more outrageous his statements, the better he became a symbol of that finger. (more…)

  • Obama and the absence of apology in Hiroshima

    ‘As President of the United States of America, I express my profound apologies for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombings.’ These, of course, are the words that we are not going to hear Barack Obama speak in Hiroshima on 27 May, when he becomes the first sitting US president to visit the city since the atomic bombings in August 1945. It is sad that we will not hear at least a version of these words. A simple but sincere apology might bring some peace of mind to the survivors and their families, and could have a profound effect on Japanese society. (more…)

  • Tessa Morris-Suzuki. The ever-shifting sands of Japanese apologies

    On 16 February, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida signed a ‘Strategy for Co-operation in the Pacific’, in which both countries emphasised their shared values of ‘democracy, human rights and the rule of law’

    As they were doing so, Japanese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Shinsuke Sugiyama was in Geneva addressing a meeting of the UN committee which oversees the implementation of one of the world’s key human rights accords: the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). On the agenda was the Japanese government’s treatment of the problems of memory, justice and redress arising from the imperial military’s mass recruitment of women (the so-called ‘comfort women’) to military brothels during the Pacific War.

    It was a great opportunity for the Abe administration to follow up its 28 December 2015 joint statement with South Korea on ‘comfort women’. In the December statement Foreign Minister Kishida acknowledged ‘an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time’ and passed on Prime Minister Abe’s ‘sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women’.The December statement committed the Japanese government to contributing to a fund to assist surviving South Korean former ‘comfort women’, but its rather curious wording left some observers unsure just what Japan had apologised for.

    Since coming to power the Abe administration has told the world that it is continuing to uphold — or (in the Japanese version) to ‘inherit’ (keisho suru) — the 1993 Kono Declaration. In that declaration, issued after an extensive study by the Japanese government, Japan acknowledged that ‘in many cases [‘comfort women’] were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments’. The Japanese government also promised to ‘face squarely the historical facts as described above instead of evading them, and take them to heart as lessons of history’.

    If the Abe administration has indeed ‘inherited’ the Kono Declaration, one would assume that Abe’s December ‘sincere apologies and remorse’ were apologising for the historical fact that many ‘comfort women’ were recruited and held against their will, and a reaffirmation of Japan’s determination to take the lessons of history to heart.

    But oddly, neither Abe nor any of his ministers or spokespeople has ever been heard to echo the key words of the Kono Declaration. Instead, when challenged on the question of state responsibility for the ‘comfort women’ issue, they repeatedly respond with a formula developed during the first Abe administration of 2006–2007: ‘in the documents discovered by the Japanese government, none confirmed the forcible taking away of comfort women’.

    This statement is extremely significant. It treats official Japanese government and military documents (the most incriminating of which were deliberately burnt in the closing days of the war) as the only reliable source of information on the topic. It entirely discounts the testimony of surviving former ‘comfort women’. This includes testimony collected and taken into account by the Japanese government at the time of the Kono Declaration. By implication, this formula says to the survivors that their testimony is at best unreliable evidence and at worst lies.

    So the key question about the 28 December deal was this: when Foreign Minister Kishida referred to ‘an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time’, was he speaking about the involvement of the military in recruiting, transporting and holding women against their will? Was he upholding the promises of the Kono Declaration? If so, then the December accord was indeed a major step forward in Japan–South Korea relations. If not, it starts to look uncomfortably like a move that was motivated less by a desire to bring justice and redress to the victims than to buy their silence.

    Foreign Ministry official Sugiyama’s response to the CEDAW committee on 16 February made the answer to these questions disturbingly plain. Pressed on the comfort women issue, he replied ‘in the documents discovered by the Japanese government, none confirmed the forcible taking away of comfort women’. He added that the notion that comfort women had been forcibly recruited was a misconception based on fabricated testimony by a former Japanese labour recruiter named Yoshida Seiji, and that this misinformation had been disseminated by the liberal newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which later retracted the claims.

    This statement by Sugiyama is entirely misleading. The Yoshida testimony (which was reported in the early 1990s by almost all the Japanese mainstream media, not justAsahi Shimbun) has been known to be unreliable for more than a decade. And it has had no significant influence on the ‘comfort women’ debate in recent years. More importantly, it is far from the only evidence. The evidence that women were recruited against their will comes from a mass of testimonies from survivors and other eyewitnesses as well as evidence given to war crimes trials and court cases, alongside other historical material.

    Australian survivor Jan Ruff-O’Herne, who was marched out of an internment camp and into a military brothel at gunpoint during the war, has never received an apology. Nor have many others forcibly recruited in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

    It is time for Japan’s friends and allies, particularly those like Australia who plan to cooperate with Japan in protecting human rights around the region, to ask the hard questions. Will Prime Minister Abe and his cabinet repeat the words of the Kono Declaration loud and clear? Or will they admit that they have abandoned the declaration? They cannot have it both ways. Sugiyama insisted to the CEDAW committee that the Japanese government is not ‘denying history’. Now we need an answer to the follow-up question: which history are they not denying?

    Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an ARC Laureate Fellow based at the School of Culture, History and Language, at the College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.This article was first published on 22 February 2016 in the ANU East Asia Forum.

  • Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Tony Abbott, What have you done for peace?

    On 23 February, Prime Minister Tony Abbott in a major national security speech, chided Muslim leaders for showing insufficiently sincere commitment to peace. “I’ve often heard western leaders describe Islam as a ‘religion of peace’. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it”, he said. Abbott also called on immigrants to Australia to “be as tolerant of others as we are of them”.

    The vast majority of Australians are appalled by the cruel and ultimately self-destructive violence of groups like ISIS, and by the crimes of the clearly deranged Martin Place gunman. They rightly applaud when leading Muslim figures speak up for peace, as the Grand Mufti of Australia and the Australian National Imam’s Council did in unequivocally condemning the Martin Place violence, and as the head of the Paris Mosque and other French Muslim leaders did in denouncing the “odious crimes” of the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

    But let us turn the question around: Tony Abbott, what have you done to bring peace to our community? At a time of rising Islamophobia and widespread ignorance in the Australian community about the history and teachings of Islam, better education promoting ethnic and religious harmony and mutual understanding is desperately needed. Where is the Abbott government’s leadership on this? Peace cannot be imposed simply by tightening security laws. It requires long-term sustained and serious commitment to building the foundations for social harmony. What plans or policies have Abbott or his ministers put in place to create a more tolerant and harmonious Australian society?

    Last September, in a speech to the National Press Club, Abbott said ‘I’ve shifted from being a critic to a supporter of multiculturalism, because it eventually dawned on me that migrants were coming to Australia not to change us but to join us.’ But multicultural harmony does not just happen by itself. It requires hard work to sustain it. Where are the signs of the Abbott government’s hard work? Where is the evidence that our prime minister means it when he speaks of multiculturalism?

    I live in Canberra, a city with the highest standard of living and the highest education levels in the Australia, and I supervise a substantial number of Asian postgraduate students who come to this country to study, and some of whom go on be become Australian citizens. Many Asian students I have supervised has spoken to me of encountering racist abuse on the streets of our capital city. Incidents (including being insulted and spat at by complete strangers) have left some of them shocked and deeply shaken. Is this what Abbott means when he asks immigrants to Australia to “be as tolerant of others as we are of them”?

    The fact that this sort of abuse still occurs unchecked in our national capital is an alarming indication of the failure of government, educators and media to show leadership in creating a peaceful multicultural society. By ignoring these profound issues, while making ignorant and ill-conceived public criticisms of “immigrants” and “Muslims” for their lack of commitment to tolerance and peace, the Abbott government is damaging the social cohesion of our society and contributing to social problems that are likely to haunt Australia for decades to come.

    Australia needs leaders who mean it when they speak of peace, harmony and multiculturalism. If our current leaders cannot do this, then they are unfit to lead, and it is time for others to step forward and show that they can fill the political and moral vacuum.

    Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an ANU College of Asia and the Pacific Japanese history professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.

     

  • Tessa Morris-Suzuki. The CIA and the Japanese media: a cautionary tale.

    When Japan surrendered at the end of the Pacific War, the occupation authorities pledged to democratise the country. They carried out many reforms and introduced a new peace constitution, guaranteeing human rights and freedom of expression. The reforms had a profound and lasting effect, but there was also a less democratic side to US-Japan relations in the immediate postwar era.

    It has long been known that the occupation authorities chose to retain media censorship for their own purposes. But new dimensions of US media manipulation in postwar Japan have come to light in a large number of CIA documents declassified over recent years.

    Today, the Japanese media is riven by fierce infighting, as key national newspapers swing their weight behind the current Japanese government’s campaigns to rewrite history and reopen nuclear power stations. In this context, the information revealed in the CIA files has disturbing contemporary relevance.

    The declassified documents on Japan are now available online (http://www.foia.cia.gov/). One person who figures prominently in their pages is Ogata Taketora, Deputy Prime Minister in the Yoshida government of the early 1950s. Ogata began his prewar career as a journalist with the Asahi newspaper. But when Japanese freedom of speech crumbled in the face of political repression, Ogata joined the government, becoming head of Japan’s wartime intelligence bureau. He was purged during the occupation, but was soon depurged and elected to parliament.

    In 1954, Ogata sponsored the creation of a Japanese “Central Investigation Agency”: a private venture run by leading figures from the main Japanese news agencies. The funding came from the government, and the Agency’s main role was “feeding information to the recently-formed intra-Cabinet body, the Anti-Democratic Activities Countermeasure Council”.

    The Agency operated from the offices of Japan’s Jiji Press Agency, and its board of directors included leading figures from the two main postwar news agencies, Jiji and Kyodo.

    US intelligence documents on this media-government collaboration survive because Ogata was himself a registered high-level CIA informant, passing damaging information about his political rivals to the Americans in return for sensitive US information to use in his political battles at home.

    But Ogata was not the only important Japanese figure engaged in murky arrangements with US intelligence. Another was Shoriki Matsutaro, the immensely influential owner of the Yomiuri newspaper, who in the 1950s became head of Japan’s State Security Committee and its Nuclear Power Commission.

    Shoriki had begun his career in the prewar police, where, as a report on the CIA files notes, he gained notoriety by “his ruthless treatment of thought cases and by ordering raids on universities and colleges”. After leaving the police he took over the presidency of the bankrupt Yomiuri, revived its fortunes, and went on to be closely involved in the information policies of the wartime government.

    Investigated for war crimes, Shoriki was released without trial in 1952, and not long after began what was to be a new and covert element in his career: a role as an informant and propaganda agent for the CIA under the code-names PODAM and POJACKPOT-1. By now his empire included not only the Yomiuri, but also Japan’s first commercial TV station, Nippon TV.

    At least one other senior member of Shoriki’s business empire also seems to have been working with the CIA.

    Shoriki was particularly useful to the USA because of his enthusiastic collaboration in a propaganda campaign to persuade Japan to adopt nuclear power. By 1955, the media mogul had “committed his empire to a full blast favourable treatment of the atom, not neglecting to feature himself as the Prometheus who was bringing this fire to Japan”. Part of the campaign was a massively publicised touring “Atoms for Peace” exhibition, which Shoriki conceived and largely funded, with wholehearted CIA backing. Shoriki helpfully came up with the idea that Japanese artists could be employed to “rework” the information that the CIA provided for the exhibition “to play down or conceal [the] original source of this material”

    The exhibition was just one of a litany of clandestine connections between Japan’s leading media magnate and the CIA.

    In the run up to the 1958 general election, for example, the Yomiuri’s owner and the CIA hatched a bizarre scheme to import US colour TV sets (then the latest high-tech invention) to Japan so that they could be set up in public, ostensibly to demonstrate the new technology, but in fact to broadcast propaganda for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. (The TV sets were shipped, but sadly arrived to late for the election).

    The relationship went well beyond Japan’s borders: in one case, Shoriki expressed willingness to send a Yomiuri correspondent to Syria so that the journalist could serve as a CIA contact there.

    Today, the Yomiuri, now Japan’s most widely sold broadsheet newspaper, is a leading participant in Japan’s media and history wars. Vocally supporting government approaches to history and to nuclear power, the newspaper presents itself as a guardian of media integrity, fiercely attacking competitors for failing to correct errors of reporting.

    But the Yomiuri’s own response to the explosive content of the CIA archives has been a deafening silence.

    The newspaper has never apologised or conducted an investigation, and has never explained how extensive this secret relationship with a foreign intelligence agency was, nor when it ended.

    Two large questions emerge from this sorry history. In how many other countries did the CIA have similar relationships with leading media moguls? And just what sort of back-door relationships between politics and the media are still at work in Japan today?

     

  • Tessa Morris-Suzuki Rare Earth, politics and human rights.

    On 5 July 2014, the ABC’s PM program ran a report which revealed that “a leading Asian human rights activist has urged the Federal Government to investigate a Queensland-based resources company and a prominent Australian geologist over mining deals with North Korea that he believes may breach United Nations sanctions”. (http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4061381.htm)

    The report looked at a project by the firm SRE Minerals to develop rare earth mines in North Korea. The prominent geologist in question is Brisbane based scientist Louis Schurmann. This scheme has come under attack from Japanese activist Ken Kato, head of an organisation known in English as “Human Rights in Asia”, and in Japanese as the “Asian Investigation Organization” (Ajia Chosa Kiko). Kato, as PM reported, has lodged a complaint with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, stating that Schurmann’s activities may be in breach of UN sanctions because “rare earths are an indispensable material for guided missiles”.

    The activities of SRE Minerals in North Korea should certainly be discussed in the public realm. If this project is likely to contribute to North Korea’s missile program, it is clearly an international problem. On the other hand, UN sanctions do not ban all economic contact with North Korea. Further information and debate is needed to determine the rights and wrongs of this project.

    But that debate must also include a careful look at the background of Ken Kato’s “Human Rights in Asia”. This is not (as one might assume from its English title) a broad based major human rights organisation, but rather a body that targets virtually all its criticism at North Korea, with an occasional barb at China. Kato describes himself on his blog, not as a “leading human rights activist” but as a “conservative lobbyist” (hoshukei robi katsudoka), which is clearly what he is. (see http://kenkato.blog.jp/)

    His organisation exists in the space that emerged following the 2002 revelation that a number of Japanese citizens had been kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Five of these victims have returned to Japan, but an uncertain number – at least eight and almost certainly more – have never returned. North Korea officially claims that they all died, but negotiations between the Japanese and North Korean governments are now underway, and it seems likely that further revelations about the fate of the remaining abductees may come to light in the coming months, and that some may still be alive in North Korea.

    Meanwhile, various groups have emerged in Japan claiming that hundreds of other Japanese missing people were in fact abducted by North Korea, and that Japan must force the DPRK to return them all. Kato’s group is one of these. For the past several years it has been conducting an campaign to “strangle” North Korea until it “spits out” the hundreds of abductees whom Kato believes it is still holding. The campaign involves persuading the group’s members to lobby organisations and foreign governments which, it thinks, are engaged in any activities from which North Korea might earn foreign currency. An article appearing on the Internet under Kato’s name states that the only way to deal with North Korea is to confront its leader with a choice between “being killed in a coup d’etat or returning the abduction victims”. (http://kakutatakaheri.blog73.fc2.com/blog-date-201203.html)

    The activities of “Human Rights in Asia” are not exclusively focused on North Korea. For example, in 2011, under the heading “Save our Sacred Territory”, Kato appealed to his readers to send messages to the New York Times condemning it for publishing an opinion piece in which a commentator (who was otherwise very critical of China) expressed the personal view that China has a viable claim to the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Now, under the heading “We Did It! A Huge Step Forward”, his blog is proclaiming vitory in its Australian campaign.

    The issue of human rights in North Korea is an enormously important one – too important to let it become entangled in such messy nationalist politics. We need a careful and calm debate about the rights and wrongs of economic engagement with North Korea, not a campaign initiated and dominated by self-proclaimed conservative lobbyists.

     

    Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific Japanese history professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.

  • Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Another Australia-Japan Relationship is Possible.

    Today, Australian Prime Minister Abbott and Japanese Prime Minister Abe meet in Canberra, and Prime Minister Abe presents an address to the Australian parliament. This is a historic occasion, and will be remembered as a pivotal point in Australia-Japan relations.

    In their discussions, the two leaders are highlighting the crucial economic and security ties that bind Australia and Japan together, and emphasizing the vital role that both countries play as leading democracies in the Asia-Pacific region.

    Like many others who have spent much of their lives trying to further the relationship between Japan and Australia, I applaud these sentiments, but ask: what sort of Australia-Japan relationship is being built in Canberra today, in whose name, and in whose interests?

    An ABC news headline from 3 July 2014 reads, “Australia says it supports revision of Japanese constitution”. According to the first sentence of the article that follows, “Australia has welcomed Japan’s announcement to allow its military to fight overseas, saying it will enable Japan to further contribute to international peace and stability”.

    There are two things wrong with this article. First, Japan has not revised its constitution. Rather, the Japanese government has issued a cabinet decision stating that it will “reinterpret” Article Nine of the constitution to mean something totally incompatible with the actual wording of the constitutional text. Second, it is not “Australia”, but rather an anonymous spokesperson from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who has welcomed the change.

    A recent newspaper article by two respected ANU academics welcomes Japan’s constitutional change, while suggesting that the whole issue is “much ado about nothing”; for, as the article goes on to mention in passing, “the Japanese cabinet is entitled to modify its interpretation of Article 9 in light of the changing security environment the country faces”.

    This casual statement is emblematic of the state of debate in Australia and Japan today, and is an alarming indication of how much we have forgotten and devalued the fundamental principles of constitutional democracy. In the succinct words of Wikipedia, these are that “the legislature makes the laws; the executive put the laws into operation; and the judiciary interprets the laws. The doctrine of the separation of powers is often assumed to be one of the cornerstones of fair government”. Or, as the Supreme Court of Hawaii put it in a major judgment “the courts, not the legislature, are the ultimate interpreters of the constitution”.

    In the case of Japan, it is the executive that has pushed through the reinterpretation of the constitution, after extensive backdoor political horsetrading but no public consultation, and in the teeth of majority opposition from public opinion. If the Japanese cabinet can interpret Article Nine to mean the opposite of what it says, there is nothing to stop them doing exactly the same with the articles that protect basic human rights, sexual equality, freedom of speech etc.

    Prime Minister Abbott and his government welcome this change because they believe it to be in Australia’s “national interest” (as defined by Abbott’s executive). But their lack of concern for democratic procedure in Japan also reflects the fact that the Abbott government has an equally cavalier approach to the fundamental principles of democracy: in particular to the principle that democratic governments do not take important actions which influence domestic society and foreign relations without informing parliament and the electorate.

    Recent infringements of international law by the Abbott government in relation to asylum seekers have earned Australia the condemnation of global media and major international human rights organizations, and, worse still, have been carried out under a veil of secrecy which violates every principle of fair and open government.

    These recent actions in Japan and Australia are not only undermining the precious democratic systems of both countries, but are also inflaming already rapidly deteriorating international relations in our region, and deepening social divisions within both countries.

    Here in Australia, colleagues and I have found ourselves hosting an increasing number of Japanese visitors and second or third generation Korean denizens of Japan who no longer feel comfortable living in the country of their birth. Meanwhile, Australian media hysteria about asylum seekers heightens xenophobic stereotypes and stirs ghosts of Australian racism which have never been laid to rest, making life increasingly uncomfortable for many Australian citizens and residents.

    It is true that, despite all these rapidly worsening problems, Australia and Japan remain among the most democratic countries in our region. This makes it easy for us to shrug our shoulders and dismiss the issues discussed here as “much ado about nothing”. After all, things are so much worse in so many other countries. But I would argue that it is precisely because Australia and Japan are among the leading democracies of our region that we should care profoundly about steps by our governments that usurp and undermine fundamental democratic rights.

    Prime Minister Abe’s most recent election campaign was backed by a poster, displayed across the length and breadth of Japan, which depicted Abe and ruling party Secretary General Shigeru Ishiba, with the words “we are taking back Japan” (Nihon o torimodosu). Every time I saw one of those posters, I wondered who that small word “we” refered to. When I see Prime Minister Abe and Prime Minister Abbott cementing their relationship, I wonder which “we” they are speaking of and for.

    Respect for the principles of democracy is vital to a healthy future relationship between Australia and Japan. Good relations between the countries of our region, including good relations between Japan and its neighbours and between Australia and it neighbours, are fundamental to the interests of the people of Australia and Japan. A relationship between Japan and Australia that truly values human rights and democracy is possible. Non-governmental actions between citizens, grassroots group, scholars, educators and others are essential to building that relationship.

    It is time for ordinary Japanese, Australians and other concerned about our two countries’ relationship to make their voices heard, to share their concerns and to begin, in whatever ways we can, to take back the relationship between Australia and Japan.

    Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific Japanese history professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.

     

     

     

  • The Darkening Shadow of Hate Speech in Japan. Guest blogger,Tessa Morris-Suzuki

    Japan’s new Prime Minister, Abe Shinzō, has proclaimed Japan a regional model of “democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights”. Indeed, Japan has proud traditions of free debate and grassroots human rights movements. But ironically – and largely ignored by the outside world – the rights of minorities and the work of those who fight hardest for human rights are under growing pressure in Abe’s Japan.

    Japan signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, but refuses to introduce anti-hate speech laws. One reason, according to the government, is that such laws are unnecessary, since Japan’s penal code prohibits group defamation, insult, threatening behaviour, and collective intimidation.

    But the limits of this approach have been on display in recent disturbing incidents. On 9 February, for example, a group of racist demonstrators –  including members of the best-known hate group, the Zaitokukai – marched through an ethnically diverse district of Tokyo, shouting incitements to violence and carrying placards with slogans such as “Kill Koreans”. A large police contingent was on hand, but despite abundant evidence of group defamation, threats and collective intimidation, none of the demonstrators was arrested.

    Matters were very different, though, when, around the same time, a Zaitokukai member lodged his own complaint of victimization. His claim, made more than four months after the event, was that he had been “assaulted” when refused entry to a September 2012 meeting organized by Japanese grassroots groups seeking apology and compensation for the former “comfort women” (women from throughout the Japanese empire coerced into serving in brothels run by the Japanese military during the Pacific War). Those who attended the meeting remember it as a peaceful event, despite the presence of a few menacing Zaitokukai protestors outside. Regardless of this fact, and of the curious delay in the complaint, police responded zealously to the Zaitokukai member’s claim, bringing in four members of the “comfort women” group for questioning and descending on members’ homes to search for incriminating evidence.

    Many in Japan work very hard for “democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights”. But there is no rule of law if the instigators of violence are allowed to peddle hatred, while those who pursue historical justice are subject to police harassment. Democracy is left impoverished when freedom of hate speech is protected more zealously than freedom of reasoned political debate.

    Tessa Morris-Suzuki