Screw Japan's national security! 1/23/2005

Journal Entry from Jan 23, 2005

Zainichi is more of a stakeholder than an ordinary Japanese citizen in the issues of national security.

I call myself nikkei because it’s me and my people that are in many ways more directly and firstly impacted by the policies of the Japanese government than the Japanese citizens themselves. As people denied citizenship on the only soil we know as home since the day we entered into this world, we have less power to secure & ensure control of our own lives and the circumstances that surround and influence our lives than do the nationals.

When things are relatively peaceful in society, we can live on day to day in such ‘normalcy’ that we even forget about our inferior status. We look no different from the Japanese walking down the street. Immerse our demeanor, language, even our names and history deep underneath the veil of our Japanese aliases, and voila! Blending perfectly in is as easy as pie.

But one must never, ever let down her guard, because the stability of undisturbed life is as fragile as a dream. When there is social unrest, economic depression, or any prospect of destabilization that shake up the nation, we either get singled out and targeted for some scapegoating purposes, or forced to bear the brunt of, instead of benefit from, whatever ‘remedies’ to the situation that the state implements.

Ones championing the cause for “national security” are especially suspect. In these times, the era of global empire-building that we’re seeing engulf the corners of the world in a bloody rage, we’re more vulnerable as ever before as disposable peoples of only selective interest – or else a sheer burden and an eyesore shamelessly draining their resources - to the national interest. After all, the state does not recognize any state obligation to represent, protect and advocate for us as it does Japanese nationals; hence the question of the ‘zanichi’ is, first and foremost, how we can (be made to) serve the state, rather than what the state can or would or must do for us. Out of this premise guiding the zainichi-japan relationship, it is no surprise that little concern has been demonstrated by the japanese government for the myriad injustices and hardships imposed upon zainichi throughout japan today.

How does Japan’s ‘national security’ policies and practices impact the zainichi differently than Japanese?

1. We are targeted for scapegoating by the Japanese. We are not “us” but are “them” – impact of NK crisis in the zainichi community
2. We are utilized as token representation of Japan’s virbrant diversity as if to veil the increasing intolerance and xenophobia. We are the disposable agents to serve national interest to cover up Japanese fascist development. Example of this is how zainichi are used to advance “diversity=our strength” public image campaign. (see below)
3. who pays the bills? And gets the least back in reward? Zainichi have the same legal obligation as the Japanese citizens to pay all applicable taxes, and yet barred from public benefits on the ground of our citizenship status. In order to fund the War Machine, increasing tax burdens exacerbate the costs for zainichi with no returns whatsoever
4. who gets rolled over first and foremost? A closer look at the Japanese equivalent of yujiho (Japan’s equivalent of the US Patriot Act) illuminates the disregard for non-Japanese, and does not speak to prevention of scapegoating or perception of non-Japanese as threats to Japan’s national security by the state and the civilian sectors alike
5. impact on labor conditions of zainichi: come economic depression, zainichi employment becomes exponentially more challenging in Japan’s labor market, locking them out (again) of the formal economy into the informal sector and the black market with little reach of legal and policy measures in place to protect labor rights and job security.
6. impact on zainichi women: as social services are cut back further, and as the culture of violence in the context of national militarization permeates throughout society, women are subject to direct interpersonal and also state violence with less recourse. Already, there is a dearth of culturally appropriate resources to assist zainichi women in domestic violence, as well as financially troubled situations.
7. Increased tension between Japan and the Korean peninsula, particularly North Korean regime: reunification in jeopardy is unity in jeopardy among the zainichi who are directly impacted by the politics of division in the zainichi community
8. impact of “militarization” – requires nationalism (exacerbated exclusion), patriarchy. (gender), resurgence of imperial values (racism & inequality) all help legitimate Japan’s grounds for imperial aggression all over again), complicity in occupation of Ainu & Okianwan territories and now Iraq and elsewhere
9. etc.etc…..