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DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 18, 2022
Table of Contents:
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1) Tokyo Musashino City fails to get local referenda voting rights for its NJ Residents (Dec 2021). Absorb the arguments of the national-level xenophobic campaign against it.
2) Archiving my SNA VM12 “A Despotic Bridge Too Far”, on Japan’s racist blanket ban on Foreign Resident re-entry, July 20, 2020 (link to full text)
3) Archiving SNA VM10: “The Guestists and the Collaborators”, May 18, 2020, on how long-term NJ leverage their newfound privilege against other NJ Residents (e.g., Donald Keene, Tsurunen Marutei, and Oussouby Sacko) (link to full text)
And finally…
4) My SNA VM35: “Visible Minorities: Torture and Murder in Japan Detention Centers” (June 20, 2022) including the Sandamali, Suraj, Fernando, Okafor, Ekei etc. Cases.
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By Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (debito@debito.org, www.debito.org, Twitter @arudoudebito)
Debito.org Newsletters are as always freely forwardable.
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1) Tokyo Musashino City fails to get local referenda voting rights for its NJ Residents (Dec 2021). Absorb the arguments of the national-level xenophobic campaign against it.
Here’s yet another example of a local government, a suburb of Tokyo called Musashino, trying to do what’s right for ALL of its residents (including those without Japanese citizenship) by getting their voice heard via voting in local referenda. To stress: These are votes on local, repeat, local referenda (i.e., they’re not actually *electing representatives*) — and the results are not even legally binding. Moreover, according to a source below, 73% of the public supported the move (that is, before the xenophobes and alarmists stepped in to bully and scare the public).
To stress: These are votes on local, repeat, local referenda (they’re not actually *electing representatives*) — and the results are not even legally binding. Moreover, according to the Takao source below, 73% of the public supported the move (that is, before the xenophobes and alarmists stepped in on a national level to bully and scare the public). So witness the typical alarmism behind sharing any political power in Japan. The tactic is simple: portray the granting of any voice in governance to non-citizens as a security issue. The assumption then becomes that enfranchised foreigners will inevitably use their power to hurt Japanese citizens. Substantiating articles follow. Trace the arguments pro and con within and see what I mean. The article from the right-wing rag Japan Forward is of particular notice, reprinting the right-wing Sankei Shinbun’s blatant xenophobic editorial policies; as always it gives us a distillation of intellectualized racism. An academic article as counterweight to the Sankei follows that. A quote of note:
Takao: “This backlash [to the Musashino policy proposal] highlights the LDP’s intention to allow more foreign workers to stay in Japan — to address labour shortages — while also suppressing their rights to maintain the image of a ‘homogeneous’ nation. The Japan International Cooperation Agency has indicated that Japan will need to quadruple the number of foreign workers to over 6 million by 2040 to sustain economic growth. But the civic and political participation of foreign residents in Japan is necessary for the sake of smooth social integration. Despite conservative protests, it is local authorities who are forced to step up, fill the vacuum and cope with the increasing pressure of foreign workers’ needs, which are not well addressed by the national government. Prospects for the further protection of foreign residents’ rights in Japan will hinge on effective policy coordination and leadership at the local level.”
https://www.debito.org/?p=17101
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2) Archiving my SNA VM12 “A Despotic Bridge Too Far”, on Japan’s racist blanket ban on Foreign Resident re-entry, July 20, 2020 (link to full text)
SNA: How bad does it have to get? I’m talking about Japan’s cruelty and meanness towards its Non-Japanese residents. How bad before people think to step in and stop it?
I think we now have an answer to that due to Japan’s recent policy excluding only foreigners from re-entry at its border, even if they’ve lived here for decades, as a by-product of the Covid-19 pandemic. Japanese re-entrants get let in after testing and quarantine; no other G7 country excludes all foreigners only.
Consequently, many Non-Japanese residents found themselves stranded overseas, separated from their Japanese families, lives and livelihoods, watching their investments dry up and visa clocks run out without recourse. Or perhaps found themselves stranded within Japan, as family members abroad died, and the prospect of attending their funeral or taking care of personal matters in person would mean exile.
However, protests against this policy have been unusually mainstream, including institutions who have been for generations largely silent regarding other forms of discrimination towards foreigners in Japan. Consider these examples of how institutionalized and embedded racism is in Japan:
You’re probably aware that Japan has long advertised itself as a “monocultural, homogeneous society,” denying that minorities, racial or ethnic, exist within it. But did you know that Japan still refuses to include Non-Japanese residents as “people” in its official population tallies? Or to list them on official family registries as “spouses” of Japanese? Or that Japan’s constitution expressly reserves equality under the law for Japanese citizens (kokumin) in its Japanese translation? This complicates things for all Non-Japanese residents to this day…
Full text now archived at https://www.debito.org/?p=16172
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3) Archiving SNA VM10: “The Guestists and the Collaborators”, May 18, 2020, on how long-term NJ leverage their newfound privilege against other NJ Residents (e.g., Donald Keene, Tsurunen Marutei, and Oussouby Sacko) (link to full text)
SNA: In a recent SNA Speakeasy on “Foreign Residents in the Coronavirus Era,” I argued that Non-Japanese (NJ) must band together and be vocal about claiming what’s due them as taxpayers. We shouldn’t wait for the government to deign to divvy out what it thinks foreigners want, as if it’s the omotenashi (hospitality) Japan offers any guest. Instead, NJ residents should be telling the government what they want, on their terms; trying to influence policy agendas that affect them by, for example, participating in local government forums and policy deliberation councils (shingikai).
People have been advocating this for years. Why isn’t it happening as often as it should? Because NJ (especially those in the English-language communities) collectively suffer from something I call “guestism”: falling for the fiction that they are merely “guests” in Japan subject to the whims of the Japanese “hosts.” Their mantra is “It’s their country, not mine. Who am I to tell them what to do?”
Still, eventually some NJ live here long enough, develop deep connections and language abilities, and even become Japanese citizens. Some transform into community leaders, prominent business owners and spokespeople, media mavens, and elected officials. They are definitely no longer “guests.”
But once they earn due respect and authority, another problem comes up: Many squander their position by becoming “collaborators.”
Instead of using their power for good, such as showing other NJ how to follow in their footsteps and to assimilate and enfranchise themselves, collaborators pull the ladder up behind them. They actively consort with the powers-that-be to preserve their privilege and to undermine other NJ Residents.
For example, consider Marutei Tsurunen, Donald Keene, and Oussouby Sacko…
Full text is now archived at https://www.debito.org/?p=16075
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And finally…
4) My SNA VM35: “Visible Minorities: Torture and Murder in Japan Detention Centers” (June 20, 2022) including the Sandamali, Suraj, Fernando, Okafor, Ekei etc. Cases.
News Headline: “Prosecutors drop case over death of detained Sri Lankan woman.”
SNA: In August 2020, a Sri Lanka national named Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali was arrested for overstaying her visa, and detained in a Nagoya Immigration Detention Center. She had arrived in Japan in 2017, but her student visa was cancelled in 2019 because she couldn’t afford tuition fees. While in detention, she opted not to return to Sri Lanka, reportedly due to reduced flights during Covid and an abusive boyfriend back home.
During her seven months in custody, however, Sandamali’s health steadily declined due to a stress-induced stomach condition. According to the Straits Times, Sandamali “was vomiting blood in her final days, and was so weak that she had no control of her arms and legs. The immigration authorities allegedly turned a blind eye to medical expert advice to put her on an intravenous drip or to grant her provisional release to ease her stress. A report by public broadcaster NHK suggested that officials tend to suspect malingering for minor illnesses in their reluctance to grant provisional release.” […]
On March 6, 2021, Sandamali died in her cell, aged 33. By the time Sandamali’s family received her body, “her skin was wrinkled like an old person, and it was stuck firmly to her bones.” In November 2021, Sandamali’s family lodged a criminal complaint against officials at the Nagoya facility, accusing them of murder through willful negligence.
Unfortunately, as noted above, last week the Nagoya District Public Prosecutor’s Office dropped the Sandamali case, citing an inability to establish criminal liability or even a cause of death, blaming it on “multiple factors.” Multiple factors indeed. Sandamali’s case is not unprecedented. According to CNN, since 1997 at least 27 foreign detainees have died in Japan’s Immigration detention centers (aka “Gaijin Tanks,” because they detain foreigners only).
The main factor here is the cruel and unusual punishment by public officers, expressly forbidden under Article 36 of the Constitution. Yet nobody has ever been held criminally liable for foreigner deaths in detention. That’s what makes Japan’s Gaijin Tanks so cruel and unusual. Let’s consider a few more cases, then talk about the system that killed them…
https://www.debito.org/?p=17080
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That’s all for this month. Thanks as always for reading!
Debito Arudou, Ph.D.
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 18, 2022 ENDS
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7 comments on “DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 18, 2022”
A rice shop in Kichijōji, Tokyo (Kanai beikoku-ten (nicely ironic homonym there)) posted a racist tweet equating last year’s Musashino City’s proposal to allow foreign residents to vote in local referenda to the quick growth of invasive species. Their tweet apparently drew in some well-deserved backlash.
https://agora-web.jp/archives/220801021018.html
@Jaocnanoni,
Except the article says that since the protests, sales of the rice have increased, and protesters are being criticized on the net for ‘being childish in their free time’, so not much of a success.
Protesting hate speech= being childish in Japan.
Nice.
@Jaocnanoni,
But look how they responded to the backlash – “freedom of speech”, describing their detractors as “far-left”, and calling for reinforcements.
Following-up on my previous comment regarding the elephant in the room that is the Technical Intern Training Program, Asahi and Mainichi recently published op-ed pieces on this subject:
EDITORIAL: Intern program needs overhaul to tackle myriad of problems
Editorial: Japan’s foreign intern program should be overhauled to protect human rights / 外国人の技能実習制度 廃止し人権守る仕組みに
Japanese immigration has granted a Kurdish man of Turkish citizenship refugee status. The first successful application by a Kurd from Turkey, ever. The man had to go through an eight year long struggle with immigration and the courts to achieve this.
Source (Asahi)
@Jaocnanoni, thanks for sharing. An English language version of this article can be found here.
As I mentioned in a previous comment on this subject, Japan only accepts around 1 percent of refugee applications it receives, yet even for the 1 percent that are accepted, the journey is close to exhausting.
As the Kurdish man put it: “I almost exhausted all my strength during the long fight”.
Don’t say I didn’t try to warn anyone, I brought this up years ago.
https://japantoday.com/category/national/ngo-urges-japan-to-halt-training-for-officers-from-coup-hit-myanmar
‘Brig. Gen. Tin Soe, a former trainee who from August 2021 to July 2022 was based in the Eastern Command headquarters, which oversees forces in the Shan and Kayah states in eastern Myanmar and whose forces are blamed for a massacre of civilians and other atrocities.’