{"id":15900,"date":"2020-01-14T11:01:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T19:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15900"},"modified":"2020-01-14T21:46:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T05:46:17","slug":"finance-minister-aso-apologizes-if-single-race-nation-remark-essentially-denying-japans-officially-recognized-multiethnic-society-misunderstood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15900","title":{"rendered":"Finance Minister Aso apologizes if \u2018single-race nation\u2019 remark (essentially denying Japan’s officially-recognized multiethnic society) was “misunderstood”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0To kick off the new year, here’s a bit of typical “We Japanese are Unique” narrative maintenance — that for once isn’t going unchallenged. \u00a0Because this year, there’s an official leg for protests to stand on. \u00a0Read on:<\/p>\n

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Aso apologizes if \u2018single-race nation\u2019 remark misunderstood<\/strong>
\nAsahi Shimbun, By MASAHIRO KAKIHANA\/ Staff Writer<\/strong>
\nJanuary 14, 2020, Courtesy of lots of people<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/www.asahi.com\/ajw\/articles\/AJ202001140019.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Finance Minister Taro Aso on Jan. 14 sort of apologized for saying Japan has been a single-race nation for more than two millennia, a remark that ignored the existence of the Ainu people and other ethnic groups.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

His remark also conflicted with the government\u2019s policy, approved by the Cabinet in September, to make efforts to support the Ainu people and eradicate discrimination against them.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf my remarks caused a misunderstanding, I apologize and will correct them\u201d Aso said after a Cabinet meeting in Tokyo. \u201cI have no intention of denying the government\u2019s policy.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After more than a century of forced assimilation and discrimination, the Ainu people were finally recognized as indigenous under legislation enacted in May 2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But Aso apparently forgot about that legislation when he gave a speech at a Jan. 13 meeting with his supporters in his electoral turf of Nogata, Fukuoka Prefecture.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no other nation but (Japan) where a single race has spoken a single language at a single location and maintained a single dynasty with a single emperor for over 2,000 years,\u201d said Aso, who is also deputy prime minister. \u201cIt is a great nation.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Aso also brought up the Japanese team\u2019s impressive performance at the Rugby World Cup last year, saying, \u201cAs it turned out, Japan became \u2018one team\u2019 by mixing various nations.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He made the same \u201csingle-race nation\u201d remarks at another meeting held in Iizuka, Fukuoka Prefecture, on the same day.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2005, Aso, who was then minister of public management, home affairs, posts and telecommunications, made very similar statements, which drew protests from the Hokkaido Utari Association, now the Ainu Association of Hokkaido.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Jan. 14 said of Aso\u2019s latest remarks: \u201cI heard that (he) has no intention of denying the government\u2019s policy concerning the Ainu people.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
\nENDS<\/p>\n

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COMMENT<\/strong>: \u00a0Now, watching an LDP dinosaur<\/a> making statements like this (who keeps getting re-elected)\u00a0is frustrating as hell. \u00a0However, a) it’s refreshing that he “sort of apologized” (we’ve had plenty of these fossilized statements in the past not even getting that much<\/a>, or even being doubled-down upon by bonafide bigots<\/a> who nevertheless get re-elected<\/a>); and b) we have official policy enacted last year<\/a> (as noted in my annual JT Top Ten Human Rights List for 2019<\/a>) that has declared the Ainu an indigenous people, meaning that Japan is now officially a multiethnic country. \u00a0Even Asole himself wasn’t going to (officially) contradict that.<\/p>\n

Again, it’s a bit too much to expect an electorate like Japan’s (one that generally only backs winners<\/a>, as\u00a0can be seen in six decades of rule by the same corrupt and morally-bankrupt political party<\/a>) to vote out somebody on a controversy that few care about. (After all, sadly, how many in Fukuoka give a toss about long-vanquished aborigines in faraway Hokkaido? \u00a0Not enough to reach a critical voting mass in 2005.)<\/p>\n

What we can do to “bright-side” this event is to note that the unproblematized “monoethnic-pure-race” narrative<\/a> was indeed challenged. \u00a0In public and in the media. \u00a0Successfully enough to get a sort-of public backpedaling. \u00a0Which was one of the reasons for establishing that official recognition in the first place. \u00a0Good news, sort of. \u00a0Debito Arudou Ph.D.<\/p>\n

======================
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Asahi: After more than a century of forced assimilation and discrimination, the Ainu people were finally recognized as indigenous under legislation enacted in May 2019. But [Finance Minister Taro Aso] apparently forgot about that legislation when he gave a speech at a Jan. 13 meeting with his supporters in his electoral turf of Nogata, Fukuoka Prefecture. \u201cThere is no other nation but (Japan) where a single race has spoken a single language at a single location and maintained a single dynasty with a single emperor for over 2,000 years,\u201d said Aso, who is also deputy prime minister. \u201cIt is a great nation.\u201d \u201cIf my remarks caused a misunderstanding, I apologize and will correct them\u201d Aso said after a Cabinet meeting in Tokyo. [On Jan. 14 he] sort of apologized: \u201cI have no intention of denying the government\u2019s policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

COMMENT: \u00a0Now, watching an LDP dinosaur making statements like this (who keeps getting re-elected)\u00a0is frustrating as hell. However, a) it’s refreshing that he “sort of apologized” (we’ve had plenty of these fossilized statements in the past not even getting that much, or even being doubled-down upon by bonafide bigots who nevertheless get re-elected); and b) we have official policy enacted last year (as noted in my annual JT Top Ten Human Rights List for 2019) that has declared the Ainu an indigenous people, meaning Japan is officially multiethnic. \u00a0Even Asole himself wasn’t going to (officially) contradict that. \u00a0Good news, sort of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,36,19,34,35,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-bad-social-science","category-education","category-exclusionism","category-good-news","category-japanese-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15900"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15906,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15900\/revisions\/15906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}