{"id":15947,"date":"2020-02-23T11:05:17","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T19:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15947"},"modified":"2020-02-24T06:52:27","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T14:52:27","slug":"2020-tokyo-olympics-drops-ainu-performance-from-its-opening-ceremonies-despite-2019-law-officially-recognizing-and-promoting-them-as-an-indigenous-people-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15947","title":{"rendered":"2020 Tokyo Olympics drops Ainu performance from its Opening Ceremonies, despite 2019 law officially recognizing and promoting them as an indigenous people in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0One thing I’ve been meaning to mention, now that it\u2019s finally made the international news, is the fact that the Tokyo Olympics have decided to showcase Japan’s latent bigotry after all. \u00a0Despite being the first\u00a0officially-recognized ethnic minority in Japan<\/a>, the Hokkaido Ainu indigenous people<\/a>, once included in the 2020 Opening Ceremonies, have found their performance dropped due to “staging production issues” (enshutsu no tsugou<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Debito.org’s take is that including the performance for the world to see would have too clearly contradicted the (postwar-created<\/em> and carefully-curated) narrative of Japan as a homogeneous monocultural monoethnic society<\/a>. \u00a0In contrast to how numerous Opening Ceremonies have showcased the diversity of the hosting country<\/a>,\u00a0this is an enormous slap in the face to the Ainu not only socially, but also legally, given the 2019 law that finally recognizes them as Japan’s indigenous people, and promises to help promote their culture<\/a>. First chance they get, the GOJ fumbles it.<\/p>\n

We’ve started talking about this on Debito.org elsewhere<\/a>, but let me open up a dedicated blog entry for discussion. \u00a0Debito Arudou, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

I first saw this terse article in the Hokkaido Shinbun in early February:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\n\u6771\u4eac\u4e94\u8f2a\u958b\u4f1a\u5f0f\u3067\u30a2\u30a4\u30cc\u821e\u8e0a\u4e0d\u63a1\u7528\u3000\u300c\u6f14\u51fa\u306e\u90fd\u5408\u300d
\n\u5317\u6d77\u9053\u65b0\u805e\u300002\/07\/2020, courtesy of EJ
\nhttps:\/\/www.hokkaido-np.co.jp\/article\/390859?fbclid=IwAR1Oy88_R4RjR2oO8zqDzqublXZwu9J4CAbfCV57XDQryXBfXDsO8klZK4s<\/a><\/p>\n

\u4eca\u590f\u306e\u6771\u4eac\u4e94\u8f2a\u958b\u4f1a\u5f0f\u306e\u30d7\u30ed\u30b0\u30e9\u30e0\u3067\u3001\u30a2\u30a4\u30cc\u6c11\u65cf\u306e\u4f1d\u7d71\u821e\u8e0a\u304c\u63a1\u7528\u3055\u308c\u306a\u3044\u65b9\u91dd\u3067\u3042\u308b\u3053\u3068\u304c\uff16\u65e5\u3001\u95a2\u4fc2\u8005\u3078\u306e\u53d6\u6750\u3067\u5206\u304b\u3063\u305f\u3002\u5185\u95a3\u5b98\u623f\u30a2\u30a4\u30cc\u7dcf\u5408\u653f\u7b56\u5ba4\u304c\u9053\u30a2\u30a4\u30cc\u5354\u4f1a\u5074\u306b\uff11\u6708\u672b\u306b\u8aac\u660e\u3057\u305f\u3002\u4e94\u8f2a\u958b\u50ac\u6c7a\u5b9a\u5f8c\u3001\u9053\u3084\u540c\u5354\u4f1a\u304c\u821e\u8e0a\u306e\u62ab\u9732\u3092\u653f\u5e9c\u306b\u8981\u671b\u3002\u524d\u5411\u304d\u306a\u611f\u89e6\u3092\u5f97\u3066\u3001\u9053\u5185\u5404\u5730\u3067\u7df4\u7fd2\u4f1a\u3082\u884c\u308f\u308c\u3066\u3044\u308b\u304c\u3001\u6f14\u51fa\u4e0a\u306e\u90fd\u5408\u3068\u3057\u3066\u30d7\u30ed\u30b0\u30e9\u30e0\u306b\u76db\u308a\u8fbc\u307e\u308c\u306a\u3044\u898b\u901a\u3057\u3068\u306a\u3063\u305f\u3002<\/p>\n

\u653f\u5e9c\u95a2\u4fc2\u8005\u3084\u5927\u4f1a\u7d44\u7e54\u59d4\u54e1\u4f1a\u95a2\u4fc2\u8005\u306f\u300c\u6642\u9593\u3082\u9650\u3089\u308c\u3066\u304a\u308a\u3001\u6f14\u51fa\u306e\u90fd\u5408\u4e0a\u3001\u96e3\u3057\u3044\u300d\u3068\u3057\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002\u4e00\u65b9\u3001\u30de\u30e9\u30bd\u30f3\u30fb\u7af6\u6b69\u306e\u672d\u5e4c\u958b\u50ac\uff08\uff18\u6708\uff16\uff5e\uff19\u65e5\uff09\u306b\u5408\u308f\u305b\u3001\u767a\u7740\u70b9\u3068\u306a\u308b\u5927\u901a\u516c\u5712\u306e\u897f\uff11\u4e01\u76ee\u5e83\u5834\u3067\u30a2\u30a4\u30cc\u6c11\u65cf\u304c\u821e\u8e0a\u3092\u62ab\u9732\u3059\u308b\u6a5f\u4f1a\u304c\u8a2d\u3051\u3089\u308c\u308b\u3088\u3046\u3001\u672d\u5e4c\u5e02\u3068\u5354\u8b70\u3059\u308b\u3068\u3044\u3046\u3002<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Weeks later, the overseas media finally picked up on it:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Tokyo Olympics: dance by Japan\u2019s indigenous people dropped from opening ceremony<\/strong>
\nMove raises questions about status of Ainu ethnic minority, whose cultural identity Japan is legally obliged to protect<\/strong>
\nJustin McCurry in Tokyo<\/strong>
\nThe Grauniad, Fri 21 Feb 2020<\/strong> (excerpt)
\nhttps:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/feb\/21\/tokyo-olympics-dance-by-japans-indigenous-people-dropped-from-opening-ceremony<\/a><\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s commitment to the rights of its indigenous people has been questioned after organisers of this summer\u2019s Tokyo Olympics dropped a performance by members of the Ainu ethnic minority from the Games\u2019 opening ceremony.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Members of the Ainu community, originally from Japan\u2019s northernmost island of Hokkaido, had been expecting to showcase their culture to the world in a dance at the Olympic stadium, but learned recently that the plans had been scrapped.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tokyo 2020 organising committee said the performance had been dropped from the ceremony due to \u201clogistical constraints\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, this particular Ainu dance performance could not be included because of logistical constraints related to the ceremonies,\u201d it said in a statement to the Guardian.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, Tokyo 2020 is still deliberating other ways to include the Ainu community. We are not able to provide further details of the content of the opening and closing ceremonies.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The public broadcaster NHK said last week that an Ainu ceremonial dance would be included in a cultural exposition at the Tokyo National Museum in March, but Ainu representatives said performers, who had already started rehearsing, had been anticipating an appearance on a much bigger stage.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was looking forward to performing at the Olympic stadium,\u201d said Kazuaki Kaizawa of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, which started discussing the inclusion of an Ainu element in the opening ceremony with organisers three years ago.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are willing to talk to the organisers about how Ainu culture can be represented during the Olympics,\u201d Kaizawa told the Guardian, adding that the Games\u2019 organising committee had yet to explain its decision. \u201cWe\u2019re hopeful something can be worked out.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The decision sits uncomfortably with recent moves by Japan\u2019s government to improve the status of the Ainu. In May last year, parliament passed a law that legally recognised them as Japan\u2019s indigenous people, obliging the government to protect their cultural identity and ban discrimination in employment, education and other areas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The law was intended to officially end more than a century of discrimination that began in the late 19th century, when Japan\u2019s Meiji-era government took control of Hokkaido, where the Ainu had been hunting, fishing, practising an animist religion and speaking their own language since the 1300s, according to experts.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But after opening the island to Japanese settlers, the government forced the Ainu, who it referred to as \u201cformer aborigines\u201d, to assimilate.<\/em><\/strong>
\nRest of the article at https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/feb\/21\/tokyo-olympics-dance-by-japans-indigenous-people-dropped-from-opening-ceremony<\/a><\/em>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Now Reuters via The Japan Times:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\nOlympic snub: Dance of Japan’s indigenous Ainu dropped from opening ceremony<\/strong>
\nREUTERS, FEB 22, 2020, courtesy of JDG<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2020\/02\/22\/national\/ainu-dance-olympics\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Olympic organizers have dropped a dance by Japan\u2019s indigenous Ainu people from the opening ceremony of this year\u2019s Summer Games, a representative of the minority group said on Friday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAinu dancers will not be included in the opening ceremony in Tokyo,\u201d said Kazuaki Kaizawa, an official at the Hokkaido Ainu Association in Sapporo.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They were told there wasn\u2019t room to fit the dance into the July 24 performance, Kaizawa said.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had been preparing and it is a disappointment, but we hope there will still be a chance for us to show Ainu culture elsewhere.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Officials at the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rest of the article at https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2020\/02\/22\/national\/ainu-dance-olympics\/<\/a>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Debito.org Reader HJ<\/a>\u00a0is critical of the portrayal of the issue:
\n======================================
\nHJ: \u00a0<\/strong>What an atrociously shoddy article, full of double-speak and outright mistakes. Reuters should be ashamed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ainu people, a hunting and gathering people thought to be descendants of early inhabitants of Japan\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThought to be?\u201d What nonsense! They are an ethnic minority that has unequivocally been present in Japan just as long or perhaps longer than Wajin.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026who were later displaced mainly to Hokkaido\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Good grief, what painful abuse of language. They were not \u201cdisplaced.\u201d They were murdered and had their land stolen, then forcefully assimilated into Wajin society, much the same as the native peoples of North America were done by white invaders.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ainu people\u2026have recently been getting more official attention from a state that had once colonized them.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, egregious misuse of language. They were murdered in droves, had their land stolen, then were forcefully assimilated, then had their very existence denied all the way up to the level of the national government. Referring to that as \u201ccolonization\u201d is maliciously dishonest.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026many Ainu fear identifying as other than Japanese\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How did this make it past an editor? Newsflash: ALL AINU ARE BOTH AINU AND JAPANESE. \u201cAinu\u201d and \u201cJapanese\u201d are not mutually exclusive terms. How incompetent must one be to write an article about a (finally) state-recognized Japanese ethnic minority group and simultaneously describe members of said group as if they were somehow not Japanese? […]<\/em>
\n======================================<\/p>\n

ENDS
\n======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guardian: Japan\u2019s commitment to the rights of its indigenous people has been questioned after organisers of this summer\u2019s Tokyo Olympics dropped a performance by members of the Ainu ethnic minority from the Games\u2019 opening ceremony. Members of the Ainu community, originally from Japan\u2019s northernmost island of Hokkaido, had been expecting to showcase their culture to the world in a dance at the Olympic stadium, but learned recently that the plans had been scrapped. The Tokyo 2020 organising committee said the performance had been dropped from the ceremony due to \u201clogistical constraints\u201d. \u201cUnfortunately, this particular Ainu dance performance could not be included because of logistical constraints related to the ceremonies,\u201d it said in a statement to the Guardian.<\/p>\n

COMMENT: Now that overseas media has finally decided to pick up this story, let’s open a dedicated blog entry to it. Debito.org’s take is that including the Ainu performance for the world to see would have too clearly contradicted the postwar-created and carefully-curated narrative of Japan as a homogeneous monocultural monoethnic society. \u00a0In contrast to how numerous Opening Ceremonies elsewhere have showcased the diversity of the hosting country, this is an enormous slap in the face to the Ainu not only socially, but also legally, given the 2019 law that finally recognizes them as Japan’s indigenous people, and promises to help promote their culture. First chance they get, the GOJ fumbles it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,36,22,34,20,26,4,13,17,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-history","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-media","category-sport","category-8"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15947","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=15947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15952,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15947\/revisions\/15952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}