Hello Blog. Good news from the H-Japan mailing list. A new ordinance at the prefecutural level was recently enacted to promote multiculturalism in Miyagi Prefecture, home of Sendai. We’ll have to wait and see if this actually means anything in the future, but good news. Thanks to John Morris at Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University, Sendai. Arudou Debito in Sapporo<\/p>\n
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—– Original Message —– From: “H-Japan Editor” H-Japan July 5, 2007<\/p>\n From: “JFMorris” Dear List Members,<\/p>\n The Miyagi Prefectural Assembly voted on 13th [June] to approve the I was able to attend the session of the Industry and Economy Committee Why Miyagi Prefecture, with registered foreign residents constituting Yours faithfully, The Miyagi Prefectural Assembly voted on 13th July to approve the Ordinance to Promote Multiculturalism within the prefecture. This makes the first step by any level of government within Japan to institute any kind or level of law to promote multiculturalism within Japan, but the event has gone totally unnoticed by the domestic media, so far as the author, John Morris of Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University in Sendai, can tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,12,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-immigration-assimilation","category-japanese-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","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=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTo:
\nSubject: H-Japan (E\/J): Multiculturalism in Miyagi Prefecture<\/p>\n
\nOrdinance to Promote Multiculturalism within the prefecture. This makes
\nthe first step by any level of government within Japan to institute any
\nkind or level of law to promote multiculturalism within Japan, but the
\nevent has gone totally unnoticed by the domestic media, so far as I can
\ntell.<\/p>\n
\nwhich was the committee responsible for handling the substantive
\nquestioning concerning the bill. The LDP has a large majority withing
\nthe Miyagi Prefectural Assembly, and the Governor himself is a former
\nmember of the Self-Defense Force: hardly material for a radical approach
\nto politics. However, the questions from the Assembly members on the
\ncommittee were all essentially supportive of the bill. They covered
\nmatters such as, would passing this bill provide a basis for a North
\nKorean-linked Performing Arts Group to use the Prefectural Hall (both
\nthe Governor and the Mayor of Sendai have refused permission for this
\ngroup to use the respective “Kaikan”), and the member pressing this
\nquestion hoped that the bill might provide support for politically
\nunpopular people to use public buildings, and keep the right-wing
\nextremists in check. Another question asked whether this bill would help
\nimprove the situation of the abandoned orphans returned from China
\n(\u4e2d\u56fd\u6b8b\u7559\u5b64\u5150). Yet another came from a member from rural northern Miyagi; a
\nKorean bride within his constituency set fire to her house and family
\nand self last week, and he was concerned that the bill would help
\nprovide support for foreign brides isolated within local communities.
\nThe last question was rather a request, that when the committee to
\nimplete the Ordinance is set up, that the prefecture takes care to make
\nsure that the committee members are not just “big names” but people
\ncommitted to making the Ordinance and its subsequent action plan work.
\nThere was not question nor comment critical of the bill itself. In part,
\nthis was due to very careful prebriefing by the prefectural bureaucrats
\nresponsible for drawing up the bill. From my observations of the gist of
\nthe discussion surrounding the bill, I would suggest that the bill was
\nacceptable to the assembly members because for them, the “gaikokujin”
\n(taken mcuh more broadly then its literal sense) seen to be the primary
\ntarget of the bill were not an abstract “other,” but real people
\nconnected in various ways to the social communities which form the
\nassembly members’ electoral base.<\/p>\n
\nonly 0.7% of the prefectural population has been the first place in
\nJapan to come up with some attempt to put “multiculturalism” (or \u591a\u6587\u5316\u5171\u751f
\nor whatever you wish to label it) on it legislative agenda can only be
\nexplained as a whim of Asano Shirou, the former governnor, who came up
\nwith this idea out of the blue and with no know prior consultation with
\nanyone remotely connected with existing tentative steps in this area
\nwithin the prefectural apparatus. However, that the idea has gained
\nsupport from the new governor and the prefectural assembly (voted
\nunanimously at all levels) cannot be explained as a mere whim by a
\ndeparting governor. Discussing the situation in Miyagi with a person
\nconnected to the Shinjuku Tabunka Kyousei Sentaa, this person was
\nbaffled as to why Miyagi (of all places) should come up with such an
\nidea, and why it should gain wide political support. According to this
\nperson, in Shinjuku, where registered foreign residents account for over
\n10% of the population, inter-ethnic relations are coldly strained, and
\n“tabunka kyousei” is a very unpopular word with those of the local
\npopulation who know of it. I think that the reason the bill in Miyagi
\ndid get through was precisely because the number of “gaikokujin” is
\nsufficient to make people generally aware of our existence, but that the
\nnumber is still sufficiently small, and still largely interconnected
\nwith the existing community for our presence to be seen as “belonging”
\nto local society, rather than existing in antagonism (garbage, loud
\nmusic and crime?) to it.<\/p>\n
\nJohn Morris Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University, Sendai, Japan
\nENDS<\/jfmorris><\/h><\/rshiba><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"