Japanese Racism Is The Cause Of Immigration Detainee Abuse

 

Aichi Police Patrol Near Nagoya Immigration Center

There is an explanation as to why detainees are abused by officers at immigration detention centers．It is obvious but nobody wishes to speak it. It is the hatred and contempt that many Japanese feel toward people who are not Japanese. Japanese xenophobia and racism is well known. That secret was let out of the bottle decades ago. There are three significant problems in the political sphere that hinder the public’s ability to acknowledge racism.

First, the Japanese government’s official position denies the very existence of racial discrimination. Despite recommendations from the United Nations and other countries to take adequate measures against racial discrimination, the Japanese government has stated that they “do not recognize that the present situation of Japan is one in which discriminating acts cannot be effectively restrained by the existing legal system and in which explicit racial discriminating acts, which cannot be restrained by measures other than legislation, are conducted. Therefore, penalization of these acts is not considered necessary.” Even if local governments highlight the reality of discrimination in their municipalities, the federal government’s attitude of complete denial strongly influences society’s overall stance on the existence—or absence—of racism in Japan. Although these issues exist, the denial of racism by the Japanese government undermines its reality.

The second problem lies in the methods that the Japanese government uses to conduct its census. In the US and the UK, census data does not merely record nationality, but ethnic and racial background as well. This is because nationality is not equated with ethnicity or race. However, since Japanese population statistics are only based on nationality, the racial diversity among Japanese nationals is left unexplored by the census. Therefore, this statistic reinforces the idea that the category of “Japanese” refers to a single ethnic group, and that Japan’s population only consists of monoracial Japanese people and non-Japanese people. Yet when we consider the actual racial and ethnic makeup of people living in Japan, we quickly realize that the reality is far more complex. Given that demographic statistics mask the racially diverse reality, it leads to the idea that “Japan is not racially diverse, so there is no such thing as racism in the first place.”

The third issue is the “single ethnicity myth” propagated by Japanese politicians. Those in positions of political power have continuously asserted that the Japanese are a monoethnic group. However, Japan has always been a country with various cultures and customs that vary across each region, with a rich linguistic diversity (such as Ainu, Uchinaguchi [Okinawan], and Japanese Sign Language) and a long history of migratory movement and nomadism. However, when influential politicians repeatedly contradict this reality—by asserting that Japan is a monoethnic society with one language and one culture that has existed for two thousand years—it reinforces the aforementioned single ethnicity myth. This myth of racial and ethnic homogeneity is used to justify the idea that racism has never occurred in Japan.

To move past this fiction, we must accept that Japan is racially diverse, and acknowledge that Japanese people engage in discrimination against foreigners and other Japanese people. That Japan is built in its institutions with a strong racist regard for keeping non-Japanese from achieving any real power. Non-Japanese, even when they naturalize, will never be allowed to work in police, legal, or military spheres. From here, we as a society must establish laws and regulations combating racial discrimination. In addition, we must pay attention to the lived experiences of each individual to understand how racial discrimination affects their daily lives and resist the urge to minimize or silence their experiences.

The Japanese government has been reluctant to open the country to large-scale immigration, especially to those engaging in unskilled labor. But as the population grays and dwindles, and a labor shortage looms larger, many people from abroad have already been allowed to enter under several different programs. The government has no official statistics, but the number of immigrants in Japan is estimated to be around 1.5 million-2.5 million people, some 1.2% to 2% of the entire population.

Dallas Brincrest, Editor

Grisly Murders By Juveniles Say Something About Society

Aichi Police Gather Evidence Bags Outside Station

 

A spate of grisly murders by teenage girls has galvanized public attention. In December, a first-year university student was taken into custody over the slaying of a 77-year-old woman in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. The two cases are under investigation. Last summer, a first-year senior high school student in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, killed a classmate. 

Both girls reportedly told police they "wanted to know what it feels like to kill someone." Their stated motive brings to mind a 1997 case in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, where a 14-year-old boy murdered two elementary school pupils.

In all these killings, I glimpse "the darkness of the human heart," if you will forgive the cliche.

Obviously, one would be extremely naive to lament a loss of sanity among teenage girls today based only on what those two have done.

In fact, statistics show that crimes by juveniles have been on the decline in recent years. Specific cases should always be distinguished from the overall trend.

In the Sasebo case, a local child guidance center was blamed for not dealing properly with the girl, who has since undergone psychiatric evaluation. Her trial is scheduled to start soon in juvenile court. The Nagoya girl was placed in confinement recently for psychiatric evaluation. To prevent similar tragedies from occurring, we must not think these girls are merely aberrations who have nothing to do with us.

Retired judge Yasuhiro Igaki, who presided over the 1997 Kobe case, commented last October in The Asahi Shimbun's opinion section that the public should be fully informed about the reasons some young people are driven to murder. No child must be made to feel abandoned, he emphasized.

This is the hard lesson he learned from the about 6,000 cases he handled during his career.

Nagoya Protocol Needs Another Look

On 14 April 2014, the Council of the EU adopted a regulation that will affect researchers throughout Europe, by enabling ratification of the Nagoya Protocol. Over the next year, the provisions of the protocol and the associated regulation will come into effect, provisions that impose significant new obligations on researchers. And yet they have received surprisingly little attention – you may not even know what the Nagoya Protocol is. You need to – now.

 

The protocol has its roots in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. The CBD enshrined the principle that countries have sovereign rights over their natural resources, and are permitted to control access to their genetic resources. This last term refers to anything that contains ‘functional units of heredity’, including cells, seeds and whole organisms. 

The CBD also extends a country’s rights to a share of any benefits ‘arising out of the utilization of genetic resources’. So it would apply, for example, to obtaining plant matter and extracting, isolating, investigating and commercialising its chemical components (bioprospecting).

 

The convention was signed by all but a handful of countries; however, it contained no sanction or enforcement mechanism to give it legal effect. Thus, an international treaty on ‘Access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization’ was signed in 2010 – the Nagoya Protocol. 

Under Nagoya, researchers must secure ‘prior informed consent’ of the country of origin before accessing a genetic resource, and benefits arising from its ‘utilization’ must be shared with that country. ‘Utilization’ refers to ‘research and development on the genetic and/or biochemical composition of genetic resources’, but the benefit that must be shared extends further downstream to ‘subsequent applications and commercialization’.

 

The associated regulation sets out further requirements for EU researchers. In particular, there is a ‘due diligence’ obligation, under which researchers are required to seek, keep (for 20 years after their work has ended), and transfer to subsequent researchers, information concerning when, where and how a resource was obtained, and details of the benefit sharing arrangements. 

 

Researchers must declare compliance with these obligations when they receive funding for research involving genetic resources. The regulation also provides that EU member states must enforce ‘effective, proportionate and dissuasive,’ sanctions for non-compliance with this obligation, although these have yet to be specified. 

Proponents of Nagoya think it self-evident that a country should control access to its genetic resources, and enjoy a share of any benefits others gain from them. But Nagoya’s opponents find it baffling that a geographic accident should give a state complete control over and perpetual worldwide rights to an organism. 

 

Even if you agree with the principle of benefit-sharing under appropriate circumstances, the limits of the Nagoya protocol are so broad and the requirements for researchers so onerous that they create a burden of bureaucracy that is totally disproportionate to the outcome. 

 

And although the protocol applies only to genetic resources accessed after the regulation comes into force, it seems that researchers will at least need to keep evidence that any existing materials they hold are indeed exempt. 

 

There is a further concern that mandatory access and benefit sharing agreements will create an expectation in countries of origin that there will be some benefit to share. The reality is that most research leads to a dead end: most candidate molecules lead to failure, and most patents do not cover a commercialised product. For example, a screening of 35,000 plant samples, corresponding to 12,000–13,000 species, by the US National Cancer Institute between 1955 and 1982, resulted in only two major discoveries – a hit rate of less than 0.01%.1 So in the overwhelming proportion of cases, expectations will not be fulfilled. This is likely to increase, not decrease, suspicion of companies engaged in bioprospecting. The hurdles involved in negotiating access agreements with countries are also prohibitive, sometimes insurmountable, often involving multiple communities that may have no formal representatives.

 

Another likely outcome usually overlooked by the proponents of Nagoya is that companies and institutions may simply avoid natural products research altogether. That would be a shame. Although the example above gives a low hit rate for natural product screening, that programme did succeed in discovering two important chemotherapy agents – paclitaxel and camptothecin. Less research would mean even less chance of making these discoveries, resulting in less ‘benefit’ for everyone. 

 

Finally, although the CBD has been signed by almost all countries, of the missing signatories, one name is rather glaring: the US. So if genetic material is accessed in contravention of the Nagoya protocol, no offence would be committed in the US. This disparity may well create an advantage for US researchers, unencumbered by Nagoya’s administrative demands.

 

The inescapable conclusion is that the regulation will hamper research in the EU, while producing little concrete benefit for the countries of origin. Be that as it may, researchers who use genetic material will need to act now to avoid sanctions.

 

Darren Smyth is a partner and patent attorney at EIP

Nagoya: A City Of Progress And Opportunity

By Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura

Before I was elected mayor in 2009 of the most populated city, in the fastest growing region in Japan, I knew Nagoya as my home. My father moved here with a couple hundred yen in his pocket for a job as a carpenter and thought he would probably stay a few years and eventually move somewhere else. Well he stayed for more than a few years. Dad married my mother and eventually became owner of that company and turned it into a family business.

I was born in Nagoya and graduated from Asahigaoka High School. I went to Hitotsubashi University and took over the family business. Other interests followed, but I continued to call Nagoya home, not just for the career opportunities, but because the city constantly takes steps forward to becoming one of the world's greatest cities.

Nagoya has always been a transportation hub, and our international airport co-owned with Aichi Prefecture is the world's eighth busiest. It is one of the signature accomplishments of our amazingly dynamic region, which also boasts the largest light rail system in Japan. Several of the nation's best public schools, including the best high school in the country (according to a study by Tokyo University Faculty of education), are in the Nagoya Public School District. Nagoya also has the nation's largest urban forest. Nagoya is currently moving to become the largest park system in Japan with a large portion of the city dedicated to urban greenery for relaxation during the work day.

There's also a generosity of spirit that leveraged more than 1 billion yen in public funding to rally hundreds of donors to each give to build the largest contiguous urban cultural district in the nation. The walkable 20 square blocks of the Nagoya Arts and Government District now feature five museums and performance venues designed by winners of the highest honor in architecture, the IM Pei Prize. In addition to the function and beauty of these buildings, the entire neighborhood reminds our citizenry and the world that promoting culture is essential to the urban fabric and is adjoined by Meijo Park and Nagoya Castle.

We believe that technology, arts and culture will unite global citizens. Nagoya is cultivating the skills essential for problem solving by helping visitors understand and appreciate history and international cultures, as well as innovation and creativity. That's why I am so excited to welcome hundreds of elected and appointed officials, corporate executives, scholars, entrepreneurs and journalists from dozens of countries to our city each year. With the New Cities Foundation, Nagoya is eagerly embracing our future opportunities to innovate. Chief among them is our newly formed Global Cultural Districts Network, headquartered in the Nagoya International Center to continue the conversation among established cultural districts around the world.

GCDN creates a lasting organization to foster the growth of these districts, sharing best practices throughout the world, which we are uniquely situated to lead as a destination city for top creative professionals. With a British conductor, Martyn Brabbins, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra keeps astounding audiences and encouraging young people to appreciate Classical Music and Opera.

We also must see that our international residents from around the world are here to help our Japanese residents create a community of citizens who join together in good and hard times. As mayor I demanded that all our city emergency information and planning be in the languages represented by our residents from around the world. I approached the ward and city council members with this, “Imagine living abroad and paying taxes and yet have no emergency information in the language you understand. How would you feel?” I have encouraged this same attitude in all Nagoya undertakes. No matter our nations of origin, we are Nagoyans and we stand together.

We know we still have challenges to overcome in order to be considered among the top international cities in the world. That's why we are eager to extend legendary Chukyo hospitality to the multinational innovators from all over the world as visitors and residents. Through the process, we hope to redefine Nagoya’s global reputation as being more than automobiles and as “The Detroit of Asia” and help half the world's population now living in urban areas for the first time in history learn from our innovations and opportunities.