Tokyo fire bombing survivor: "Japan starting down road to war again" • Remembering the victims & survivors of the bombings of 67 Japanese & Okinawan cities from 1942 through 1945, & all bombing victims worldwide from 1911 to 2015

Katsumoto Saotome, a survivor of Great Tokyo Air Raids, wears a headband 

with words reading 'Kamikaze' on it, which he carried during an evacuation in the bombing.

(Photo: Reuters)

Reuters journalist Elaine Lies's article on the commemoration of the firebombing of Tokyo, "Tokyo fire bombing survivor fears Japan starting down road to war again," gives voice to one of the many Pacific War survivors warning us about the Japanese government's remilitarization.

Katsumoto Saotome was 12 the night he ran for his life through a sea of flames, jumping over smoldering railroad ties along a train track as U.S. B-29 bombers rained incendiary bombs down around him...

Now, as memories fade of how civilians suffered during World War Two - suffering Saotome blames on Japan's wartime leaders who thought of their citizens as "weeds" - the 82-year-old author fears Japan may be marching toward war again.

"I think we're turning backwards, down that road," said Saotome, citing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plans to change Japan's war-renouncing constitution, his more muscular security stance and a state secrets act passed last year.

"Everyone thinks at first that it's nothing, but more and more things accumulate, and then it's repression. I worry about what happens to women and children in this situation. We have to talk about it, maybe that will put a brake on things."

For Saotome and others of his age, the war stole their childhood. In school, before being conscripted to work in factories, they learned that the "kamikaze" divine wind would annihilate Japan's enemies. Should Japan lose, they would have to choose death over dishonor and kill themselves...

With more than 80 percent of Japanese, including Abe, born after the war, Saotome worries that reluctance to discuss painful issues may mean repeating past mistakes. Political apathy is also a worry, he says...

"Those of us who survived have a duty to become a voice for the voiceless," Saotome said. "If I'm quiet, it means I've accepted the situation. If we don't speak up, the past will be made to disappear."

As we remember the 70th anniversary of the March 9-10 all-night US firebombing of Tokyo, we also remember the largely forgotten firebombings of over 66 other cities in Japan and Okinawa. Historian Mark Selden has noted  that the scale of civilian casualties in Japanese cities "had no parallel in the history of bombing."

The US bombed Kobe, then the sixth largest city, with a population of one million, in 84 air raids, between April 18, 1942 to August 15, 1945. On July 24, 1945, a US B29 dropped 4 experimental "mock" atomic bombs ("pumpkin bombs") , with the same scale and weight as the "Little Boy" nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, on Kobe. With a total death toll of more than 8,000, the death rate of civilians par square mile in Kobe was worse than that of Hiroshima and Tokyo.  Studio Ghibli's 1988 Grave of the Fireflies, an acclaimed animation about 2 child survivors of firebombings, was set in Kobe.

Before Tokyo and Kobe, on October 10, 1944,  US bombers began "softening up" assaults on Naha, the capital of Okinawa, destroying 80 to 90 percent  of the city. A thousand Okinawan civilians, twice as many as Japanese military personnel, were killed during the 10/10 raid. Colonel Yahara, the only surviving senior staff officer of Japan’s 32nd Army, wrote in The Battle for Okinawa (1972) that that the 10/10 destruction of Naha was “a sad foretaste of the tragedy to come” to Okinawa and mainland Japan. Yahara said Imperial Japan should have surrendered earlier to stem the loss of civilian life.  Most of the civilians who died during the Battle of Okinawa were killed by American bombardments.

The US bombings of Tokyo began in December 1944 and continued through August 13, 1945. March 9-10 was the worst of more than 60 air raids on Tokyo: over a hundred thousand civilians were killed and most of old capital was destroyed in one night.

In March 2007, 112 survivors and family members announced they would sue Japanese government for an apology and damages. The the plaintiffs, the oldest of whom was eighty-six and whose average age was seventy-four at the time, filed the suit with the Tokyo District Court in April. As expected, in 2013, the Japanese Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit.

However, the plaintiffs were able to tell their story, in their voices. Following this action, other lawsuits brought by Pacific War victims against the Japanese government, also raising the issue of war responsibility and accountability, followed, including actions by survivors of the Battle of Okinawa and the survivors of the Japanese fire bombings of Chongqing from 1938 to 1943 which killed 10,000 civilians.

Other Japanese cities the US bombed include Sendai (March 10 and July 19, 1945);  Osaka (March 13-14, 1945); Kagoshima (June 17, 1945); Moji, Nobeoka, Okayama and Sasebo (June 28); Takamatsu (July 4, 1945); Kofu (July 6, 1945); Gifu, Sakai, Sendai and Wakayama (July 9, 1945), Toyama (total destruction on Aug. 1-2, 1945).

According to the Shock and Awe Conference on Aerial Bombing held at the London School of Economics in November, 2011, the "development of aerial bombardment was more than just a military revolution.' [Aerial bombardment] "redrew the legal and moral boundaries between civilians and combatants, spread the theatre of war into new environments and expanded the battlefield, making cities into places of mass death and taking warfare into private, domestic spaces." This era began in 1911 when an Italian pilot, Guilio Cavotti, dropped the first bombs from a plane to the oasis of Tagiura outside Tripoli in north Africa during the Italian-Turkish War f ought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911, to October 18, 1912 over the colonial control of Libya.

In the seventy years since the end of Pacific War, war memories and growing awareness of suffering of victims and survivors throughout the Asia-Pacific has continue to fuel peace building efforts by survivors and their descendants. Last June, 1,760,000 supporters of the Japanese Peace Constitution delivered a petition to Prime Minister Abe asking him not to change Article 9.

Background:

Film critic Roger Ebert - Grave of The Fireflies (video talk on Youtube)

"Tokyo fire bombing 70th anniversary: Survivors beg Japan to remember the forgotten 100,000" (David McNeill, The Independent, March 10, 2015)

"Saotome Katsumoto and the Firebombing of Tokyo: Introducing The Great Tokyo Air Raid" (Translation and Intro by Richard Sams, APJ, March 9, 2015)

"VOX POPULI: Anniversary of 1945 Tokyo air raid warns us against past mistakes" (Asahi, March 10, 2014)

"Woman's picture book recalls how mother saved her in Tokyo firebombing" (Hirotaka Kojo, Asahi, March 6, 2014)

"Fire Bombings and Forgotten Civilians: The Lawsuit Seeking Compensation for Victims of the Tokyo Air Raids" (Cary Karacas, The Asia-Pacific Journal, January 17, 2011)

"The Firebombing of Tokyo: Views from the Ground" (Brett Fisk and Cary Karakas, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Jan. 17, 2011)

"China and Japan at War: Suffering and Survival, 1937-1945" (Diana Lary, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Nov. 29, 2010)

"The Great Tokyo Air Raid and the Bombing of Civilians in World War II", The Asahi Shimbun, reposted at The Asia-Pacific Journal, March 11, 2010)

"A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq [*]" (Mark Selden, The Asia-Pacific Journal, May 2, 2007)

-JD

"War is Over! (If You Want It): Yoko Ono" • Sydney MCA • Nov. 15, 2013 - Feb. 23, 2014

"WAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT)" opened Nov. 15, 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.  This is the first major survey in Australia of legendary artist, musician and peace activist Yoko Ono. "The exhibition encompasses five decades of practice in diverse media including eight participatory works. Themes include loss, conflict, humanity and the desire for world peace."  Ono designed the interactive parts of the exhibition to encourage collaboration, linked to a central theme of world peace.

Curated by MCA Chief Curator Rachel Kent, the title comes from a text by Ono and her late husband John Lennon that first appeared in 1969—in the middle of the Vietnam War—across public billboards in twelve cities worldwide, including Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, Berlin, Paris, New York, and London.

While other visual artists have also engaged in peace art and activism, Ono is perhaps the most renowned peace artist of our time.  How did the impetus for her highly focused creative work originate?

Ono has explained that a childhood experience of the firebombing of Tokyo awakened her understanding of the human costs of military violence, fueling her peace art and activism for five decades.

Her father was an international banker and moved his family between the United States and Japan, so, as a child, Ono developed positive attachments to both countries. When the Pacific War broke out, she was eight-years-old, living in Tokyo.  She and her family survived (by taking shelter in a basement in their Azabu home) the firebombings of Tokyo, including the massive March 9-10, 1945 raid—the most destructive bombing raid in world history. At minimum, the napalm-fueled bombings destroyed 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city and killed 100,000 people.

In a 2007 interview with Amy Goodman:

I remember, when I was a little girl, a young — you know, when I was very young, one day I had high fever because of just a cold. You know, I had a cold.

And so, my family all went down into the basement to make sure that, you know, they’re alright. It’s a kind of shelter that they created in the garden actually. But I couldn’t go.

And I was just sort of in my bed, and I saw that all the houses next to us and all the places around me were just all fire. I go, "Oh." But, you know, when you’re young, and that’s the only reality you’re working through, you don’t really get totally scared or anything. You know, you’re just looking at it like an objective film or something like that. "Oh, this is what’s happening," you know?

And because of that memory of what I went through in the Second World War, I think that I really — it embedded in me how terrible it is to go through war.

To those who charge that she is "optimistic" or "naive," Ono points out that she is a simply a resilient pragmatist who cares about life and our planet—and does what she can do—which includes encouraging others to do what they can do to support peace building at multiple levels:

Well, you know, most people say, "Oh, you’re so optimistic. I mean, what’s wrong with you?" I’m not really that optimistic.

I am trying to make us survive. And in the course of survival, we don’t have the luxury to be negative. That’s a luxury that we can’t afford.

 And we just have to do what we can do. And I think that instead of getting so upset with some people, you know, or some countries which are doing this, doing that — "How dare they," whatever — I think we should just do what we can do.

 In a Reuters article about this current exhibition, she compares 1969 with 2013:

When John and I stood up, very few people were activists. Now I think 90 percent of the world is activists. If you're not an activist, you'd be considered a nerd maybe.

 (Image: Colin Davidson, The Guardian)

"Pieces of Sky"—WW II German helmets with blue jigsaw pieces inside.
Visitors are told, "Take a piece of sky. Know that we are all part of each other."

"Play It By Trust"/"White Chess Set"
(Photo: Iain MacMillan,© 1966 YOKO ONO)

Shinya Watanabe:"Through her simple alteration of the chessboard
 (a war strategy game), the artist made it extremely hard for the chess players to 
 fight each other, and this creates new relationships between the opponents."

Global Article 9 Conference in Osaka - October 14, 2013

Via Global Article 9: 

Invitation to the Global Article 9 Conference in Kansai 2013

Article 9 of Japan's Constitution states that Japan renounces both war and military capability.  This article has unique value in today's global society.

Across the world, more and more countries are adopting pacifist constitutions that not only prohibit war in favor of peaceful resolution of conflicts, but also ban weapons of mass destruction – including nuclear weapons. Having experienced the horrors of World War II, Japan's adoption of Article 9 is one of the earliest manifestations of such a legal norm. The preamble to the Japanese Constitution guarantees the right to live in peace, an important concept that overlaps with the notion of the 'Human Right to Peace' which is currently being debated by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

In spite of this, the Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his Liberal Democratic administration are maneuvering to distort the pacifist constitution by revising Article 9. This coincides with dangerous moves to justify Japan's former invasion and colonization of countries across the Asia Pacific region. In the face of these threats, many peace-loving Japanese citizens have joined together to oppose this constitutional revision, and are working to spread the value of Article 9 around the world. While there may be some Japanese politicians who have appalled the world with statements that approve of war-time slavery, the Japanese people do not approve of these statements. The movement to protect human rights and peace is spreading across Japan, and has forged links with youth activists, and others campaigning for nuclear weapons abolition, to end end nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster, and to protect employment, education and living standards.

After the great success of the “Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War” of May 2008, which attracted 30,000 participants, the 'Global Article 9 Conference in Kansai 2013' will be held in Osaka in October 2013. We ask you to consider attending, and further cooperation not only in preventing constitutional revision but also in together spreading Article 9's message of peace around the world.

Co-Initiators of the 'Global Article 9 Conference in Kansai 2013

Ikeda Kayoko (Translator)
Niikura Osamu (Secretary General of International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Lecturer at Aoyama Gakuin University)
Yoshioka Tatsuya (Peace Boat Co-Founder and Director)
Kido Eiichi (Osaka School of International Public Policy)            
Matsuura Goro (Catholic Bishop)

Power of Okinawa: Irei no Hi 2013

Via The Power of Okinawa's great blog on Okinawan music and culture:

 

Today is Irei no hi – the day when the end of the Battle of Okinawa is commemorated throughout the Ryukyu Islands. As usual the biggest ceremony was held at lunchtime at Okinawa Peace Memorial Park in Mabuni, Itoman and I was there along with many others. It always seems to be a scorching hot day on the 23rd June and this was no exception as people gathered in the park under a blazing sun and in a temperature hovering around 32 degrees...

Masaharu Kina, the Speaker of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, made the most pertinent speech in which he noted that there are now 241,227 names on the Cornerstone of Peace (where the names of all those killed in the fighting are inscribed) following the addition of another 62 names this year. He also pointed out that this is a day when all Japanese should think about war even though Irei no hi is still a designated public holiday in Okinawa only. He went on:

"One of the lessons we learned from the sacrifices of countless irreplaceable lives during the war is that a people with no voice will perish. In light of our past being trifled with by national policies, and the currently unchanged situation of Okinawa, the people of Okinawa have held numerous rallies to demand the reduction and realignment of the U.S. military bases and alleviation of our burden. We have voiced our requests.

“Prompted by countless unreasonable actions against Okinawa, we, the people of Okinawa, are about to reach the limit of our patience. The non-partisan petition handed to Prime Minister Abe this January reflects our earnest collective will not to tolerate any more base burdens and to live peaceful lives.

“Under the circumstances we are here with solemnity on this day, which marks the anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa. This is the day to inscribe indelibly into our hearts that such a miserable war should never happen again and to hope for a peaceful bright future.”

Hirotoshi Iha explains the "Heart of Okinawa"

On September 4, 1955 – exactly 40 years to the day before the 1995 gang kidnapping, beating, and rape of a 12-year old Okinawan girl – an American soldier, Sergeant Isaac Hurt, kidnapped Yumiko Nagayama as she was walking to kindergarten. Then he raped her, disemboweled her, and threw her into a military base garbage dump. Less than a week later, another US soldier raped another child. 

The rape-murder of Yumiko-chan  took place during "Bayonets and Bulldozers" – a period of US forced seizure and destruction of 50,000+acres of land (including entire villages), to make build military complexes across the islands. The seizures – usually at gunpoint – left 250,000 Okinawans homeless and without means of livelihood.  Because the US did not allow Okinawans any real legal protections, Okinawans had no legal recourse against the US military violations of their property rights and human rights.

Okinawan mass protests, marches, and sit-ins date back to this period because the people had no legal power to resist the US use of force against them.  The pattern of American soldiers taking young girls from civilian houses at gunpoint to rape (and even murder them) began during the early days of the US occupation of Okinawa and worsened during the 1950's violent period of "Bayonets and Bulldozers."  At this time, the US military rape of women and children became synonymous with the rape-like taking and destruction of their land.

The 1955 murder of Yumiko-chan outraged the Okinawan public, sparking what Okinawan  Moriteru ARASAKI calls the first wave of the Okinawa Struggle for human rights and property rights. Okinawan resistance culminated in the 1956 "island-wide struggle" (shimagurumi toso) challenging US military  domination.

Korean American filmmaker Annabel Park's five-minute video interview of Hirotoshi Iha brings us back to 1955 by illuminating how deeply Okinawns have been injured by the pattern of US violent violations of human rights, land rights, and also why the US and Japanese governments have never been able to extinguish the Okinawan struggle for rights, self-determination, safety from US military violence, and peace.

Filmed in Takae in 2010, Mr. Iha explains why he became an activist and the deep meaning of the "Heart of Okinawa."  Yumiko-chan was his cousin.

The life-long activist then explains why the majority of Okinawans don't want  Futenma training base "transferred" to Henoko: "because we know the human cost of it."

Children's Peace Monument - Hiroshima

Cornerstone of Peace & the "Okinawan Heart"

Today marks the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, the only land battle on Japanese soil. Okinawans commemorated the lives of those who died during the Battle of Okinawa, and prayed for peace for Okinawa and the world.

After the battle's end, instead of bringing peace and democracy to Okinawa, the U.S. government positioned Okinawa as its military "Cornerstone of the Pacific."  Soldiers seized ancestral farmland and homes ("by bayonets and bulldozers") from war survivors to make way for US military bases on 20% of the island's land mass. After fifty years of enduring the US expropriation of their land for war (Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq)  training, Okinawans countered this unwelcome militarist moniker with their pacifist self-definition when they named a memorial erected on Mabuni Hill in Itoman the "Cornerstone of Peace" ( (平和の礎 Heiwa no Ishiji).

The massive monument was dedicated on June 23, 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War and the Battle of Okinawa. Its purpose: (1) Remember those lost in the war, and pray for peace; (2) Pass on the lessons of war; and (3) Serve as a place for meditation and learning. Mabuni Hill was the site of the Japanese military headquarters and scene of heavy fighting in late June 1945, towards the end of the Battle of Okinawa. The names of over two hundred and forty thousand people, including Imperial Japanese and American soldiers, as well as over 100,000 innocent Okinawan civilians, who lost their lives are inscribed on the memorial:

It conveys to the Japanese as well as people of the world, the "spirit of peace" which has developed through Okinawa's history and culture. The names of all those who lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa- regardless of their nationality or whether they ware of military or civilian status- are inscribed on "The Cornerstone of Peace," serving as a prayer for eternal world peace.

The Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum:

In late March 1945, a fierce battle such as has rarely been seen in history took place on these islands. The "Typhoon of Steel" that lasted for ninety days disfigured mountains, destroyed much of the cultural legacy, and claimed the precious lives of upward of 200,000 people. The Battle of Okinawa was the only ground fighting fought on Japanese soil and was also the largest-scale campaign of the Asia-Pacific War. Even countless Okinawan civilians were fully mobilized.

A significant aspect of the Battle of Okinawa was the great loss of civilian life. At more than 100,000 civilian losses far outnumbered the military death toll. Some were blown apart by shells, some finding themselves in a hopeless situation were driven to suicide, some died of starvation, some succumbed to malaria, while other fell victim to the retreating Japanese troops. Under the most desperate and unimaginable circumstances, Okinawans directly experienced the absurdity of war and atrocities it inevitably brings about.

This war experience is at the very core of what is popularly called the "Okinawan Heart," a resilient yet strong attitude to life that Okinawan people developed as they struggled against the pressures of many years of U. S. military control.

The "Okinawan Heart" is a human response that respects personal dignity above all else, rejects any acts related to war, and truly cherishes culture, which is a supreme expression of humanity. In order that we may mourn for those who perished during the war, pass on to future generations the historic lessons of the Battle of Okinawa, convey our message to the peoples of the world and thereby established, displaying the whole range of the individual war experiences of the people in this prefecture, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum.

Nuclear-Free Activist & Artist Mayumi Oda speaking at the 2011 Moana Nui Conference

Longtime nuclear-free activist and artist Mayumi Oda reveals dark, obscured interconnections between Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima in this moving talk given at the 2011 Moana Nui conference in Hawai'i.

Known to many as the “Matisse of Japan,” Mayumi Oda has done extensive work with female goddess imagery. Born to a Buddhist family in Japan in 1941, Mayumi studied fine art and traditional Japanese fabric dying. In 1966 she graduatied from Tokyo University of Fine Arts. Mayumi’s unique apprenticeship dying fabric for kimonos influences the color and composition of all of her work.

Mayumi has spent many years of her life as a “global activist” participating in anti-nuclear campaigns worldwide. She founded Plutonium Free Future in 1992. On behalf of her organization, Oda lectured and held workshops on Nuclear Patriarchy to Solar Communities at the United Nations NGO Forum and the Women of Vision Conference in Washington DC.

Notes from her speech:

I'm 70-years-old now. I was born the year right before Pearl Harbor. For 70 years, I've been struggling with nuclearism. I was 4-years-old when my country was detonated with atomic bombs...

The shadow image of people without any body left stuck in concrete walls...just absolutely scared me as a child.

When my sister country, Korea, had a war, and people crossing over in the cold, it just made me so anxious, I grew up with this kind of fear of....As a child, I thought it was a kind of stupidity, how could people get involved with this.

Now with Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima, I feel like Japanese were born to deal with this incredible legacy of nuclear development...

The Great Tokyo Air Raid through Drawings

The Flames of Kototoi Bridge—Memories of Losing my Family
Artist: Kano Teruo
Location: Sumida River, Kototoi Bridge (Asakusa side)
Age at time of raid: 14
(Image: "That Unforgettable Day--The Great Tokyo Air Raid through Drawings あの日を忘れない・描かれた東京大空襲", The Asia-Pacific Journal)

On March 10, we fled from our home in Asakusa Ward’s Senzoku-cho to Sumida Park near the Kototoi Bridge. The park was a chaotic crowd of jostling people, and I got separated from my family. I jumped into the river because the sparks flying through the air made it so hot that I was having trouble breathing. I was able to wedge myself between the stones of one of the bridge’s supporting pillars. From there I could look up at the flames on the bridge above me and see people stuck on the railing. Every now and again red hot sheets of corrugated tinplate would fly off into the river.

With dawn, those of us who had survived under the bridge gathered. There were about twenty of us left. Everyone else had either burned to death or drowned.

I lost six family members that night, but my troubles were only beginning. I was discriminated against for decades as a war orphan and was forced to live at the lowest levels of society. I don’t even know who to blame for it. I just pray that those who haven’t experienced war will never have to go through that hell themselves.

More at Japan Air Raids.org and Mark Selden's "A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq" at The Asia-Pacific Journal (historical and comparative analysis of the mass bombing of civilians).

The Center of the Tokyo Raid and War Damages exhibition of newly found photos runs until April 8

Nezu Shrine near Asakusa. (Photo: Center of the Tokyo Raid and War Damages
"Center to show photos of U.S. air raids from World War II":

More than 700 never-before-seen photos on the U.S. air raids during World War II, taken by an Imperial Japanese Army propaganda apparatus, will be displayed in Tokyo.

Prints from 636 newly found negatives, as well as 79 photo panels, will be shown at the Center of the Tokyo Raid and War Damages in Koto Ward from Feb. 18...

A man who acquired Tohosha’s former office and darkroom in Tokyo found and kept about 17,000 negatives and donated them to the center last year.

The photos to be displayed show damage from the air raids, which lasted for half a year from November 1944, reconstruction work and life in the ruins of war.

In addition to homes and factories, downtown areas including Ginza and Hibiya and universities such as the Nippon Medical School, Keio University and Sophia University are photographed.

Some photos show damage from U.S. air raids on Hong Kong and Guilin in China, which were under Japanese occupation.

The special exhibition, in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the center’s opening, runs through April 8. Admission is 300 yen for adults and 200 yen for junior and senior high school students.

For those who can't make it to the center in Tokyo's Koto War, Time is featuring an online gallery of some of the photographs.

For more info, please visit The Center of the Tokyo Raid and War Damages website.

Gordon Hirabayashi, challenger of the constitutionality of WWII Japanese American incarceration, passes at age 93

(Hirabayashi (left) is joined by fellow coram nobis plaintiffs Min Yasui and Fred Korematsu in 1983. He was the last surviving plaintiff who challenged the legality of the wartime exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Photo: Steven Okazaki

Yesterday Gordon Hirabayashi, the last surviving plaintiff who challenged the constitutionality of U.S. wartime exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans, passed yesterday.

Rafu Shimpo, a bilingual newspaper for the Los Angeles Japanese American community, published a thorough and moving obituary (that does not use the euphemism "internment"):

Civil Rights Icon Gordon Hirabayashi Dies at 93 -
Wartime Supreme Court case was reopened in 1983

Gordon K. Hirabayashi, who challenged the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, passed away on Monday. A resident of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, he was 93.

The announcement was made on Facebook by his son Jay, who wrote, “He was an American hero besides being a great father who taught me about the values of honesty, integrity, and justice. My mother, Esther Hirabayashi, who was 87, also passed away this morning about ten hours later. She was a beautiful, intelligent, generous soul. Although my parents were divorced, they somehow chose to leave us on the same day. I am missing them a lot right now.”

Hirabayashi is remembered along with Minoru Yasui (1916-1986) and Fred Korematsu (1919-2005) for violating curfew and exclusion orders imposed on West Coast Japanese Americans and appealing their convictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled against them, accepting the government’s argument of military necessity.

Through a legal maneuver called writ of error coram nobis, the three cases were reopened in 1983 by a group of mostly Japanese American attorneys on the basis of newly uncovered documents showing that the government knew Japanese Americans did not pose a security threat but hid that information from the court. The convictions were overturned, thus strengthening the movement to obtain redress for former internees.

A biography of Hirabayashi, to be published by University of Washington Press, is being written by his nephew, Lane Hirabayashi of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, and brother, James Hirabayashi, former dean of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University.

“Gordon believed very strongly that his war-time Supreme Court case, and his 1980s coram nobis case, were both the JA community’s and the larger American public’s cases,” Lane Hirabayashi told the Rafu Shimpo. “He never felt, that is, that these were somehow exclusively his own. My understanding is that he remained profoundly grateful to all the individuals, networks, and the organizations that supported him, and never forgot that these included people of all colors, from all walks of life.

“Thus he believed that the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling in his coram nobis appeal, vacating his conviction after more than four decades, was a victory for everyone.”

The coram nobis cases were the subject of an Oscar-nominated 1985 documentary by Steven Okazaki, “Unfinished Business,” and two books, Justice at War (1983) and Justice Delayed (1989) by Peter Irons, who led the effort to reopen the cases...

(Source for quotes: The Courage of Their Convictions: 16 Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court by Peter Irons, 1988)

DENSHO: The Japanese American Legacy Project has a series of interviews with Gordon Hirabayashi online and a thoughtful exploration of terminology used to describe the mass detention: "Frontier Colonies or Concentration Camps? Euphemisms for the Incarceration".

Supporters Form Human Chain in Tokyo to Call for Wartime Sexual Slavery Justice Amidst Ultra-Right Opposition

As I approached the offices of the Foreign Affairs Ministry to participate in a human chain event advocating justice for “comfort women”—the euphemism for women (many of them Korean) who were abducted into wartime sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army—I was shocked to hear lewd messages blaring from multiple directions via deafening loudspeakers. Many, many times louder than the shameful commentary broadcast by members of the uyoku (ultra-rightists) during the recent Fukushima women’s sit-in, these comments were no less disturbing: “You’re all liars. These women were just prostitutes!” “What about the abduction issue? How dare you Koreans demand compensation!” “And you pitiful Japanese who are out here supporting them? You must secretly be Korean!”

Deeply shaken by what was going on around me, I made my way to join the human chain. I felt better to see that it was enormously long—drawing, I later learned, some 1200 to 1300 participants. On the way, I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the tents which had been in place during the Fukushima women’s sit-in were still very much intact—serving to give voice to both the ongoing anti-nuclear and Occupy Tokyo movements. I stopped for a moment to pick up flyers and give a small donation, and saw that the woman staffing the booth was in tears. “This is so shameful,” she whispered. “There are women who have traveled from Korea to be here today, and now they have to listen to this ugly abuse.”

I tried to comfort her, saying that the Korean women surely were grateful for the presence of numerous supporters and allies, such as herself—and that ultimately, those hurling the verbal tirades were injuring themselves more than anyone else. While I wanted to add that the women from Korea were also unlikely to understand exactly what was being said, the reality was that any who were old enough to remember the Japanese occupation were indeed likely to speak the language due to its forced wartime usage.

Human chain advocating justice for women forced into wartime sexual slavery

The event was being held to commemorate the 1,000th weekly demonstration held outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul every Wednesday since 1992—rain or shine—to demand that the Japanese government officially apologize and provide financial compensation to the so-called "comfort women." A press release for the action reads:

More than 20 years have passed since Kim Hak-Sun first declared on August 14 1991 that she had been forced to serve as a “comfort” woman (sex slave) by the Japanese Army in Korea during World War II. Other women subsequently came forth, and the following year demonstrations began to be launched every Wednesday in Korea to call for a resolution to the issue of sexual exploitation by the Japanese military. December 14 2011 will mark the 1,000th such demonstration.

Former “comfort women” endured systematic military rape and great pain and humiliation during wartime, and many led lives of great hardship even after the war. Despite such adversity, survivors began to gather the courage to talk about their experiences and shed light on a subject previously unacknowledged. Today, the 234 women who came forward are now over the age of 80, and many of them have passed away greatly disappointed that the issue still had not been resolved in their lifetimes.

Two decades later, the Japanese government continues to ignore advisories on the issue given by human rights bodies such as the United Nations, as well as resolutions passed by the legislatures of Korea, Taiwan, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and the European Union, as well as the proposal by the Korean Foreign Affairs Deputy Office bilateral Japan-Korea negotiations following the August 30 2011 Korean Constitutional Court ruling.

For 20 years, despite conditions of rain, snow or scorching heat, the survivors have demonstrated every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. To mark their 1000th weekly demonstration, and to demand that the Japanese government restore honor to these victims of military sexual violence, and issue both an apology and reparations to the women without further delay, Japanese civil society groups will create a human chain around the Japanese Foreign Ministry office on December 14, 2011. Other actions will be carried out on the same day throughout Japan and in other countries throughout the world, including the Philippines, Australia, Germany, the United States, Taiwan, Canada and Korea.

After participating briefly in the human chain, I returned to the tent to speak with activists about the day’s gathering in the context of social movements happening in Japan today. Mitsuro Sudo, a member of the anti-nuclear citizen organization Tanpoposha (“No Nukes Plaza Tokyo”), made the connections easily. “Whether we are talking about wartime sexual slavery or forced construction of military bases—which was recently likened in Okinawa to the act of rape—we must deeply consider the point of view of those being victimized,” he said thoughtfully. “The shared cause among each of these issues is the act of invasion, whether on a personal or a national level, and we must look at these problems historically in order to solve them.”

“In addition to power politics and problems connected to the market economy, which exist in many countries, one special problem unique to Japan is that of the kokutai (emperor’s organization),” he added, gesturing toward the counter-protesters, whose belligerent ranting had begun reaching even higher crescendos. “These aggressors clearly want to protect their profits at any cost, and so it’s up to the rest of us to save the children, the poor and the weak from the new atomic power holocaust that is now occurring in Fukushima.”

Mitsuro Sudo, continuing to fight the good fight outside the Japanese Diet offices

"Stop all nuclear power now!"
I had to leave after about an hour to return to my workplace, which was only about a five-minute walk from where the demonstration was taking place. Barely able to summon an appetite amidst the continued chaos, I nevertheless began to eat my lunch of homemade umeboshi onigiri (rice balls with pickled plum filling)—suddenly becoming aware of the ironic symbolism whereby this food is often equated with the very same Hinomaru (Japanese national flag) that was now being wielded all around me by hate-spewing uyoku. I lost my appetite for the briefest of moments before recalling a conversation I had had several years prior with a friend regarding the symbolism of the sakura (cherry blossoms), which had historically been co-opted by war sympathizers who equated the phenomena with soldiers dying for their nation in the prime of youth—but whose fleeting beauty we both agreed that we would continue to admire nevertheless.


Sign reads: "Comfort woman=sexual slave is a LIE. Just prostitute!"
In any case, whether the “comfort women” will receive the justice that is long due to them, I cannot say. Sadly, most of them have already died without seeing this occur during their lifetime. To mark the 1,000th demonstration in Seoul, a statue of a young girl was erected Wednesday across from the Japanese Embassy to symbolize those who lost their youth in such a cruel way. Rather than use this as an opportunity for reflection, however, the Japanese government has instead issued an official complaint, claiming that the statue would “damage relations” between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the global grassroots movement to support these women continues. In Tokyo, the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM) regularly houses installations on the issue, and groups such as the Violence Against Women in War – Network Japan (VAWW-Net) continue to pressure the Japanese government to act upon the ruling handed down by the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery in 2000, which it has ignored to date.


Loudspeaker-equipped uyoku trucks, ruining an otherwise beautiful autumn day
Wednesday's event was synchronized with the action in Seoul, which similarly demanded a public apology and compensation for the surviving women. In addition, solidarity events were held across the archipelago by supporters in Hokkaido, Hiroshima, Fukuyama, Fukuoka, Osaka, Okinawa and Shizuoka.

In Tokyo, more than 300 citizens attended an intra-Diet meeting, while another 100-strong waited outside the room. Seven Diet members from various parties along with non-affiliated members participated in the meeting, pledging their commitment to this issue.

For further details on Wednesday’s demonstrations in Seoul and elsewhere, see this excellent article from Asia One News.

--Kimberly Hughes

Kenzaburo Oe's "Hiroshima and the Art of Outrage" illuminates interconnections between Hiroshima bombing, Okinawa bases, & nuclear "umbrella"

Kenzaburo Oe has been a principal voice in Japan's soul-searching in matters of war and peace since his emergence as a literary wunderkind during the late 1950's. Scholar John Nathan described the novelist as a "spokesman for the postwar generation" whose novels explored the lives of "young Japanese struggling to survive with dignity in desecrated society." Oe said the three seminal influences on his personal and creative development were the birth of his handicapped son, Hikari, and his visits to Hiroshima and Okinawa.



Concerned about the accelerated remilitarization of Japan during the Koizumi-Bush era, Oe joined with prominent Japanese thinkers in founding 9-Jo No Kai (The Article 9 Association) in 2004. In 2008, Oe prevailed in a lawsuit challenging his essay, Okinawa Notes in which the author adhered to the widely accepted assertion that the Japanese military forced civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa. Earlier this summer, speaking at an Article 9 Association meeting in Tokyo on June 19 (the 50th anniversary of the automatic enactment of the revised Japan-U.S. Security Treaty on June 19, 1960), Oe called for a reduction in military bases on Okinawa in accordance with the Peace Constitution.

In "Hiroshima and the Art of Outrage," published by the New York Times last year, Oe articulates the interconnections between atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the 60-year U.S.-Japan military occupation of Okinawa; and ongoing attempts by military industrialists to undermine Japan's non-nuclear principles:

The Futenma Marine Corps Air Station on Okinawa, one of the largest United States military bases in East Asia, is in the center of a crowded city. The American and Japanese governments acknowledge the dangers of this situation, and they agreed nearly 15 years ago that the base should be moved; however, no move has yet been made.

In 2009 a new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, tantalized Okinawans with the prospect of moving the despised base off the island, but he was recently forced to resign, in part because of his failure to keep that promise. Mr. Hatoyama’s successor, Naoto Kan, has made it clear that he intends to respect the United States-Japan security treaty — a position that, while not directly related to the issue of dialing down the United States military presence in Japan, may indicate which way the wind is blowing.

It was recently reported here that a government panel is about to submit a policy paper to Prime Minister Kan, suggesting that regarding Japan’s “three nonnuclear principles” — prohibiting the production, possession and introduction of nuclear weapons — it was not wise to “limit the helping hand of the United States,” and recommending that we allow the transport of nuclear arms through our territory to improve the so-called nuclear umbrella.

When I read about this in the newspaper last week, I felt a great sense of outrage. (I’ll explain later why that word has such deep significance for me.) I felt the same way when another outrageous bit of news came to light this year: the decades-old, Okinawa-related secret agreement entered into by the United States and Japan in contravention of the third of the three nonnuclear principles, which forbids bringing nuclear weapons into Japan.

At the annual Hiroshima Peace Ceremony on Friday, this year marking the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb, representatives from Britain, France and the United States planned to be in attendance, for the first time. This is a public event at which government leaders give speeches, but it also has a more profound and private aspect, as the atomic bomb survivors offer ritual consolation to the spirits of their dead relatives. Of all the official events that have been created during the past 200 years of modernization, the peace ceremony has the greatest degree of moral seriousness... In Edward W. Said’s last book, “On Late Style,” he gives many examples of artists (composers, musicians, poets, writers) whose work as they grew older contained a peculiar sort of concentrated tension, hovering on the brink of catastrophe, and who, in their later years, used that tension to express their epochs, their worlds, their societies, themselves.

As for me, on the day last week when I learned about the revival of the nuclear-umbrella ideology, I looked at myself sitting alone in my study in the dead of night . . . . . . and what I saw was an aged, powerless human being, motionless under the weight of this great outrage, just feeling the peculiarly concentrated tension, as if doing so (while doing nothing) were an art form in itself. And for that old Japanese man, perhaps sitting there alone in silent protest will be his own “late work.”

Read the entire essay here.

(See also: Kenzaburo Oe's "Misreading, Espionage and 'Beautiful Martyrdom': On Hearing the Okinawa ‘Mass Suicides’ Suit Court Verdict," published at Japan Focus in 2008)

Kenzaburo Oe prevails in "Okinawa Notes" lawsuit

Kyodo via The Japan Times:

Saturday, April 23, 2011

'Okinawa Notes' suit favors Oe
Kyodo

The Supreme Court said Friday it has finalized the judgment in favor of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe in a libel suit filed against him and his publisher for writing in a 1970 book of essays that the Japanese military forced civilians to kill themselves and others en masse during the Battle of Okinawa.

In its Thursday ruling, the court turned down an appeal from two plaintiffs who claimed in the 2005 suit that Oe's depiction disgraces two garrison commanders they represent and sought an injunction to block further printing of the book.

But the top court's five-justice First Petty Bench did not touch on whether the military issued an order for civilians to commit mass suicide, unlike lower courts that found the military was involved and thus adjudged Oe's descriptions as not defamatory.

Read the rest here.

Keiko Miyamori: Bird Cages & the Gilded Boat, installation with soundscape by Steven Berkowitz @ Ise Cultural Foundation, NY, Jan 14-Feb 26

Keiko Miyamori is preoccupied with making visible the invisible connections between people and nature across our planet. Like many other Japanese-born and Japanese-American artists, she is haunted by the historical trauma of the Second World War. The Philly-based visual artist believes that, if we can better see the interconnections that bind us together with each other and the natural world, we would be less likely to engage in the nonsensical destruction of military violence and war. Her work is a visual artistic cure for the roots of violence: alienation, competition, and fear.

Miyamori's upcoming exhibition incorporates tree rubbings and birdsongs from five different continents to evoke a sense of planetary holism based upon the idea of the supercontinent Amasia:

"Amasia is one of the possible future supercontinents that could be formed by the merger of Asia and North America. It is based on the idea that the Pacific Plate is already subducting under Eurasia and North America and the process will eventually cause it to close...

"This project will share with my related projects a common goal of helping people to experience the 'connections' that exist between all of us with our surroundings...I have struggled to come to terms with terrible events in my cultural history that happened due to lack of feeling connected to the 'other,' the 'there' rather than 'here.' I hope that my installation will allow people to feel, through the freedom of imagination, a sense of global connection..."

Keiko Miyamori: Bird Cages and the Gilded Boat
an installation with soundscape by Steven Berkowitz
Curated by Sean A. Stoops

Ise Cultural Foundation
555 Broadway, New York, NY
January 14 - February 26, 2011

Opening reception: Friday, January 14, 6 - 8 PM

KAMIOTO - USA x Japan sound performance: Thursday, February 3, 6 - 7 PM
Gallery Talk: Saturday, February 26, 2 - 3 PM

(Gilded Boat: "The old found canoe was covered with Japanese washi paper pasted tight to obtain a new uniform skin... As a contrast, the inside of the boat will be gilded with gold leaf to symbolize the “inner” energy of the human vessel, how the human’s physical shell can hold its imagination." Text: Keiko Miyamori; Photo: Kenji Takigami)

As part of the Emerging Curators Program, the ISE Cultural Foundation presents: Keiko Miyamori: Bird Cages and the Gilded Boat a gallery exhibition curated by Sean A. Stoops, featuring a mixed media installation by Keiko Miyamori with an electronic “soundscape” composed by Steven Berkowitz. The exhibition runs January 14 - February 26, 2011, with an opening reception on Friday, January 14, 6 - 8 PM.

Keiko Miyamori explores of her experiences and history through sculpture and installation art. Bird Cages and the Gilded Boat is a new installation of Miyamori’s recent sculptures and works on paper. Bird Cages Without Roofs consists of altered bird cage sculptures with open tops, implying a basic desire to escape the struggles and conflicts that keep people confined in metaphoric “cages;” addressing the dichotomy of captivity and freedom. The Bird Cages are juxtaposed with Gilded Boat, a basic wood canoe transformed into a dream-like vessel and embellished with classical Japanese art materials- washi paper with charcoal frottage from tree bark on the hull and a gilded interior of gold-leaf. Unifying the sculptures are a series of Tree Rubbings with charcoal on washi paper, created from numerous trees in five continents, based on Miyamori’s travels over the past few years. These works on paper are combined with regional grain, corn, and nuts in clear, circular frames, intimating natural cycles of trees and plants. Miyamori’s recent visits to Australia, Brazil, Japan, and Kenya were supported by grants from Philadelphia organizations- the Independence Foundation and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists.


For this exhibition, Steven Berkowitz presents a new sound art work created from tree bark - rubbing patterns in Keiko Miyamori’s installation- turning the visible markings into the musical “notes” of an ambient “soundscape.” Field recordings of specific bird songs from around the world are mixed into the aural environment. Berkowitz researched native bird sounds from the locations that Miyamori visited in her tour of five continents. The resulting multi-channel “soundscape” creates the impression in the gallery of an invisible aviary, with a chorus of birds from around the globe. Keiko Miyamori’s installation, combined with Steven Berkowitz’s audio, allude to journeys between different stages of being and natural elements: air, earth, and water.

On Thursday, February 3, 6 - 8 PM, the gallery presents- KAMIOTO: A Conversation of Forest and City, a “USA x Japan” sound performance with a live internet / video collaboration between New York City and Ryugasaki, Japan. The special event - directed by Keiko Miyamori - features electronic sound art by Steven Berkowitz, video by Hsiang-Chin Moe (both at ISE gallery in NY), and in Japan, percussion by Chikara Miura with children at Ryugasaki kindergarten from the wild Japanse cedar forest.

On Saturday, February 26, 2 - 3 PM, there will be a gallery talk with the curator and the artists discussing the installation and their work in general.

Additional support for this exhibition has been provided by:
the Independence Foundation (Philadelphia) and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (Philadelphia) Sake Discoveries, LLC (New York City) and the Forestry Agency (Japan).

About the Artists and Curator:

Keiko Miyamori is a Japanese-American artist based in New York and Philadelphia, PA. Keiko Miyamori earned her MFA and BFA at University of Tsukuba, Japan and has lived in Philadelphia, PA since 2000. Miyamori explores of her experiences and history through sculpture and installation art.

Steven Berkowitz has a MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and is currently a professor there, dividing his time between New York City and Philadelphia. Berkowitz has exhibited and performed in numerous art venues in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Berkowitz frequently creates sound art for gallery installations, both for his own photography and in collaboration with other artists.

Sean A. Stoops is a curator and new media artist living in Philadelphia. Stoops has a MFA in video art and curating from Transart Institute, Donau University -- an international graduate program for new media art, based in Linz, Austria and Berlin, Germany. He earned his BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and studied at Temple Abroad in Rome, Italy. Stoops has curated and exhibited at many art galleries in Philadelphia including: the Painted Bride Art Center, Asian Arts Initiative, International House, and Rebekah Templeton Contemporary Art. This is his first curated exhibition in New York City. See also: "Keiko Miyamori's Tsunagu Series Connects People and Nature throughout the World"

Special Premiere Screening of Hiroshima Nagasaki Download in NYC tomorrow, Nov. 14

Via Yumi Tanaka of the New York Peace Film Festival:

Greetings!

I'd proud to announce NY Premiere screening of "Hiroshima Nagasaki Download" directed by Shinpei Takeda. This film was screened at 1st Nagasaki International Peace Film Forum that spread out my New York Peace Film Festival. The film is to be released in nation-wide theaters next summer.

Mr. Takashi Thomas Tanemori, a Hiroshima survivor living in San Francisco, will be present at the screening to answer Q and A after the screening with the director.

Synopsis:

Upon the end of the World War II, some people who survived the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki immigrated to the USA, bearing both physical and psychological wounds. These survivors have lived quietly in a country formerly considered their "state enemy."

Sixty-four years later, two former high school friends journey to seek "Hiroshima" and "Nagasaki" as they are ingrained in the collective psyche of modern Japan. They drove down America's West Coast to visit eighteen other survivors who shared memories that changed the lives of the friends forever.

Director: Shinpei Takeda

The first feature film by Shinpei Takeda, a director based in Mexico who has followed the atomic bomb survivors in North and South America for the last 5 years.

When & Where:

■　Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010 at 2:30pm ~ (Door opens at 2:00pm)

■　Anthology Film Archives：32 Second Avenue (at 2nd St), New York, NY 10003

■　Q and A session after the screening with a director and one of the survivors who appeared in the film

■　Admission:　$9

■　Advance Ticket: http://hndownload.eventbrite.com/

■　Website:　www.hndownload.com

■　Follow us on twitter:　http://twitter.com/HNDownload

In Japanese:

ドキュメンタリー映画『ヒロシマナガサキダウンロード』NYプレミア上映会のお知らせ

朝晩冷え込み紅葉も始まって来ましたが、皆様いかがお過ごしでしょうか？

この夏、主宰するニューヨーク平和映画祭から広がった第1回長崎国際平和映画フォーラムで上映されたドキュメンタリー映画『ヒロシマナガサキダウンロード』の特別上映会のお手伝いをしています。来夏ロードショーに先駆けたNYプレミア上映会を来る11月14日（日）午後2時半より開催します。等身大の青年たちが向き合う「自分」、そして「在米被爆者」、そして「継承」とは−。

上映会には本作品に出演されている胤森貴士（たねもりたかし）さんをサンフランシスコよりご招待予定です。
是非、ご家族、お友達とお誘い合わせの上、お越しください。

会場でお会いするのを楽しみにしています。

また、来年夏日本ロードショーに向けてのファンドレイザーパーティー、胤森貴士さんの証言トークも別途企画予定しています。詳細が決まり次第ご連絡します。


《あらすじ》
終戦後、かつての「敵国」アメリカに移住した被爆者たちがいた。原爆の記憶に苦しみ、後遺症への恐怖に怯えながらも、アメリカの大地で反省を過ごしてきた人々。あの日の出来事を、誰にも語ることなく時は過ぎようとしていた。

2009年、春。「自分」を模索し続ける青年2人が、日本人の記憶の奥底に刻まれているヒロシマ、ナガサキを巡る旅に出た。原爆を体験していない世代が、頭だけではなく心で感じることは、可能なのか。残された世代は、被爆者から何を受け継ぎ、継承していくべきなのか。アメリカ西海岸を南下しながら在米被爆者と共に笑い、共に泣いた彼等が、最終的に到達した答えとは−−。

過去5年間、南北米大陸へ渡った被爆者を収録し続けているメキシコ在住の竹田信平監督初の長編ドキュメンタリー映画。広大なアメリカ西海岸を背景に、在米被爆者の魂に迫るロードムービー。

■　ドキュメンタリー映画『ヒロシマナガサキダウンロード』（上映時間73分）

■　11月14日（日）午後2時半〜4時半　（開場午後2時）

■　Anthology Film Archives：　32 Second Avenue (at 2nd St), New York, NY 10003 MAP

■　上映後、竹田監督および出演の在米被爆者とのQ＆Aセッション

■　入場料：　$9

■　前売り：http://hndownload.eventbrite.com/

■　ウェブサイト　www.hndownload.com

■　ツイッター　http://twitter.com/HNDownload

監督：竹田信平（たけだしんぺい）：1978年京都市生まれ。幼少時代は家族と共にドイツ、米国に滞在。2001年、米国デューク大学卒業後にサン・ディエゴで渡米難民の子供への絵画・写真技術を指導するNPOを立ち上げる。2004年、ロバート・リクター監督、キャサリーン・サリバン監督の「最後の原子爆弾（The Last Atomic Bomb）」の製作にアシスタントとして携わる。その後、北米・南米在住の被爆者の体験談の収録し始める。ブラジルやメキシコで展示会やメディアキャンペーン等を催すと同時に、国立長崎原爆死没者追悼平和祈念館に在外被爆者の体験談の映像を歴史的資料として寄贈する。2008年には、戦前にメキシコに移住した日本人写真家の一生を描いた「メキシコに最も近い日本（和訳）」を自主製作・監督。本作品で長編映像デビュー。

Kenzaburo Oe's "Hiroshima and the Art of Outrage" illuminates interconnections between Hiroshima bombing, Okinawa bases, & nuclear "umbrella"

Kenzaburo Oe has been a principal voice in public soul-searching in Japan in matters of war and peace since his emergence as a literary wunderkind during the late 1950's. Scholar John Nathan described the novelist as a "spokesman for the postwar generation" whose novels explored the lives of "young Japanese struggling to survive with dignity in desecrated society." Oe said the three seminal influences on his personal and creative development were the birth of his handicapped son, Hikari, and his visits to Hiroshima and Okinawa.


Concerned about the accelerated remilitarization of Japan during the Koizumi-Bush era, Oe joined with prominent Japanese thinkers in founding 9-Jo No Kai (The Article 9 Association) in 2004. In 2008, Oe prevailed in a lawsuit challenging his essay, Okinawa Notes in which the author adhered to the widely accepted assertion that the Japanese military forced civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa. Earlier this summer, speaking an Article 9 Association meeting in Tokyo on June 19 (the 50th anniversary of the automatic enactment of the revised Japan-U.S. Security Treaty on June 19, 1960), Oe called for a reduction in military bases on Okinawa in accordance with the Peace Constitution.

In "Hiroshima and the Art of Outrage," published by the New York Times, Oe articulates the interconnections between atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the 60-year U.S.-Japan military occupation of Okinawa; and ongoing attempts by military industrialists to undermine Japan's non-nuclear principles:

THE Futenma Marine Corps Air Station on Okinawa, one of the largest United States military bases in East Asia, is in the center of a crowded city. The American and Japanese governments acknowledge the dangers of this situation, and they agreed nearly 15 years ago that the base should be moved; however, no move has yet been made.

In 2009 a new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, tantalized Okinawans with the prospect of moving the despised base off the island, but he was recently forced to resign, in part because of his failure to keep that promise. Mr. Hatoyama’s successor, Naoto Kan, has made it clear that he intends to respect the United States-Japan security treaty — a position that, while not directly related to the issue of dialing down the United States military presence in Japan, may indicate which way the wind is blowing.

It was recently reported here that a government panel is about to submit a policy paper to Prime Minister Kan, suggesting that regarding Japan’s “three nonnuclear principles” — prohibiting the production, possession and introduction of nuclear weapons — it was not wise to “limit the helping hand of the United States,” and recommending that we allow the transport of nuclear arms through our territory to improve the so-called nuclear umbrella.

When I read about this in the newspaper last week, I felt a great sense of outrage. (I’ll explain later why that word has such deep significance for me.) I felt the same way when another outrageous bit of news came to light this year: the decades-old, Okinawa-related secret agreement entered into by the United States and Japan in contravention of the third of the three nonnuclear principles, which forbids bringing nuclear weapons into Japan.

At the annual Hiroshima Peace Ceremony on Friday, this year marking the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb, representatives from Britain, France and the United States planned to be in attendance, for the first time. This is a public event at which government leaders give speeches, but it also has a more profound and private aspect, as the atomic bomb survivors offer ritual consolation to the spirits of their dead relatives. Of all the official events that have been created during the past 200 years of modernization, the peace ceremony has the greatest degree of moral seriousness... In Edward W. Said’s last book, “On Late Style,” he gives many examples of artists (composers, musicians, poets, writers) whose work as they grew older contained a peculiar sort of concentrated tension, hovering on the brink of catastrophe, and who, in their later years, used that tension to express their epochs, their worlds, their societies, themselves.

As for me, on the day last week when I learned about the revival of the nuclear-umbrella ideology, I looked at myself sitting alone in my study in the dead of night . . . . . . and what I saw was an aged, powerless human being, motionless under the weight of this great outrage, just feeling the peculiarly concentrated tension, as if doing so (while doing nothing) were an art form in itself. And for that old Japanese man, perhaps sitting there alone in silent protest will be his own “late work.”

Read the entire essay here.

(See also:  Kenzaburo Oe's "Misreading, Espionage and 'Beautiful Martyrdom': On Hearing the Okinawa ‘Mass Suicides’ Suit Court Verdict," published at Japan Focus in 2008.

Letter to Obama from sansei Soji Kashiwagi reflects tensions of Japanese North Americans over nuclear bombings in Japan

Last year, after President Obama's now-famous April 5, 2009 speech in Prague promising that the U.S. would take concrete steps to creating a world without nuclear weapons, many people and organizations wrote letters, urging him to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Published on August 15 last year at Discover Nikkei, the web project of the Japanese American National Museum, this eloquent letter to Obama from third-generation Japanese American Soji Kashiwagi to President Obama reflects the intimate tensions that many Japanese North Americans feel about their government using weapons of mass destruction against people (who may have been grandmothers or cousins) in Japan.

Two things, for me, made matters much worse, and truly brought it home:  One, that our country, the United States of America, was responsible for this and the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki; and two, that members of my own family were there to suffer through it all.  Seeing the devastation is one thing.  Knowing that it happened to my own family makes this very personal.

Kashiwagi challenges advocates of nuclear weapons who cite the rebuildings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to support the use of more nuclear bombings. The survivor of the Japanese-American wartime incarceration reminded President Obama that the severe emotional trauma of the nuclear bombings and the physical aftereffects of radiation do not "go away."

Today, Hiroshima, by all outside appearances, looks to be a thriving city, rebuilt and reborn.  However, to use Hiroshima as a shining example of how a city can recover from an atomic bomb attack is misguided and simply untrue.  When told of a conservative talk radio host in Los Angeles saying on the air, “Look at Hiroshima, they’ve gotten over the bomb” as if to suggest the use of nuclear weapons is somehow acceptable, both Takeshi and his younger brother, Katsuzo, both reacted in anger and became very emotional.

“This is the kind of attitude that will allow this to happen again,” said Takeshi.

“There is no compassion in this attitude,” said Katsuzo.

Having visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I have concluded that there is absolutely no way to “get over” an atomic bombing. Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have “recovered.”  But not far from the surface, the suffering and aftereffects of the atomic bomb continue to this day.  Hibakusha, or A-Bomb survivors, currently live in all parts of Japan and around the world, and continue to suffer debilitating aftereffects of radiation poisoning.  In our friend’s family, a baby girl born two generations after the bombing is disabled with severe birth defects, due to radiation in her mother, passed onto her from her mother who survived the bomb.  And as Takeshi said, it took him 40 years to recover—40 years!

These are the stories most Americans know nothing about.  But if we’re going to prevent a nuclear holocaust, these are the stories Americans need to know, and constantly be reminded of so that what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki will never happen again to anyone, anywhere.

Kashiwagi and his family emphatically repeat the message that hibakusha peace activists have proclaimed worldwide for sixty-five years: "Never again."

Read Soji Kashiwagi's entire letter and see his photos of Hiroshima here.

Urakami, Nagasaki: August 9, 1945 & Today (rebuilt cathedral & renewed community at Ground Zero)

The city of Nagasaki came into being when Portuguese adventurers came to Japan in 1542 and asked Lord Sumitada, who ruled the area, for the use of the beautiful harbor. Japan's most southern island, Kyushu, had long been the archipelago's principal crossroads for Silk Road traders, and, before that, prehistoric travelers, but their route took them through Hakata, an ancient port city, slightly to the north.

After a squabble with Ming China interrupted old commercial routes, the newly arrived traders became the Japanese elite's only source of Chinese silk, Indian and Persian luxury goods, and European guns. Military unifier Oda Nobunaga welcomed the European merchants and accompanying missionaries, aligning with them to create leverage against rival daimyos backed by powerful Buddhist temples in Kyoto. Franscisco de Xavier arrived with other Spanish Jesuits in 1549, and after two years, left behind behind 1,000 converts.

In 1582, after Nobunaga's suicide during a battle in Kyoto, power transferred to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who, inspired by European imperialism, launched an invasion of the Korean peninsula ten years later. Within six months, superior Korean strategists routed his troops (but not before they forcibly brought back tens of thousands of Korean master potters who created renowned Imari and Arita ceramics). Confounded by his loss and threatened by the power of Kyushu's daimyo traders and their European allies, Hideyoshi responded by issuing orders to execute Christians and instituting a draconian policy that came to define Japan: he began closing its borders to foreigners. By this time, hundreds of thousand Japanese in Kyushu had become Christian. Many of the conversions were nominal, ordered by daimyos; yet others would prove enduring.

After Hideyoshi died in 1597, his successor Ieyasu Tokugawa, restored trade with Korea, China, and European-controlled outposts throughout Asia. However the shadow cast by European imperial military power and Japan's growing community of native Christians proved too daunting for following shoguns who partially closed the archipelago's borders (allowing Chinese, Korean, Ryukuan, and Dutch exchanges at some ports).

Japanese Christians were forced to go underground, not to resurface until 1865 when several thousand Catholics from the fishing village of Urakami confessed themselves to a French priest in Nagasaki. In 1895, these descendents of Christians worshipping secretly for two centuries built the first cathedral in Asia in Urakami, a site of repeated earlier persecutions.


(Urakami Cathedral before August 9, 1945)
On August 9, 1945, clouds prevented an American B-29 from dropping a plutonium bomb on its original target, the weapons manufacturing center at Kokura. So the pilot aimed the bomb "Fat Man" towards their alternate target, the spires of Urakami Cathedral, the center point between his secondary targets, Mitsubishi's torpedo factory and steel and arms factory.


(11:02 a.m. atomic bomb "Fat Man" explodes above Nagasaki)

(People walking down a street in Nagasaki, unaware of the plutonium bomb explosion about to hit them.)

Urakami Cathedral after August 9, 1945

The plutonium bomb exploded over Japan's (and East Asia's) largest church at 11:02 a.m.—while a priest was beginning midday Mass. More Japanese Christians (8,000 among 70,000 mostly civilian victims) were killed in that moment than in all the previous shogunate persecutions of Christians combined.


(Ground Zero Memorial, a few minutes walk from Urakami Cathedral
In 1959, parishioners rebuilt the cathedral on the exact spot where it was destroyed, on Angelus Street. They decorated the new cathedral with charred angel faces from the bombed building, and left blackened and broken statues of saints (now covered with chains of colorful origami cranes) standing in the front, as a memorial.


(Urakami Cathedral today)
After spending the night traveling on the Akatsuki ("Red Moon"), a slow night train that left Kyoto in the early evening and arrived in Nagasaki early morning, I hopped on a streetcar and found myself in Urakami just as Sunday morning mass at St. Mary's had started. All the seats in the church were filled, so I joined people standing in the entrance way. The women all wore white veils and nuns wore old-fashioned blue habits. In this quiet place, I experienced awe, witnessing a renewed faith community that had experienced archetypal devastation.

After the service, I asked a tall, young, bushy-haired, smiling priest where I could find the ruins of the old cathedral. He asked an older, also smiling parishioner, to show me the broken and charred statues of saints, all covered with chains of colorful origami cranes. Looking into the eyes of the parishioner, a peaceful, even joyful survivor of the atomic bombing, I thought of Dr. Martin Luther King's view that the universe is held together by an invisible force of unsentimental, unshakeable love.


(Broken and burned statue of a saint at Urakami Cathedral)
The recreated community seems to prove that this love that binds people together—is alive in the people of Nagasaki—and more enduring than man's greatest weapon of mass destruction.


(Stained glass street art in the Urakami District)

(More street art depicting the music of peace)

Children's art in the Urakami District

— Jean Miyake Downey (text; contemporary photos)

Multiple traumatic effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the thousands of nuclear test explosions worldwide; other uranium weapons; nuclear plant meltdowns, & uranium mining have not healed, even if survivors and their descendants have been able to renew their communities. Please support nuclear abolition.