Laura Kina's Blue Hawai'i & Wesley Uenten's "Okinawan Diasporan Blues"

"Graves By the Sea" by Laura Kina

In this excerpt from "Okinawan Disaporan Blues," included in Laura Kina's Blue Hawaii exhibition catalogue, Wesley Uenten describes the Japanese colonial rule's erasure of traditional Okinawan culture and ongoing resistance by a group of grandmothers and grandfathers, child survivors of the Battle of Okinawa, to the US plan to turn the habitat of the Okinawan dugong, a sacred cultural icon, into another military base:

...At least on the level of cultural genocide, what happened to Okinawans was similar to what happened to Native Americans. It seems so familiar when I read about the...philosophy of the “Indian Schools” that prohibited Native American school children from speaking their own language or practicing their culture.... By the time that my grandmother was born in 1893, most Okinawan children were in schools, where they would be punished for speaking the Okinawan language and expected to worship the Japanese emperor. A large wooden tag with the words 方言札 (hōgen fuda), or “dialect tag,” was place around the neck of school children who spoke in the Okinawan “dialect.” The tag symbolically relegated the Okinawan language to the inferior status as a backward “dialect” of Japanese, while corporeally ingraining a sense of shame and fear in generations of Okinawans for speaking their own language and being their own selves...

Physical genocide did take place on Okinawa. Japan’s leaders knowingly caused about a fourth to a third of Okinawa’s population to perish in less than 3 months during the Battle of Okinawa when they used Okinawa as a buffer to hold off American troops heading toward Naichi (mainland Japan)...in 1945...

I stare at "Graves by the Sea." ...Departed souls encased in concrete tombs pushed up against each other. They are testament of the reverence for ancestors and tradition in Okinawa that contradicts the reality of the lack of space on Okinawa...There is a strong and powerful message that the ancestors and land is telling us through Laura’s work.

I end this essay at a time when I have just returned from a trip to Washington D.C. with an Okinawan delegation that was making a direct appeal against plans by the U.S. and Japanese governments to push ahead with construction of a new U.S. Marine Air Station on the clear blue waters of Henoko...At this time, both the Jp and U.S. governments are stepping up their attempts to push past unyielding local Okinawan opposition... Henoko is the site of a large thriving coral reef, turtle spawning grounds, seaweed beds, and an already endangered species of dugong. The blue ocean of Henoko will be no more if this plan goes through.

Most of the officials, politicians, and researchers we met in Washington D.C. [during the Jan. 2014 Okinawan Delegation] had made up their mind about new base construction at Henoko saying that it is the best plan... However, what the delegation was trying to get across to deaf ears was that Okinawans have stopped the construction for 18 years by placing their bodies in front of ships and equipment coming to start construction. Old people, as old and tiny as my Baban in my memories of her, have come to sit on the beach everyday in quiet but unrelenting resistance to American Manifest Destiny and Japanese fatalistic dependency on that destiny...

Wesley Ueunten is an associate professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. A third generation Okinawan, he was born and raised in Hawaiʻi and received his Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.

Wild "Heavenly Horses" Return Home

"Heavenly horses" return to Steppes of Mongolia and China. 

(Photo and Story: AFP via JT, 2013)

Chinese legend says the Silk Road's iconic Heavenly Horses were discovered 2,000 years ago by a criminal exiled to Dunhuang (a Silk Road crossroads in western China) who captured some and then presented them to the emperor, who fell in love with the breed.

  

They became known as Przewalski’s horses during European contact in the 19th century. Once thought to be extinct in the wild, the ancient species is being revived by conservationists in China and Mongolia.

Steppes horses came to Japan during the Kofun Period (250-540), from the Asian continent via the Korean Peninsula. Haniwa (funerary clay) horses were buried in tombs, along with figurines, from the Kofun to the Asuka Periods (538-710). 

Haniwa (clay funerary) horse acquired by the LA County Museum in 2010. 

(Photo: LA Times)

Alex Kerr's beautiful old/new Japanese country houses and the movement to save traditional Japan

Great talk and breathtaking photos by author and historic preservationist Alex Kerr at TEDx in Kyoto on his mission to save Japanese country houses (minka).

Japan is so rich: the natural environment, the fantastic traditional culture, the wealth of beauty and materials and spirit of lifestyle that you find in these old places. It's there and it can be saved.

Kerr uses double-paned windows for energy conservation. If his country houses were updated for solar, renewable energy, that would be even more modernizing, given 3/11's call to shift, downsize energy usage.

The reason small towns in Japan (and elsewhere) are experiencing depopulation is because they were built around local (agricultural, fishing) economies that have been collapsing under the global food industry's drive towards ever-increasing expansion...Japan's food sufficiency is now at 39%; when Alex Kerr came to Japan as a child (1960's), the nation’s food self-sufficiency rate was around 80%.

Kerr's work to restore country houses is one facet of a larger grassroots-driven local revitalization movement that seeks to save traditional Japan's agriculturally-rooted, rural cultures.

Tragically, Tohoku, much of which was stricken by the 3/11 disasters, was the bastion of Japan's sustainable, slow life, organic and heirloom food movement.  Areas in Tohoku not affected by the catastrophes (Yamagata) continue pioneering these shifts.

Elsewhere, young Japanese people are leaving urban areas to return to their rural roots to farm and open organic retreats.  Japanese singer Yae and her mother Tokiko Kato (also a renowned singer) have a farming community in Kamogawa (near Tokyo) that opened during the 1970's.  It's a model of downsizing energy use, revitalizing traditional self-sufficiency, and cultivating simplicity.

During his youth, Alex Kerr fell in love with Japanese country houses and the traditional culture that make up their  landscapes.  He belongs to a distinguished tradition of foreign residents (Lafcadio Hearn, Ernesto Fenollosa...) who worked to preserve traditional Japanese culture because they found the passing of its richness and beauty unbearable.  One can sense this appreciation in the atmosphere of Kerr's restored and beloved country house, Chiiori, in western Tokushima, a prefecture in Shikoku, on the Inland Sea.

Kerr is now acting as an advisor to rural Japanese villages seeking to stem depopulation by building up local tourist economies through restoring country houses (for short-term stays) and revitalizing local culture.

Spurred on by different motives—profit-seeking (sometimes, but not always, mixed with sincere appreciation of Japanese architectural heritage)—foreign and Japanese investors who are renovating older homes for rental income are also part of the drive to save and restore older Japanese houses, especially in Kyoto and Kamukura.  It's great that these minka and urban traditional houses (machiya) are being preserved, however historic preservation springing from this limited motivation may lack the larger vision and quality of Kerr and others who appreciate the multidimensional contexts of traditional Japanese culture.

---

More about the country house that captured Kerr's imagination and heart as a teenager: "Bringing an 18th-Century Farmhouse Back to Life" (Liza Foreman, NYT, Dec. 27, 2012)

Chiiori: Alex Kerr's first Japanese country house. (Photo: Alex Kerr)

More about restoring Japanese traditional houses as a business: 

"Japan’s Forsaken Homes Restored to Historic Styles Yield 80%" (Kathleen Chu and Katsuyo Kuwako, Bloomberg, Nov. 20, 2012)

"Historic Homes in Tokyo Attract More International Buyers" (Desiree Quijalvo, realestateco.jp,  Oct. 30, 2012)

Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the “Forgotten War”

Still Present Pasts:
Korean Americans and the “Forgotten War”




A/P/A Institute at NYU
41-51 East 11th Street
7th Floor Gallery
New York, NY 10003

A multi-media exhibit that combines installation and performance art, documentary film, archival photographs, and oral histories to explore memories and legacies of the Korean War. Embodying life stories of ordinary Korean Americans who survived the war, the exhibit is a public space of remembering that breaks the silence about a tragic episode in U.S. and Korean history. Featured artists include Sukjong Hong, Deann Borshay Liem, Yul-san Liem, Yong Soon Min, Injoo Whang, Ji-Young Yooo.

NYU exhibition curated by Yul-san Liem. Project Director: Ramsay Liem.

Community cosponsor: Nodutdol for Korean Community Development.

The Korean War took the lives of 3 million Korean civilians and 1.2 million combatants, ushered in the Cold War era, and remains stalemated in an armistice agreement nearly 6 decades since its signing - yet most Americans remember it only as the “forgotten war.”

Listen to the Asia-Pacific Forum radio program on the exhibition, featuring curator and artist Yul-san Liem here.

Yul-san Liem is a social justice activist and artist whose work addresses issues of war, trauma and resistance. She is a long-time member and leader of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development (NDD), a Queens-based organization dedicated to achieving peace in Korea and empowering the Korean American community.

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。

September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows launch 911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Earlier this year, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows joined with Hibakusha groups (and Peace Philosophy Centre) to hold "Wisdom of the Survivor," a conference seeking to draw from the wisdom of survivors to stop chains of revenge, hate, violence, and wars:

Seeking to influence the debate on nuclear disarmament and abolition, many Hibakusha have made the pilgrimage to past Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conferences, which are held at the United Nations every five years. Now they are getting older and their chance to witness their dream of a nuclear-free world is growing shorter. Inspired by President Obama’s Prague pledge to work for “a world without nuclear weapons,” and knowing that the entire non-proliferation regime is hanging by a thread, they come this time with a greater sense of urgency than ever...

The unprecedented interaction between the Hibakusha and the 9/11 community will constitute the center of this conference. We believe that bringing together these two groups for a day of testimony and conversation will provide an understanding of the unique political, psychological, and spiritual contributions that survivors of atrocity and their families can make towards a peaceful future.

Today Peaceful Tomorrows launched a new website, 911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices, to enlarge and moving this global dialogue between survivors of collective violence online at 911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices:

SEPTEMBER 11th: STILL A TEACHABLE MOMENT?

David Potori
Co-Founder, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

Like the proverbial tree, if a teachable moment occurs and no one hears the lesson, is it still a teachable moment? If you’ve been paying attention to the controversy, real or imagined, over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” you may have found yourself considering some form of this question. How, nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks, can some remain so insular, so ill-informed? How has anger managed to keep so many from completing—or even starting—their necessary journey through grief to wisdom and understanding? How are we even having this conversation in 2010?

For the members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, we’ve been having conversations of a different sort since the fall of 2001. That’s when a handful of family members of 9/11 victims decided to turn their grief into action for peace by calling for alternatives to war during a symbolic walk from the Pentagon to the World Trade Center facilitated by Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness (now Voices for Creative Nonviolence). A person-to-person trip to Afghanistan under the auspices of Medea Benjamin and Global Exchange took place in January, 2002, putting us in contact with our counterparts, family members of those lost to the U.S. bombing done in reaction to 9/11. Our group was launched that Valentine’s Day with the sponsorship of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the support of the American Friends Service Committee and the Hague Appeal for Peace and goals that included promoting dialogue on alternatives to war, supporting others seeking non-violent responses to terrorism and calling attention to threats to civil liberties and other freedoms as a consequence of war.

It was the stories we told of our own losses, and the stories our members brought back from Afghanistan of losses inflicted in our names, that forged a connection among our members and people around the world who had similar experiences, shared our desire for non-violent alternatives and had formed like-minded organizations. They included Israeli and Palestinian members of The Parents Circle, Japanese Hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors, family members who lost loved ones in the 2005 train bombings in Spain, the Iraqi peace coalition La’Onf, the South African Institute for Healing of Memories, and a host of others.


Bringing our stories, and their stories, to a wider audience is one of the goals of our new web site, 911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices. In the critical year leading up to the tenth commemoration of the September 11th attacks, it will provide a key opportunity to revisit the paths that could have been taken in the days after 9/11. How could we have responded differently? What could 9/11 families, and citizens around the world, have taught us about their experiences of terrorism, political violence and war? What choices could we have made, and what choices can we make today, to create peaceful tomorrows for everyone?

911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices will profile our members, collecting their public statements, speeches, essays, letters to the editor and telling stories of the projects they have undertaken. Through a dedicated YouTube channel it will feature film and television appearances and interviews with Peaceful Tomorrows members everywhere from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Hiroshima to Oklahoma City. It will also shine a light on the work of those others around the world who have been similarly affected by terrorism, political violence and war and have chosen to work for peace and nonviolence.

Utilizing the latest technologies with an eye toward accessibility, 911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices will serve as a rich, user-friendly resource for a range of constituencies at a time of unprecedented interest. We will partner with progressive educators to develop an array of downloadable, age-appropriate curricula for students in grade school through adult education. For the media, the stories will provide ideas and contact information for interviews and articles. For politicians and policymakers, the Web site will be a source of successful, real-world examples of the power of non-violence. And for the general public, the stories will serve as a source of hope, inspiration and new ways of envisioning their world.

We will work with advocacy organizations, peace and justice organizations, places of worship, public libraries and other organizations to ensure the project’s prominent visibility and broad distribution. And we hope the web site will be the centerpiece of a series of public and online forums that will increase dialogue among those with differing points of view. It will remain as a living document to the love we feel for those we lost on 9/11 and our enduring hope for peaceful tomorrows for everyone.

"911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices"will appear at www.911stories.org beginning September 11, 2010 with a small sampling of our work. As our inventory of stories grows week by week over the coming year, we welcome your reactions and invite you to share your ideas about how we can partner with you to keep the events of September 11th a teachable moment for future generations of Americans and others around the world.

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.

Ikuo Hirayama, artist from Hiroshima: War is the "supreme folly of humankind"

(Image: Art Acknowledgement News)

Ikuo Hirayama passed away in December 2009, five months before the Miroku Project's Nara 2010: Conferences on the Future of East Asia, which he chaired, was to begin.

The renowned artist and Silk Roads preservation activist said that the wish for peace was the core of his work. His fervent quest was born when he was a fifteen-year-old living in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. That morning, he witnessed the atomic bombing "like a flashbulb had gone off right in front of me." Suffering from radiation-induced leukopenia, Hirayama knew he wanted to work for world peace but did not know how to do this until his mind suddenly filled with spontaneous image of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang who defied his government to go in search of Buddhist texts:

As a child I suffered from the effects of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. This devastating experience has made me harbor a strong wish for world peace, just as I believe monk Xuanzang did. Identifying with him thus, I have wished to relive his journey of sacrifice and discovery along the Silk Road.

In following Xuanzang's footsteps across the Silk Roads, Hirayama realized the deep historical and cultural interconnections between Eurasia, Africa, and the Middle East, all the way to Japan:

What we call Japanese fine arts have their origin in China...If Chinese art objects of the early Tang age were excavated (in Japan) now, they would be taken for Japanese objects. With the passage of time, Japanese fine arts became recognizably different from Chinese fine arts, but in the Asuka, Hakuho and Tenpyo periods, that is, in the seventh century, the two were identical.

This realization of human unity helped to heal Hirayama's psyche and spirit. His journeys west also reinforced his knowledge of the devastation of war:

It’s no exaggeration to say that a culture can be wiped out in a second by war. Many ruins and remains found along the Silk Road are the result of war, the supreme folly of humankind.

It took the artist decades to recover enough personal strength to look backwards into his life, at what happened in Hiroshima. When he did, he was ready to portray the atomic bombing in his medium, Nihon-ga, the richly colored traditional Japanese paint medium using dry mineral pigments, which originated in India and was brought to Japan via the artist's beloved Silk Roads.

"Ikuo Hirayama says the wish for peace is at the core of his art work" by NPR's Robert Rand, published in 2008, explores Hirayama's peace activism through visual art and historic preservation:

Today, the Japanese city of Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million that speaks with the rumble and squeal of streetcars and traffic. But on Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb shattered the city, killing more than 90,000. Of those who survived, one man, Ikuo Hirayama, would go on to turn the devastation into art...

"There was a powerful flash right in front of me. I covered my ears. And there was a strong wind, and I squatted down and the wind went right over my head. And I then tried to escape through waterfalls of fire..."

Many of his friends died. Hirayama grew ill from radiation sickness and his white-blood-cell count plummeted, but eventually he recovered. He left Hiroshima, adopted Buddhism as a way of honoring the dead, and took up painting, practicing an ancient technique called Nihonga, in which colors are blended from ground-up mineral pigments, then attached to the canvas with glue.

Hirayama became famous as a painter of Buddhist images and of the Silk Road, the highway that brought Buddhism to Japan. His Silk Road paintings convey Hirayama's belief that the road, with its exchange of commerce and ideas, showed that cultures can interact constructively. The paintings epitomize a sense of hopefulness and cooperation, peace and tranquility, the antithesis to Hiroshima, 1945...

Two decades after the bombing, Hirayama finally returned to Hiroshima. He visited the city's Atomic Bomb Memorial Park, and found himself drawn by the hiss and flicker of a flame honoring the dead.

"I saw the color of the fire, which was orange. It reminded me of the day of the bombing, and I could not get rid of that color behind my eyelids," he says.

Hirayama immediately began sketching out what would become one of his most powerful works, a huge, six-paneled canvas called "The Holocaust of Hiroshima..."

(Takato Kageyama, who lost his parents and two sisters in the bombing, stands before "The Holocaust of Hiroshima." Photo: NPR)

Hirayama says that despite the sorrow and destruction portrayed in "The Holocaust of Hiroshima," the painting offers a message of hope.

"The Buddhist god is telling everybody to rise like a Phoenix, to stand up and live for all eternity," he explains. "I believe that art can overcome hardships. I believe that flowers can blossom from anguish and inhumanity. You can overcome these things and make something beautiful..."

"I started to create my artwork as a requiem for those who lost their lives in the war. The wish for peace is at the core of my work," says Hirayama.

Read Rand's entire article here.

— JD

Beyond History as Antagonism—"Silk Roads: Samarkand to Nara"

Some political scientists and writers—seeking to legitimate preemptive permanent war—have propagated an image of "clashing civilizations" as the dominant theme of history.  This perspective overlooks the significance peaceful trading, cooperation, intercultural merging in the ongoing co-creation of our shared history. Although territorial conflicts betweeen empires as well as more mundane forms of violence took place during this period, the Silk Roads exemplifes an elevated period of global civilization in which peaceful trading and collaborative exchanges predominated.

Kyoto Journal's latest issue, "Silk Roads: Samarkand to Nara," revisits this time period when the Silk Roads connected the myriad, interrelated cultures of Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and all of Asia.

"10,000 Miles Away: Chang’an and Nara” introduces the issue by challenging British Poet Rudyard Kipling’s assumption that never the "East" and "West” shall meet:

Instead, the very opposite has been happening ever since humans moved out of Africa and into Eurasian crossroads. Groups did not just split off, but continued to meet again and again throughout history, re-merging their cultures every time around.

Contributor Eiji Hattori's essay, "Civilizations Never Clash. Ignorance Does Clash," the moral center of the issue, refutes the view of world history as antagonism, and eloquently sets forth an alternative paradigm of the history of collaborative civilization:

If we look at human history, we can see that “civilizations have consistently encountered one another, and have grown and developed through those encounters”. That is what “dialogue between civilizations” means. Dialogue, in fact, indicates cross-fertilization, not negotiation.

Hattori also challenges the idea that "civilization" was created by the "West."

The illusion that Western civilization is the one and only civilization has been shared not only by people of Europe and the United States, but also by non-Westerners until quite recently. Why? It is because textbooks written by colonial powers during the colonial period spread around the world. The singular view of “civilization” was fed to children through “education”.

Guest editor Leanne Ogasawara's Tang Dynasty Times, from which four contributions were sourced, is linked here; four articles are available online at the KJ site:

 "Of Bonds, 'the Word' and Trade: There are no straight lines through mountains" by Jeff Fuchs:

“There are no straight lines through the mountains.” This ‘truth’ rumbles out of Lobsang’s mouth, a mouth that seems as unyielding and direct as the words that pass through it. I have heard these words before from ancient traders who still remember a time when mule and camel caravans wound their way to and from the great market towns of Asia and the Middle East...

"Beauty and Power on China's Silk Road" by Sam Crane:

The tour guide opened the door and we stepped into darkness. It took a moment for us to adjust visually but slowly, slowly the interior of the small cave came into view.

In front of us stood a statue of Buddha, about three meters high, surrounded by swirling painted blues and reds and browns — flanked by two smaller statues of guardians. The light from the open doorway fell on the Buddha and suffused throughout the space...

Into Dasht-e Kavir: Notes From the Great Salt Desert.

Story and photos by Steven Tizzard:


In Iran it is the year 1388, a new year, the spring, the month of Farvardin. It is the celebration of Norouz, a Zoroastrian festival that has survived, despite being usurped in this land by Islam, its heir; despite being turned outlaw for a time in the most vigorous days of the Revolution. This celebration of the vernal equinox flourishes again, the most important holiday in ancient Persia and modern Iran...

 "A Minute and 100 Meters Down the Road" by David Maney:

(Copyright: David Maney)

Urumqi, Xinjiang, Sept. 3, 2009. The soldier outside the station had one hand on the barrel and the other on the butt of his shotgun. There were two military trucks by the bus stop and two soldiers in the back-right seats of every bus leaving Urumqi station.

Welcome to west China.

I arrived via long-haul train, 40 hours and just under 4,000km in a hard-seat, from Beijing, where rumours were circulating about the extent of the military presence, needle attacks, Uighur and Han street gangs, and the validity of the reports coming out of Xinjiang....

The issue includes an interview with composer Minoru Miki who revived Japan's traditional musical exchanges through his project, the "Orchestra Asia."

Miki explains his impetus:

The Japanese society of the eighth century was extremely internationalized and integrated with the rest of Asia. Foreigners comprised much of the skilled labor force and, like England in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was an active exchange of artists, musicians and statesmen with the mainland. It is one of my dreams to re-create an active musical exchange with the rest of Asia.

Miki, a timeless visionary, has an English-language page at his website.

For a further glimpse of the contents of the issue, visit Kyoto Journal's website.

The Asahi Shimbun: "Commander's grandson fights for peace"

One by One was formed by descendants of survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and resisters of the horrific violence and genocide of the Nazi era. In Japan and Asia, descendants of the Pacific War have similarly worked towards personal and collective historical healing at the personal level although most of this has been unnoticed by the English-language media...

A hopeful exception to this oversight from The Asahi Shimbun by Michiko Yoshida explores a grandson's quest to redeem his grandfather's wartime legacy of violence in Okinawa:

"Commander's grandson fights for peace"

BY MICHIKO YOSHIDA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/06/23

(Photo: Michiko Yoshida, The Asahi Shimbun: Sadamitsu Ushijima displays his grandfather's family photo during a peace education class at an Okinawa elementary school.)

Sadamitsu Ushijima was told his paternal grandfather was a gentle man. How, then, could his grandfather have ordered his troops to fight to the last man during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945?

Hoping to find an answer to that question, Ushijima, 56, an elementary school teacher in Tokyo, has repeatedly visited the southern island prefecture since 1994.

His grandfather was Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, the Japanese Imperial Army commander of forces on Okinawa, the site of the bloodiest ground battle of the Pacific War.

Ushijima committed suicide at Mabuni, on the southern tip of Okinawa's main island where the last fierce battle was fought, on June 23, 65 years ago. He was 57.

Okinawa now marks June 23, when organized Japanese resistance to the U.S. forces ended, as a day to remember the battle's more than 200,000 victims.

As a teacher, Ushijima long focused his efforts on integrated education that encourages children with disabilities to learn alongside their non-disabled peers.

But he stayed away from Okinawa as a subject.

He hated his name, which includes the same Chinese character as his grandfather's. He was afraid he would be asked about the late commander.

His first visit to Okinawa in 1994, at the urging of colleagues, changed all that.

Ushijima visited a peace memorial museum in Mabuni to find his grandfather's fight-to-the-last order on exhibit at the entrance.

The explanation said that because of that order, "more than 100,000 noncombatant civilians were left behind in the hail of shells and bullets."

Ushijima stood petrified. But he soon realized the only way forward was to squarely face the past.

He talked to people who knew the grandfather he had never met. He entered the Mabuni cave where his grandfather killed himself. He read his death poems again and again.

"Mitsuru gave priority to defending the mainland, where the emperor resided. After all, he looked only to the emperor," he thought at the time.

Discovering an answer of his own, Ushijima saw his mission as a teacher. He started a peace education class to pass along history to children.

He has given classes in Okinawa, as well as at his schools in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan.

On June 18, he again visited an elementary school in Okinawa, the seventh year he has given his class in the prefecture.

He talked about his grandfather, the war and Okinawa, and then concluded: "Armed forces do not defend civilians. That's what we learned from the Battle of Okinawa."

Ushijima has long hated his name. But he now understands how his own fate is tied to the name.

Yayori Awards seek to honor activists, artists, journalists working on women’s issues worldwide

The organizing committee for the Yayori Awards is pleased to announce that nomination forms are now available for the 2010 competition of its program.

The Yayori Awards were created through the final will and funds of the late Yayori Matsui, a well-known journalist and activist on feminist and human rights issues. Her many accomplishments include establishing the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center (AJWRC), organizing the Violence Against Women in War Network, Japan (VAWW-NET Japan), and acting as a key organizer for the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery held in 2000.

The Yayori Awards are presented during each competition round in two separate categories:

1) The Women's Human Rights Activities Award (commonly referred to as the Yayori Award) is presented to a grassroots-level woman activist, journalist, or artist who works with socially marginalized peoples to solve serious social issues in Asia and other regions, and whose work helps to create a 21st century free from war and discrimination against women.

Nomination forms for this award must be submitted in English. Self-nominations will not be accepted.

2) The Yayori Journalist Award is presented to a woman journalist or artist (either an individual or group) who vividly portrays the situation of women from a global gender perspective.

Self-nominations for this award are acceptable. Since the nominee’s future work shall be subject to publication in Japanese, however, all submissions must be in the Japanese language.

Winners in both categories will receive a certificate and a monetary award in the amount of 500,000 yen. In the event that multiple awardees are selected for the Yayori Journalist Award, the money will be divided amongst all recipients.

Past winners have included a group of women working to bring justice to victims of sexual violence committed during the civil war in Guatemala, a feminist photojournalist from Nepal working on issues of peace and human rights, and numerous others doing important work for empowerment and justice at the grassroots level. The Japan Times did a feature story on the 2008 Yayori Journalist Award winner's work on the fight against nuclear power plants in a Japanese town.

The organizing committee is seeking nominations from around the world for both awards, and will send printed leaflets upon request. The deadline for this year’s competition is August 31, 2010.

Detailed information regarding the awards, including a pamphlet, nomination forms, and list of all past award recipients are all available on the Yayori Award website.

Secret nuclear trade-off deal for Okinawa (NHK Documentary Tonight)

Wakaizumi negotiating secret deal with the U.S. (Image:NHK)

According to the original agreement between Japan and the U.S., Okinawa would be reverted to Japan in 1972 without the presence of nuclear weapons. However, behind the scenes, a Kyoto Sangyo professor, Wakaizumi Kei convinced then Prime Minister Sato Eisaku that Okinawa would not be handed over to Japan unless Japan allowed U.S. nukes on Japanese soil. In 1969, Sato gave Wakaizumi the green light to draft a secret proposal where Japan would eventually concede the condition calling for a nuke-free Japan, in order for it to be reverted to Japanese sovereignty as planned.

On Saturday night, NHK brodcast "The Truth Behind the Reversion of Okinawa." detailing the behind the scenes negotiations.  The documentary film was based on the 1994 memoirs of the late confidential agent Wakaizumi entitled  I wish I could believe there were no other options (Tasaku nakarishi woshinzamuto hossu).  After 25 years of silence, he revealed documents which verified the existence of a secret agreement on nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Japan.

 NHK will air the program in English and Japanese on Monday, June 21st at 8pm, Tokyo Time. That NHK would show a documentary about such a controversial topic bears proof that the majority of people in Japan are disillusioned by and fed up with the games being played with Okinawan lives.

In an introduction to a November 2009 article that appeared in The Asia-Pacific Journal, research professor for Hiroshima Peace Institute Yuki Tanaka demands that any agreement like this based on nuclear deterrence be considered a "crime against humanity":

The revelation of the details of the secret agreements on nuclear weapons in itself cannot bring about a decisive solution to Japan’s nuclear problems, above all since irrefutable evidence has long been available in U.S. documents and circulated widely among Japanese journalists and researchers. The most important question is not the secrecy concerning the U.S. nuclear weapons program in Japan, but the foundations of that secrecy, i.e., Japanese support for the U.S. policy of nuclear deterrence. In the absence of a clear DPJ policy on the issues, it can be expected that similar secret deals will be made to sustain Japanese support for the U.S. policy of nuclear deterrence, including the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan....

Thus, the question that requires urgent attention is not whether U.S. nuclear weapons have been or will be brought into Japan secretly, but the entire structure of U.S. nuclear deterrence deployed in Japan. It is precisely this structure that leads American policymakers to view Japan as a “vassal state”; without transforming this policy it will remain impossible Japan’s democracy and freedom of information to function autonomously. If Japan’s new Democratic Party government genuinely wishes to establish an “equal partnership” with the U.S. based upon the principle of national “independence,” it must seriously consider freeing Japan entirely from the U.S. nuclear umbrella and its nuclear deterrence strategy.

It is important to recognize nuclear deterrence policies for what they are: a “crime against peace” as explicated in the Nuremberg principle. This is because “nuclear deterrence” effectively means planning and preparation to commit indiscriminate mass killing, or in other words a “crime against humanity,” using nuclear weapons. In this regard, “nuclear deterrence” is no different from the “nuclear terrorism” that the U.S. and other nuclear powers so strongly condemn.

For more information about the NHK documentary in Japanese, click here. You can watch a preview of the documentary if you click on the grey button on the top right of the page which has a green play button on the left of it (The button reads: 番組予告動画を見る). For information in English, click here.

-Posted by Jen Teeter

The Wisdom of the Survivor: Atomic Bombing & 9/11 Survivors join today seeking ways to contribute to a peaceful future for all humanity

As Okinawans protest on behalf of life and peace—today, in New York City, atomic bombing and 9/11 survivors are joining to discuss life and peace—within the context of nuclear abolition and the healing of collective trauma:

On August 6, 1945, Sadako Sasaki, a two-year old girl living a mile from ground zero, was filled with radiation from the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Ten years later, dying of leukemia, she began folding small paper cranes in response to a Japanese myth that folding a thousand such cranes grants you a wish. Hers was to live. According to her brother, Masahiro, Sadako actually folded over 1300 tiny cranes before she died. 149 of her cranes are in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, but in 2007 Masahiro Sasaki decided to give the remaining cranes in his possession to the continents of the world in the hope of spurring moves toward peace. For North America Masahiro Sasaki gave a Sadako crane to the WTC Visitor Center which was created by the September 11th Families’ Association at 120 Liberty Street, across the street from the World Trade Center site. The Sadako crane is now housed in a handsome case in the museum for all visitors to experience.

100 Japanese and other international Hibakusha have joined today with an equal number of survivors and family members of victims of the attack on the World Trade Center to address issues of the wisdom of the survivor.

Seeking to influence the debate on nuclear disarmament and abolition, many Hibakusha have made the pilgrimage to past Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conferences, which are held at the United Nations every five years. Now they are getting older and their chance to witness their dream of a nuclear-free world is growing shorter. Inspired by President Obama’s Prague pledge to work for “a world without nuclear weapons,” and knowing that the entire non-proliferation regime is hanging by a thread, they come this time with a greater sense of urgency than ever. The security of New York City, and the nation, as well remains vital. The security of New York City, and the nation, as well remains vital.

"The Wisdom of the Survivor" is an unprecedented interaction between the Hibakusha and the 9/11 community will constitute the center of this conference. We believe that bringing together these two groups for a day of testimony and conversation will provide an understanding of the unique political, psychological, and spiritual contributions that survivors of atrocity and their families can make towards a peaceful future.

Guest Robert Jay Lifton is the author of the ground-breaking study Death In Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, as well more than 25 other books that have explored psychological effects of living in extreme historical situations, with particular emphasis on the nuclear age. His theoretical writings on the “survivor experience” have been extremely influential in contemporary trauma studies. Guest Jonathan Schell is best known for his passionate antinuclear books, The Fate of the Earth and The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, the co-chair of Mayors for Peace and a passionate advocate of nuclear abolition, is playing a prominent role. Yuki Tanaka, Research Professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, will be asked to reflect on human security, disarmament, and non-proliferation.

They expect the conference to be shown on C-SPAN and will send out streaming video of the event and post clips from it on YouTube after its completion.

"The Biggest Global Movement in History" — Citizen Action for Biodiversity, Indigenous & Traditional cultures, Sustainability, Peace & Justice

It is my belief that we are part of a movement that is greater and deeper and broader than we ourselves know or can know. It flies under the radar of the media by and large. It is nonviolent. It is grassroots. It has no clusterbombs, no armies, and no helicopters. It has no central ideology. A male vertebrate is not in charge.

This unnamed movement is the most diverse movement the world has ever seen. The very word "movement" is too small to describe it. No one started this worldview. No one is in charge of it. There is no orthodoxy. It is global, classless, unquenchable, and tireless. Its shared understanding is arising spontaneously from different economic sectors, cultures, regions, and cohorts. It is growing and spreading worldwide, with no exception.

It has many roots. But primarily the origins are indigenous cultures, the environment and social justice movements. Those three sectors and their subsectors are intertwining, morphing, and enlarging... This is a democracy movement...It's marked by kinship, communities, symbiosis. It's Pachamama ("Mother Universe"). It's Mama. It's the earth talking back, waking up...

The talk is now three years old––but this clip of Paul Hawken speaking at a 2006 Bioneers conference describing the collective energy of hundreds of thousands of civil society organizations made up of tens of million of people––if not more, from all over our planet–– is breathtaking and more relevant than ever.

The social entrepreneur drew his talk from his 2007 book, Blessed Unrest: How The Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

The movement Hawken describes is not something new. Citing poet/environmentalist Gary Snyder and actor/activist/writer Peter Coyote––Blessed Unrest refers to "the great underground, a current of humanity that dates back to the Paleolithic and its lineage can be traced back to healers, priestesses, philosophers, monks, rabbis, poets, and artists 'who speak for the planet, for other species, for interdependence, a life that courses under and through and around empires.'"

Hawken's imagination was captured by not only the explosion of movements––but also by the shift towards the "intertwingling" of causes––environmentalism; sustainability; biodiversity; indigenous issues; civil society, children's issues; community development; cultural heritage; democratic activism; fair trade; good governance; human rights; social, and economic justice; disarmament and peacemaking; water and other resource rights; and gender issues.

Orion excerpts Blessed Unrest here.

“Mr. Truman Meets Hiroshima on the Future of Nuclear Weapons, 1945-2020" -- Live Global Videoconference/Webcast March 1 (US), March 2 (Japan)

From Satoko Norimatsu at the Peace Philosophy Centre blog:

“Mr. Truman Meets Hiroshima on the Future of Nuclear Weapons, 1945-2020" -- A Live Global Webcast and Open Forum Originating from The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum (Independence, MO, USA) and The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (Japan)

Schedule

Monday, March 1, 2010 7-9 PM (CST-Missouri)

March 1, 2010 8-10PM (EST - Toronto,Washington DC,New York)

March 1, 2010 5-7 PM (PST - Vancouver, San Francisco, LA)

Tuesday March 2, 2010 10AM - 12PM (Japan)

Originating from the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum (Independence, Missouri, USA) and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (Japan).

This historic webcast, presented by Webster University and the Holden Public Policy Forum, will be the first meeting between the museum representing the first head of state to use atomic bombs and the people in the city where the first atomic bomb was used. The live webcast and open channels for audience participation via Chat, Facebook and Twitter can be accessed at: this site or at other “watch party” locations.

The speakers and participants in this meeting discuss the basis for working toward a common vision about the future of nuclear weapons. For the world-wide citizen audience, this event is an awareness raising forum and opportunity to participate in working toward a secure, peaceful and sustainable future for humanity and the planet.

AGENDA

Introductory Video: "The Future of Nuclear Weapons: Voices and Images" (Webster University student video project)

Opening: Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) J. Stroble (President, Webster University)

Meeting Moderator: Governor Bob Holden (Holden Public Policy Forum)

"The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum and the Future of Nuclear Weapons" - Dr. Michael Devine (Director, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum)

Historical Context:

"Truman, Hiroshima and Nuclear Weapons" - Dr. John D. Chappell (Associate Professor of History, Webster University, and Author of Before the Bomb: How America Approached the End of the Pacific War (1997))

"Hiroshima’s Take on the Future of Nuclear Weapons" - Dr. Tadatoshi Akiba (Mayor of Hiroshima; and President, Mayors for Peace, NGO); Steven Leeper (Chairman, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation); and Testimonials from "Hibakusha" (A-bomb witnesses)

Questions and Discussion

Online questions and comments moderated by Satoko Norimatsu
(Director, Peace Philosophy Centre, Vancouver, B.C.) and Dr. John Chappell

Conclusions and Next Steps

Posthumous justice awarded in Yokohama Incident Trial

The Japan Times reported on Feb. 5, that the Yokohama District Court ordered compensation to be paid to the families of five now deceased men who were wrongfully imprisoned during wartime Japan. According to the article:

The Yokohama District Court ordered the government Thursday to pay compensation to the relatives of five now-deceased men for falsely imprisoning them in the "Yokohama Incident," often described as Japan's worst case of repression of free speech during the war.

The three-judge panel ruled that the wartime "tokko" thought, or political, police launched a one-sided, speculative investigation that prosecutors and judges endorsed.

The police, the prosecution and the court all bear heavy responsibility for the outcome, it said. In the decision, (Presiding Judge) Oshima accused the political police of conducting an "illegal" investigation, including the torture of suspects.

The five defendants were convicted in August and September 1945 of procommunist activities based on the wartime Peace Preservation Law.

Another articleThe Japan Times published last year reported:

In the Yokohama Incident, the Kanagawa thought-control police arrested about 60 journalists on suspicion of spreading the idea of communism in violation of the Peace Preservation Law during the Pacific War; more than 30 were indicted. Torture was employed during interrogation and four died while in detention. Most of the defendants were given suspended sentences right after World War II ended. The former defendants are all dead.

A longer article at The Asia-Pacific Journal entitled "The Retrial of the 'Yokohama Incident': A Six Decade Battle for Human Dignity" may be read here.

- Posted by Kimberly Hughes

Taiji (killing dolphins is not a Japanese tradition) & Beyond: Saving Dolphins & Whales throughout our Planet

So far, Taiji fishermen have slaughtered pilot whales, but some dolphins have been spared, according to Sea Shepherd––concluding some progress has been made. But it's not enough.

AFP's report of the start of the dolphin slaughter at Taiji inaccurately framed the story as if all Japanese people side with dolphin slaughter as a matter of "tradition." That's like thinking all Canadians side with baby seal hunters, or all French people eat horses as a matter of "tradition."

The conflict at Taiji is not about a culture war between Japan and the rest of the world––over the ostensible tradition of killing dolphins. Many Japanese dolphin sympathizers (including multi-generational vegetarian Buddhists, PETA Asia-Pacific supporters, and members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) side with millions of people worldwide who want to end the dolphin and pilot whale killings at Taiji.

Instead, the real purpose of the Japanese government's support of the Taiji slaughter is about the fishing industry's elimination of natural predatory competition and providing some extra income to Taiji fishermen from the sale of the dolphins to marine amusement parks. Taiji is one brutal facet of a larger conflict between dolphins (and other sea animals) and the global fishing industry.

Media attention generated by Ric O'Barry's activist documentary The Cove depicting the dolphin killings at Taiji as a cultural issue obscures the big picture context of this planetary drama with related scenes playing out worldwide. In Florida, angry fishermen made headlines this past summer by pipe bombing and shooting bottle-nosed dolphins playfully pulling fish from their lines. Around the world, commercial fishing nets kill 300,000 dolphins, porpoises and whales (and millions of other sea animals including endangered loggerhead turtles and sharks) every year:

“Almost 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die every day in nets and fishing gear. That’s one every two minutes," said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF's Global Species Programme. "Some species are being pushed to the brink of extinction. Urgent action is needed - and we developed this ranking to help governments and aid agencies know where their money and efforts can really make a difference." 

The large scale deaths of sea mammals is euphemistically called "cetacean bycatch." And political leaders, commercial fishermen's organisations, supermarkets, fish processors, and consumers of fish are not addressing this tragedy. Some fisheries even use captured dolphins as bait to catch more fish. Environmental pollution and insensitive development projects also impact cetaceans.

(Baiji Photo © Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Dolphins at special risk include the Pink Dolphins of Hong Kong; Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins in the Indian Ocean; Irrawaddy dolphins in the Malampaya Sound in the Philippines, the Mekong river, the Mahakam river in Indonesia, and a few thousand newly discovered Irrawady dolphins along the Bangladesh coast. The Yangtze River dolphin (the Baiji) is the world's most endangered cetacean––or the most recently extinct. 2002 marked the last documented sighting of the species; 2006 surveys failed to find any in its native Yangtze River––the Three Gorges Dam destroyed its habitat. According to the ICNU Red List of Threatened Species, fishing nets, electric fishing practices, boat propeller strikes, dam construction, river siltation (from deforestation and agricultural expansion), and pollution all contributed to the Baiji's plight. (The ICNU asserted in July that the global wildlife and biodiversity crisis is worse than the economic crisis. The reasons: overfishing, overhunting and loss of habitat. One third of the ocean's sharks are also at risk, killed by the same commercial fishing nets killing cetaceans). Dolphin species are also at risk in Hawaii, Tahiti, Patagonia, Peru, New Zealand, and the North Atlantic (where 50-70% of the native whales bear scars from net entanglement).

Contrary to Taiji fisherman who claim dolphin killing is a traditional practice, the director of The Cove rightly notes that the Taiji slaughter only goes back to the Meiji regime (1868-1912)––when the authoritarian government instituted a slew of "invented traditions" intended to undermine more established forms of Japanese culture. Before the Meiji era, the Tokugawa shogunate (1600-1868) prohibited meat-eating (associated with Christianity and European culture). Previously, Buddhist and folk Shinto precepts inculcated a widespread reverent attitude towards animals and nature. Meiji leaders attempted to subvert these faith traditions in their attempt to redirect religious allegiance to the cult of State Shinto they created. Moreover, large-scale dolphin killings at Taiji only began in 1969,  (Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson underscores that whaling is also not a traditional Japanese practice: "Modern pelagic whaling was initiated by General Douglas MacArthur in 1946. He established the modern whaling fleet."

O'Barry's global spotlight on Taiji is crucial for heightening awareness about dolphins and other cetaceans. The spotlight needs to grow larger and include the other hundreds of thousands of dolphins and other sea creatures being killed as collateral damage by the worldwide fishing industry.

According to Paul Watson, the reason Canadian salmon fishermen kill baby seals in British Columbia is to eliminate natural predatory competitors for Atlantic salmon brought to those waters by the fishing industry (as well as make side income from selling the pelts to the Canadian fur industry which already kills 300,000 baby seals on the East Coast along with 2 million other animals every year). Which is worse––being harpooned by a Japanese fisherman; or struggling to death in a fishing net (suffering from broken beaks and torn fins); or being clubbed and skinned alive by a Canadian fisherman? And how must a captured dolphin feel when taken from its family and sold to a marine amusement park or "swim-with dolphin" programs at theme parks, harbors, gambling casinos and even shopping malls?


Twenty years ago, Hardy Jones, founder of BlueVoice.org, went to Taiji––returning repeatedly seeking to end the capture of dolphins and pilot whales in Japan. BlueVoice.org has not only taken on the issue of intentional hunts of dolphins and whales, but also the fishing net and industrial pollution kills of cetaceans around the world. Its wonderful website offers a number of online videos on saving dolphins and pilot whales; of dolphins in captivity; and just being "Among Dolphins."

To the extent of sometimes verbally and physically clashing with fishermen and whale hunters (and even fellow environmentalist NGO Greenpeace because it chooses to "witness" but not directly confront its opposition and allegedly provides non-vegetarian food for its crew), Sea Shepherd Conservation Society pursues even larger goals of safeguarding all marine species and ecosystems all over the planet. Its website and a supporting site (Ocean Sentry) provides forthright, up-to-date news (and suggestions for action) on this subject.

 - JD