Okinawa Update: "Standing Down" the Sit-In • Receipt of EIS documents

The Ryukyu Shimpo reported the decision last night to change direction (to "stand down" the "sit in" at Kencho) to preserve the unity of the Okinawan Movement. According to scholar Gavan McCormack, "It clearly was not taken easily but was taken for principled reasons."

This just published at Mainichi:"Okinawa accepts additional documents for gov't report on U.S. base."

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".

Another Happy Ending from Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue & Support (JEARS)

(Photo by JEARS volunteers, Junko & son in Tokushima City, Tokushima)
The JEARS chickens, who now call the Hototogisu bakery their home, would like to wish all our supporters a Happy New Year! Thank you for helping us save them. ♥

Now loving cared for by Sara and her husband, Shuzo at Hototogisu Bakery & Farm in Okayama.

The JEARS chickens were found and fed by the JEARS team, led by Susan Roberts of the Japan Cat Network (JCN), for many months near the radioactive area in Fukushima. Many volunteers took turns to feed and water the chickens until JEARS volunteer Junko found their new home – an organic farm and bakery in Okayama prefecture, many 100s of kilometers from where they were found.

It was all hands on deck as the eggs were carefully tested for any signs of contamination and the whole team lept for joy when they found out that chickens and eggs were competely free of any contamination -no trace what so ever – and they could safely be transferred to their new home.

Visit Sara's blog here: Wallabi's Farm: The English Hototogisu Bakery and Farm Blog. She has a great recipe for Sataa Andagi OKINAWA donuts!


(Rice drying in the sun at beautiful Hototogisu Farm in Okayama)

New Year's Message from Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue & Support

Many thanks to all at Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support for all they're doing for the voiceless survivors of 3/11 and the Fukushima meltdowns. Please visit their website if you'd like to help...

Mama cat Rin and her daughter Shii were rescued from Fukushima not a moment too late. Isabella Gallaon-Aoki of Animal Friends Niigata, one of our coalition shelters, tells us that no one at AFN thought the kitten would make it through. The volunteers had to feed little Shii by hand for several months. But look at her now: cuteness pure!

お母さん猫のりんちゃんと娘のしいちゃん。福島から救出されました。JEARS共同シェルターの一つ、アニマルフレンズ新潟のイザベラ・ガラオン青木はその当時の状況を振り返って、こう言います。「あの時はこの子猫が生き延びるとは誰も思いませんでした。ボランティア達が数ヶ月に渡ってミルクを飲ませたり食事をさせたりして。。。見てください、こんな可愛い子に大きくなったんですよ！」 

Charlotte, safe in Niigata, eating her holiday meal in tinsel finery

Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World: Jan 14-15, Yokohama, Japan

From our friends at Peace Boat, Greenpeace, Green Action, and other organizers of The Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World:

After the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, Japan, the world is now faced with a serious decision. Can we live with the fear of a similar accident occurring yet again?

On January 14-15 2012, the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World will be held in Yokohama, Japan. Participants from Japan and all over the world will gather to consider the issues surrounding nuclear power and discuss steps that can be taken towards a nuclear power free world.

Come and be a part of this conference.

http://npfree.jp/english.html

福島での原発事故を受け、世界の人々は選択を迫られています。また起こるやもしれない事態を恐れながら生きていかなければならないのでしょうか。1月14日、15日に横浜­のパシフィコセンターで脱原発世界会議を開催いたします。日本、そして世界中から人やゲストが来場し、原子力にまつわる問題、そしてこれから私たちが取れる行動を提案して­いきます。ぜひご参加下さい。

詳細はこちらhttp://npfree.jp/index.html

More somber New Year's for Nuclear Refugees still in Limbo...9 months after 3/11

A more somber New Year's for nuclear refugees dependent on the Japanese government for assistance. They remain in limbo, nine months after 3/11.

Via AFP: "New Year despair for Japan's nuclear refugees":

"That is the most stressful thing. I would almost rather that the government said we have to abandon hope of ever going back home. I'm trying to be prepared for the worst."

Makoto Arakaki: Photographs of the Okinawa Prefectural office sit-in

(Rally at Okinawa Prefecture office building. Photograph: Makoto Arakaki)

Mark Selden, editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal, notes that Okinawans have created the most vibrant and sustained grassroots movement for democracy and peace in the Asia-Pacific, comparable only to the Korean movement in intensity, longevity, and creativity.

Makoto Arakaki's photographs of the late December sit-in at the Okinawa Prefecture's administration building captures the intensity of not only this latest moment in history, but also of the breadth and depth of the entire Okinawan Movement, now in its sixth decade.

Okinawans, including prominent elected political leaders and journalists, engaged in a successful 24/7 sit-in at the Okinawa Prefecture administration building to prevent the delivery to the Okinawan Prefectural officials of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the DC-Tokyo U.S. Marine base proposal. Part of the EIA did reach the office in a surreptitious 4 a.m. backdoor delivery, but not the entire document.

According to sociologist Masami Mel Kawamura, the Japanese government wanted "to rob the Okinawa prefectural government of precious time for preparation of "Governor's Comments" on the EIS while distracting the media's attention. According to the EIA law and ordinance, Governor's Comments for the airport plan should be issued within 45 days after the submission of EIS while for the reclamation plan they should be issued within 90 days."

The EIS alleges that the destruction of Oura Bay and Henoko to make way for offshore runways for military aircraft would not result in any significant environmental impacts to Oura Bay's biodiverse sea life, including the federally protected Okinawa dugong.

Joy Kogawa's "Three Deities": Okinawa's history & culture of peace

Japanese Canadian author Joy Kogawa has long been a supporter of the Okinawan democracy and peace movement. Her brother, Reverend Timothy Nakayama, an Episcopalian minister, served in Okinawa after his retirement. Kogawa's former husband is an Okinawan Canadian whose family lost their home because of U.S. military seizure.


(Joy Kogawa and Reverend Timothy Nakayama.
Photo: Todd Wong, GungHaggisFatChoy)

This excerpt from 'Three Deities," a speech Joy Kogawa gave in Stockholm in 2002 illuminates the profound meaning of the Okinawan culture of peace and examines its threat to the primitive forces of violence:

My brother, a retired Episcopalian priest, was in Okinawa for a few years in the 90’s. He told me that in 1815, Captain Basil Hall of the British navy steamed into Naha, Okinawa and was amazed at what he found. The story goes, that on his way back to England, he dropped in to the island of St. Helena and had a chat with Napoleon.

“I have been to an island of peace,” the captain reported. “The island has no soldiers and no weapons.”

“No weapons? Oh, but there must be a few swords around,” Napoleon remarked.

“No. Even the swords have been embargoed by the king.”

Napoleon, we’re told, was astonished. “No soldiers, no weapons, no swords! It must be heaven.”

A unique culture of peace had developed in one tiny part of our warring planet. We might well wonder about the spiritual heritage of such a people. Today they boast not just the longest living humans in the world – the number of centenarians per 100,000 is six times that of the U.S. – but the world’s longest disability free life expectancy.

According to The Okinawa Program by Dr. Bradley Willcox, Dr. Craig Willcox and Dr. Makoto Suzuki, Okinawan society “… reflects a cultural cosmology where the female embodies and transmits sacred forces (shiji). Most Okinawan villages still have “divine priestesses,” called noro or nuru, whose job it is to commune with the gods and ancestors and serve as spiritual advisers. In fact, until the late nineteenth century, the king’s well-being and success as ruler depended on the spiritual sustenance granted by the high priestess (kikoe ogimi), who was of equivalent social standing. This is a unique cultural phenomenon. Although women act as religious functionaries in other societies, there is no other modern society in the world where women hold title as the main providers of religious services.”

When Japan, that once warring nation, took over the kingdom, there was an entirely bloodless coup. No soldiers were found to help later with the invasion of Korea. A disobedient people, Japan concluded. A kingdom without soldiers was clearly impossible. Okinawa, with its history of peace, must surely have had a culture as close to heaven as this planet has managed. And perhaps therefore a special target for the forces of hate.

On Easter day in 1945, on the day of triumph for the Prince of Peace, war came to the people of peace. The battle of Okinawa was the biggest land battle of history to that point. In twelve weeks, in eighty-four days, 234,000 people died, more than the people killed in August in the two atomic bombings.

My brother was in Okinawa in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the battle. Beginning at Easter, and for twelve weeks after, with the pastoral candle lit, a breathtaking action of speech took place. For two hours at noon and two hours at night, the dead were recalled and their names read. These were not just prayers for the Okinawan victims -- parents, grandparents, infants, schoolchildren, the familiar members of the community. The embracing in prayer included Japanese and American soldiers, those who had brought this disaster upon the most gentle of peoples. Here was mercy quietly demonstrated. It did not make headline news. But the Prince of Peace, mocked and murdered on Easter day 1945, was powerfully alive on Easter fifty years later.

In Okinawa’s Peace Park, the names are engraved on row upon row of granite slabs resembling the waves of the ocean nearby. A white towering structure encloses a huge statue of Kannon. She is described as an Asian symbol (with no deification) and is the central figure in the structure where each year on August 15 an interfaith service is held.

(Many thanks to Joy Kogawa for permission to excerpt this speech, published at positions: east asia cultures critique Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring 2005).

Ongoing Sit-In at Okinawa Prefecture Office

Scholar of East Asian history and politics Gavan McCormack has long compared the Okinawan movement to the Polish Solidarity Movement, in terms of tactics and the similar widespread challenge to undemocratic domination by a client state satellite of a world power.

The Polish Solidarity Movement, although it erupted in the summer of 1980, had been fueled by citizen dissatisfaction since 1945, when Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in a betrayal of trust and principles of national self-determination, delivered Poland and other Eastern and Central European countries to the former Soviet Union for military occupation. Okinawa was delivered to the U.S. by the postwar Japanese government, for similar use. The Okinawan movement, like the democracy movements in Eastern and Central Europe, has been in the making since 1945.

The ongoing sit-in at the Okinawa Prefecture Building (fueled by collective moral, spiritual, social and political energy passed down through generations .

Sociologist Masami Mel Kawamura:

This shot of the meeting, held at the lobby of Okinawa prefecture building on Dec.28 , shows what our sit-in is like (still now, a considerable people are sitting in Okinawa Prefecture Building).

The media tends to report sensational scenes which emphasize the "conflict" between the Okinawan people and the Japanese government , and to highlight peoples' anger. But we are fighting against the Okinawa Defense Bureau's [Okinawa arm of the Japanese Defense Ministry] outrageous submission of the EIS. Our sit-in is in collaboration with Okinawa Prefecture Assembly members and Diet members from Okinawa.

At the meeting, they reported how they addressed Okinawa Prefecture and Okinawa Defense Bureau, to block the submission of EIS documents, after the Okinawa Defense Bureau's submission of EIS at 4:00 AM.

Although we have been showing strong opposition and Okinawa prefecture is in winter holiday, the Okinawa Defense Bureau is still trying to sneak and deliver the rest of the EIS, which is needed to meet the requirement in EIA process. It forces people now to keep a continuous 24-hour sit-in at the prefecture building.

GANGJEONG PEACE PHOTO STUDIO open from Dec. 28, 2011 -Jan. 3, 2012

Seoul-based photographer David Fox:

These young and fully inspired university students are going to open "GANGJEONG PEACE PHOTO STUDIO" from Dec. 28 ~ Jan.3.2012.

The JOONGANG Universiry Photo-documentary team "THE FIELD" had their summer with GANGJEONG and had host several photo-exihibition with their deep depth photography about GANGJEONG and it's struggle against naval base.. This winter, they will do other experimental documenting efforts: "The Peace photo studio"

Everyone in GANGJEONG can visit peace studio for the family,id,snap or any kind of photography which who want and need in the professional quality and grade. The entire studio lighting equipments will be carried out with them. Also in peace photo studio, every products which GANGJEONG PEACE CORP are selling now will be taken pictures by them.

Feel free and hope everyone can join us. For the peace of GANGJEONG.