Monday, September 11, 2023
Monday, June 17, 2019
#risewithhenoko: Tinsagu Nu Hana (てぃんさぐぬ花 )
Beautiful, multi-generational Hawai'ian Uchinanchu (Okinawan) performance of "Tinsagu Nu Hana" (Balsam Flowers), one of Okinawa's most beloved folk songs.
Lyrics:
Tinsagu nu hana ya chimi sachi ni sumiti
Uyanu yushi gutu ya chimu ni sumiri
Tin nuburi bushi ya yumiba yuma rishiga
Uyanu yushi gutu ya yumin naran
Yuruha rasu funi ya ninu fua bushi miati
Wan na cheru uyaya wandu miati
Takaradama yatin migaka niba sabisu
Asayu chimu migachi uchiyu watara
Makutu suru hitu ya atuya ichi madin
Umuku tun kanati chiyunu sakai
Nashiba nani gutun nairu gutu yashiga
Nasan yui karadu naran sadami
Nasan yui karadu naran sadami
English translation:
Just as my fingernails are stained with the pigment from balsam flowers,
my heart is painted with the teachings of my parents.
Although the stars in the sky are countable,
the teachings of my parents are not.
Just as ships that run in the night are guided to safety by the North star,
I am guided by my parents who gave birth to me and watch over me.
There’s no point in possessing magnificent jewelry if you don’t maintain it;
people who maintain their bodies will live life wonderfully.
The desires of the person who lives sincerely will always run true
and as a result she will prosper.
You can do anything if you try,
but you can’t if you don’t.
With many thanks to the Hawaii Okinawa Artists Collaboration 2017
Featured Artists: Reverend Shindo Nishiyama, Derek Fujio Sensei, Derek "Ichiro" Shiroma Sensei, Eric Wada Sensei, Norman Kaneshiro Sensei, Keith Nakaganeku Sensei, Allison Yanagi Sensei, Jon Itomura (HOCA), Cyrus Tamashiro, Kathy Oshiro, Yukiko Pierce, Janine Kiyosaki, Nathan Nishida, Kymberlie and Katelynn Arakaki, Brandon Ing, Carolina Higa, Chantel Ikehara, Shelby Oshiro, Travis Oshiro.
With Special Thanks to:
President Doris Oshiro (Jikoen Hongwanji), Honolulu Community College Mele Program, Moanalua Mene-Tv Broadcast Journalism, and Blue Planet Recording Studio
Saturday, June 1, 2019
#risewithhenoko: "Our Island's Treasure" tells the story of Henoko, Okinawa's elders' struggle to save their sacred coral reef and dugong ecosystem for future generations
#RiseforHenoko - Kaiya Yonamine of Global Uchinanchu Alliance グローバルうちなんちゅ同盟: May 31, 2019 - asks that supporters of Henoko's coral reef and dugong ecoregion and advocates of planetary survival, please spread, and share the link to her documentary film “Our Island’s Treasure” Documentary ドキュメンタリー映画「私達の島の宝. Please tag environmental orgs, human rights and indigenous rights groups, media and teacher groups.
“Our Island’s Treasure" tells the story about the indigenous Uchinanchu people's fight to protect their sacred dugong and coral reef ocean in Henoko, Okinawa from Japanese government landfill and construction of an offshore US military training airstrip and port (over an ecoregion covered with quicksand pits which will take years to reinforce, if possible, and an earthquake zone).
Frustrated by the lack of media coverage of the Okinawan 22- year struggle to save Okinawa's last intact, healthiest and most biodiverse coral reef and best dugong ecosystem, mother and daughter team, Moe and Kaiya Yonamine, made and sold thousands of cookies and paper cranes to raise funds to pay for flights and to stay in Okinawa. They went to Henoko to support their elders
"This is one of the most biodiverse ocean regions on the planet and [Japanese and U.S. governments'] destruction is being done against the democratic will of the Okinawa people who voted vehemently against it," explains Moe Yonamine.
"Nonstop, our island’s people—with their bodies—are blocking construction trucks on land at sit-ins and die-ins, and—with their bodies—on kayaks, are blocking construction ships in the ocean — mostly led by hundreds of now elderly child survivors of the Battle of Okinawa," Yonamine adds. (The air, sea, and ground fighting between Americans and Japanese in Okinawa was the bloodiest battle in their 4-year war in the Asia-Pacific.)
Kaiya Yonamine, a 17 year-old, 2nd generation Uchinanchu living in Portland, Oregon, released the trailer for her film on Earth Day.
"This documentary aims to show the fight of the elders and youth on the ground fighting to protect our ocean in Henoko and the interviews taken just weeks ago while we were there. Singing along with an old island song that I sang to her as a little girl, and one that my grandmother sang to me, she shares it in our indigenous language and with our indigenous instrument," Yonamine describes the beautiful song in the video trailer.
Please watch and share her trailer and HELP DISRUPT THE MEDIA SILENCE on the Sea of Henoko (not just a "less populated area in the north") but, instead, Okinawa's last intact, healthiest, most biodiverse, millennia-old coral reef, and best dugong seagrass habitat. Okinawans and their worldwide environmentalist, peace, and democracy supporters have been working for 23 years to save the Sea of Henoko.
Partial trailer transcript:
"Beautiful Sand. Proud People. Living along sparkling ocean waves. Ancient history of kings and queens. The kingdom overthrown by Japan in 1879. Violence brought upon this peaceful land during WWII.YOU WILL FIND THE DOCUMENTARY LINK HERE ON FRIDAY, 5/31: Our Island's Treasure
"After the war, the U.S. put Okinawans in concentration camps while taking land to build bases. On what was left of this tiny paradise (the main island of Okinawa is 70 miles long and 7 miles wide) crammed with 32 bases, burdened with 70% of all U.S. military bases under Japan against the democratic will of the Uchinanchu people.
"Now the construction of a new base has begun. This time, in the ocean...Oura Bay is the name of the ocean that is being destroyed. This is one of the most biodiverse waters in the world bursting with life of over 5,300 species and 262 endangered species that are dependent on the sea. The Jp govt. is actively destroying this ocean. Concrete crushing coral. Using our own red soil to fill the sea. Killing our ocean.
"Kayactivists have been blocking ships. Elders have been staging sit-ins. War survivors have been blocking trucks. Raising fists. Singing island songs. Fighting for our ocean. And the media remains silent. As the destruction continues, our fight continues. We call on you to join us. And protect our ocean. Before we lose it forever."
Kaiya explains the urgency of her mission:
"The concrete began to be crushed in the beautiful ocean of Okinawa back in Dec..there was no media in the U.S. about it...I knew that people are fighting with their lives on the line for the ocean, for us, for all of us. So I decided I needed to take a camera and bridge us across the ocean... listening to the stories of people on the ground, I made this documentary to tell the world their story and show their fight -- our fight. The documentary is the result of interviewing Uchinanchu elders and student activists who are doing everything to protect our sacred ocean, even when the media ignores what's happening."
Okinawan American Moe Yonamine is a teacher in Portland and a co-founder of Global Uchinanchu Alliance グローバルうちなんちゅ同盟, which seeks to deepen connections between Overseas Okinawans and Okinawans living in their homeland (which includes the sea and all animals and plants living in the sea).
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Not Forgotten: Share Your Christmas with Tohoku, Japan
Share Your Christmas with Tohoku will complete their final Share Your Christmas delivery Sunday, May 26, to the fukko Jutaku housing area in Miharu and to the town of Katsurao which is on the outside edge of the 20km exclusion zone where some people have moved back.
Many, many thanks to these wonderful people for remembering and supporting the survivors of 3/11's unnecessary, human-caused meltdowns.
"Christmas, my child, is Love in Action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas."
- Dale Evans
Thursday, May 2, 2019
#SavetheDugong: Okinawa Dugong flags for Children's Day 2019 at Wansaka Oura Park, Okinawa
The plaintiffs have challenged a plan by the U.S. and Japanese governments to landfill not only Okinawa's last intact, healthiest, and most biodiverse coral reef, but also the Okinawa dugong's most important seagrass feeding ground, despite appeals by Okinawans and their worldwide supporters for 23 years to save the world-class natural cultural heritage ecoregion.
The Japanese government, so far, has ignored a democratic referendum that took place in February this year, in which an overwhelming majority of Okinawa voters opposed the destruction. The Okinawan people are fully supported by Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who succeeded Govenor Takeshi Onaga. The late Governor Onaga won the governorship, after a campaign supported by the All-Okinawa coalition that bridged conservative and liberal political parties. Their focus was and is shared Okinawan unity, dignity, and cultural heritage.
Peter Galvin, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, tells us that dugongs, gentle marine mammals (salt water relatives of manatees), EW revered by native Okinawans, and celebrated as “sirens” that bring warnings of tsunamis. The dugong is listed as an natural monument of national cultural significance under Japan’s Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. Under the U.S. National Historic Protection Act and int. law, the U.S. must avoid or mitigate any harm to places or things of cultural significance to another country.
Mr. Higashionna told Americans while at court in San Francisco that "The U.S. government must realize that the Okinawa dugong is a treasure for Okinawa and for the world.”
Dugongs (also related to elephants as well as manatees) can live for 70 years and grow to nearly 1,000 pounds. In the transparent aqua waters of Henoko Bay, vast herds of dugongs once grazed peacefully on underwater fields of sea grass. But after decades of active U.S. military war training in the region, possibly fewer than 50 last dugongs now struggle to survive in the formerly idyllic Okinawan islands — once dubbed the “Galápagos of the East” for its rich biodiversity. Recent surveys showed 3 dugongs living in the Sea of Henoko. Tragically, one was killed in March, and washed ashore covered with abrasions and injuries.
Every year in Okinawa (and Japanese) people display carp flags from late April to early May in celebration of children’s day, which marks the end of Golden Week, a series of holidays that start on April 29, Showa Day, the birthday of former Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989, May 3, Constitution Day, May 4, Greenery Day and May 5, Children's Day.
30日 4月 2019
ジュゴンのぼりin わんさか大浦パーク
今年で5回目になります。手作りジュゴンのぼり、4月29日にわんさか大浦パークにあげてきました！
今年も、地域のこどもたちや名護市内の保育園のこどもたちに、絵を描いてもらいました。ありがとうございました！！
ジュゴンが大浦湾に戻ってこられますように、と願いを込めて！
かわいいジュゴンたちをぜひ見に来て下さいね！感想もよろしくお願いします。
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Earth Day 2018 - The Sea is the Treasure of Life - Miracle of Oura Bay and Yanbaru
Beautiful Henoko coral reef and dugong sea underwater photographs and music via One Peace Okinawa (events ongoing this weekend at Earth Day Tokyo／アースデイ東京) with photography by Takuya Nakamura: "A Miracle of Oura Bay and Yanbaru - About Precious Nature" and music by Milk (Maitreya) singing "The sea is the treasure of life."
Most of Okinawa's coral reefs have been lost because of coastal construction and global warming. Miraculously, coral reefs are still thriving in the sea of Henoko and Oura Bay where nutrients and fresh water from Yanbaru's subtropical rainforest and living tidelands continue to the sea. Does anyone really want to build a base by landfilling this magnificent sea, a treasure of life?
"The Sea is a Treasure of Life" by Milk (Maitreya)
Island treasure Coral sea
A cradle of life
Nurturing creatures
Breakwaters to protect the island
Treasure chest in the sea
Jewels spun over a thousand years
Miracles connecting life.
Coral reefs are treasures of the earth...
The sea and the forest are connected...
The living guardian rainforest of the sea...
The sea and the land are connected...
There is no border between them...
The sea is the treasure of life...
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Alicia Bay Laurel and Takuji - "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" at Hiroshima Nagarekawa Church, which stands on what was ground zero
Our friends, Alicia Bay Laurel and Takuji, performing "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" in Hiroshima 08/08/2015. Author/artist/vocalist/songwriter Alicia Bay Laurel and jazz multi-instrumentalist Takuji perform John Lennon's anti-war classics "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" at a peace concert that was part of the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 8, 2015, at Hiroshima Nagarekawa Church, which stands on what was ground zero in Hiroshima.
Monday, March 13, 2017
Keibo Oiwa addresses the psychological roots of world crisis in Nuclear Zen
In Berlin-based filmmaker Michael Saup's short documentary, Nuclear Zen, anthropologist, environmental activist (and contributor to Kyoto Journal) Keibo Oiwa, shares his holistic take on creating a life-sustaining Japan and world. His views echo those of many eco-activists, especially Sacred Stone, Okinawan and other indigenous water, rainforest, earth protectors:
Thank you is a recognition of the reality. We are living here. We are using [nuclear [and fossil]] electricity...We created the social system -- media, education, politics -- on top of the same system. We have to admit it. Yes, this is where we are. And we have to embrace it, whether it's ugly or not. This is us. And only after that, we can say what we want to do. But the problem is, many people refuse to recognize this reality.
Albert Einstein said you cannot solve the problem within the same mindset that created the problem in the first place. But that is exactly what we've been doing. As environmental activist, I've been fighting, in the movements against environmental destruction, pollution, climate change, nuclear power. And all these problems are too serious. We cannot solve any of these problems easily. Many people say it's too late. But I think it's very important that all these problems have the same root, not just environmental issues, but psychological problems.
What do we do with the very unhappy society we've created. you know, education, family situation, families are collapsing. We pit all the children against each other; they're supposed to be be competing and fighting against each other, forever. I think the roots are all entangled and maybe the same one. So what we have to do, is recognize the root. This is a great opportunity. This crisis is an opportunity...to understand this mindset, not just a society, but ourselves, our mindset...
The musician Ryuichi Sakamoto...said, "We are risking our lives, not only human lives, for the sake of what? Just electricity?"
But this is a mindset we have been captured in...
For what? Is it worth risking our lives, our future, our children's future?
The objective of this system is to make more, consume more, discard more. It's eternal growth: mass production, mass consumption, mass discarding. When you look around, this whole system is made up of excess. So I think excess is the nature of the present time. More. Bigger. Faster...This is a religion of efficiency.
...After March 11, we realized how hollow our democracy had become. Democracy had become a treasure box we were carrying but then after March 11, we opened it, after many years. It was empty. We have to rebuild democracy from scratch.
When you look at politics, at media, the situation seems so pessimistic. But at the same time, I witness so many good signs and I can see very clearly that what's happening in Japan all over the place has a strong resonance with what's happening outside of Japan; In Europe, in Africa, Latin America, everywhere, similar things are happening. They're coming out of the mindset that my generation is still trying to cling to. Young people are saying, 'Just forget it. They are not attracted anymore. They're not deceived. More and more, I can feel good things are happening...
The rest of the story we have to create...
Friday, March 10, 2017
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Peace for 70 years and infinity: MESSAGE FROM JAPAN to ASIAN COUNTRIES AND THE WORLD, 2015.
Via SEALDs (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) Japan:
Published on Dec 24, 2015
《Peace for 70 years and infinity: MESSAGE FROM JAPAN to ASIAN COUNTRIES AND THE WORLD, 2015.》
Happy X'mas そして、そろそろ今年も終わりですね。SEALDsで今年を締めくくる動画をつくりました。思えば激動の一年でした。法案は可決されましたが、今年得られたものはたくさんあるはずです。戦後から70年。そして71年を迎え、戦後から100年たっても戦争しない国であることを願います。困難な時代にこそ希望があると信じて。そして一歩踏み出す勇気を。
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
終戦から70年が経ちました。戦後日本の平和と繁栄は、先の大戦の大きな犠牲と引き換えにもたらされたものです。私たちはいまこそ、この国の平和憲法の理念を支持し、それを北東アジア、そして世界の平和構築に役立てるべきだと考えます。自由、民主主義、普遍的人権。それらの価値は、けっして紙に書かれた絵空事ではありません。人びとの自由を護り、平和を築くために、過去から私たちに手渡された大切な種です。私たちがあきらめてしまわない限り、日本国憲法の理念はその力を失うことはありません。知性と理性とともに、私たちは平和と、アジア諸国家の自由と民主主義の尊重を求め続けます。
Seventy years have passed since the end of war. The peace and prospect of post-war Japan were led by profound sacrifice of the war. We support the pacifist constitution of this country and use it for peacebuilding in north-east Asia and the world. Liberty, democracy, and universal human rights; these values are not just imagination. They are the important seeds that we were given by the past for defending liberty of people and constructing sustainable peace. The ideal of Japanese Constitution never loses its power unless we give it up. With intelligence and reason, we continue to claim for peace and respect for liberty and democracy in Asian Countries.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
10,000 sing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" — Japan's Beloved Anthem of Peace
The Japanese love of "Ode to Joy," the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, began during the First World War, when German prisoners of war performed the Ninth Symphony for the first time in Japan in 1918.
The Japanese nickname for the uplifting movement — "Daiku" ("Number 9") — alludes to Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause which outlaws war as a means of conflict resolution. Beethoven's lyrics are from a poem celebrating human unity by Frederick Schiller. The 19th-century century German philosopher was preoccupied by the quest for freedom and human rights. Like many of his era (which spanned the American Revolution), he championed political ideals based not on coercion and tyrannical brute force, but instead by reason, goodwill, dialogue, and democratic process.
Worldwide, "Ode to Joy" has long been considered a peace anthem, a song of resistance to not just war, but also state repression. Chilean democracy demonstrators sang the song during PInochet's dictatorship. Chinese protesters sang it during the march on Tiananmen Square. This year, the music and lyrics are even more meaningful to the Japanese and Okinawan supporters of democracy and Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause.
...Brother love binds man to man
Ever singing march we onward
Victors in the midst of strife
Joyful music lifts us onward
In the triumph song of life...
Human rights attorney Scott Horton tells us that Beethoven was drawn to Schiller's writings because the composer longed for liberty, however omitted the "deeper, more political charge" of the final stanzas of "Ode to Joy" to veil his challenge to the repressive Hapsburg regime from which he received patronage.
...the work is radical and blatantly political in its orientation...It imagines a world whose nations live in peace with one another, embracing the dignity of their species as a fundamental principle, and democracy as the central chord of their organization. Its long appeal to Beethoven lay in just this intensely subversive, revolutionary core. To start with, as Leonard Bernstein reminded his audiences, the poem was originally an “Ode to Freedom” and the word “Joy” (Freude instead of Freiheit, added to the third pillar, Freundschaft [Friendship] came as a substitute for the more overtly political theme...Beethoven reckoned, of course, that his audience knew the whole text, just as he knew it, by heart. He was by then a crotchety old man, Beethoven, but he knew the power of a dream, and he inspired millions with it, to the chagrin of his Hapsburg sponsors.Schiller’s words are perfectly fused with Beethoven’s music. It may indeed be the most successful marriage in the whole shared space of poetry and music. It is a message of striking universality which transcends the boundaries of time and culture. It is well measured in fact to certain turningpoints in the human experience.
Some of the lines from Schiller's poem omitted from "Ode to Joy":
...Persist with courage, millions!
Stand firm for a better world!
...Deliver us from tyrants’ chains...
(-JD, originally posted Dec. 25, 2014, reposted because the themes are even more important for Japan, Okinawa, and the entire world given heightened popular activism for freedom, liberty, human rights, democracy, and peace, in the face of growing global state authoritarianism and militarized repression of nonviolent citizen movements.)
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Historian Jeff Kingston: "The Japanese people who are proud of their pacifist constitution see Abe trampling on their values."
Video by Richard Grehan of last week's protests in Tokyo
Brilliant analysis on the security-related legislation ("Abe war bills") by Temple University historian Jeff Kingston in this September 20 CNN interview:
People are outraged...People think it's unconstitutional, that he's trampling rule of law...Even though he has passed the legislation, it lacks legitimacy...Abe has delivered on all of the US wish list...
But the Japanese people don't buy Abe's argument that this is going to increase deterrence. Sure they think they live in a dangerous neighborhood, but they don't think this is the way to promote peace.
So the Japanese people who are proud of their pacifist constitution see Abe trampling on their values...Japanese people are concerned...they will be dragged into conflict by Washington..
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Japanese citizens protesting as LDP/Komeito postpone Abe war bills until 8:50 a.m.; former Supreme Court justice warns the unpopular government that it is unlikely that the "unconstitutional" legislation would survive a legal challenge.
(Photographer: Shinta Yabe)
Update: Sept. 17 - The opposition parties submitted a no-confidence motion to the committee chair Yoshitada Konoike. Then Masahide ("Moustache") Sato took over the chairman's seat, after which opposition members made very long speeches to defend the motion. However, following the script, the committee voted against the motion.
Then as Konoike returned to his chairman's seat, dozens of opposition members rushed towards Konoike, appearing as if they were trying to stop the voting on the bills. The "scuffle" made worldwide newspaper headlines.
Some analysts are asking why the opposition parties stopped blocking the entrance, and allowed the September 17 committee meeting to take place, knowing their no-confidence motion was going to, of course, be defeated.
In the meantime, over 200 lawyers in Japan have issued a statement calling the "voting" among the wild scuffling at the special committee illegal and invalid.
Many are asking why opposition party members allowed this final assembly to happen after they said they would do everything to stop the bills.
The not-so-young politicians inside the building must be exhausted.
Update 2:05 a.m. - The Upper House Special Committee on the Abe war bills has not started yet as of 2 AM in Japan. LDP/Komeito is planning to get the committee to vote for the war bills tonight.
If it begins, it will be livestreamed here: http://www.webtv.sangiin.go.jp/webtv/index.php.
The protest outside of the Parliament is being livestreamed now at Iwakami Yasumi journal:
http://iwj.co.jp/channels/main/ .
Along with the majority of the Japanese mainstream citizenry, cultural figures such as Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, former prime ministers, the majority of Japanese lawyers, including former Supreme Court justices are protesting the bill as unconstitutional.
Former Japanese Supreme Court Justice Kunio Hamada on Abe War Bills called the bills "unconstitutional and "illegitimate." Hamada warned that it is “extremely optimistic” for the Abe government to think that Supreme Court will not rule against the legislation if its constitutionality is challenged in court.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Kya Kim: "Conflict is no longer synonymous with war. It is, rather, an opportunity for growth, an opportunity for peace...Everyone of us has a role to play in determining the outcome of our shared conflicts...Which future will we choose?"
Myong Hee Kim, Founding Artist of Peace Mask Project at the
History+Art = Peace Festival, organized by Alpha Education, Toronto, Canada,
August 15-21, 2015
A divided world creates more insecurity and fear. And fear, too often results in violence. Trust is the courageous act of being the first to break through that fear and reach out to "the other." Peace Mask Project is itself an act of trust, from the idealism that inspires the effort to the individual act of being a Peace Mask Model to the support and participation of hundreds of individuals in a collective effort to advance into a sane and healthy future.
Today tensions are rising in East Asia and many regions around the world. Fear and insecurity are also on the rise. This tension we are seeing does not guarantee violence, but, instead, could be seen as a great opportunity.
Conflict is natural and always present. It is neither negative nor positive in itself. Violence and repression are only one possible response to a conflict and one our societies turn to far too often.
There are many reasons for this: the profitability of militarization for a handful of corporations and individuals; the control and manipulation of a population through fear. But mostly I think it's due to a lack of creativity and cooperation. We are stuck in old habits and old ways of thinking.
Today young people have an unprecedented understanding of the greater world. We are becoming increasingly aware of how we are interconnected and interdependent. We find beauty in other cultures. And by reflecting on our own, we are open to growth and to change. This is the reality of our future, and one that needs to be reflected in our societies. Conflict is no longer synonymous with war. It is, rather, an opportunity for growth, an opportunity for peace...
We hope that Peace Mask Project will provide a platform for their shared vision of peace, to build trust by building lasting relationships, and to help them become leaders of a better world...
We do not need for the conflicts of our time to erupt in violence or be resolved through aggression. Everyone of us has a role to play in determining the outcome of our shared conflicts.
How will we participate?
What opportunities will we present through our actions?
Which future will we choose?
Friday, August 14, 2015
Koshichi Taira: Thinking about True Peace during the 70th Anniversary of the End of WWII • Nago Museum Gallery • Aug. 14-30, 2015
Koshichi Taira Photography Exhibition
Thinking about True Peace during the 70th Anniversary of the End of WWII,
focusing on the aftermath of the Himeyuri Student Nurses Corp.
8/14 (Friday)-8/30 (Sunday)
Nago Museum Gallery
Nago City, Okinawa
Nago City, Okinawa
Admission: free
More Info (Jp): http://www.city.nago.okinawa.jp/4/3282.html
The Nago Museum's exhibition of Taira's photography, which opens today, invites viewers to think about the nature of true peace during the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.
222 Okinawan female high school students, aged 15 to 19, were mobilized as the Himeyuri Student Nurse Corps in March, 1945 as the US-Jp battle in Okinawa began on the ground. (US bombing of Okinawa began in October 1944). During the battle, about 200,000 lives were lost, including 120,000 Okinawan civilians, one-third of the population. Among the Himeyuri nurses, 123 students and 13 teachers were killed.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Kenzaburo Oe: "Hiroshima must be engraved in our memories: It’s a catastrophe even more dramatic than natural disasters, because it’s man-made. To repeat it, by showing the same disregard for human life in nuclear power stations, is the worst betrayal of the memory of the victims..."
"Japanese Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe on the 70th Anniversary of US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," via Democracy Now!:
...KENZABURO OE: [translated] So, three years ago, the day after the disaster, the weeks after the disaster, I believe that all Japanese people were feeling a great regret. And the atmosphere in Japan here was almost the same as following the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the war. And at that time, because of this atmosphere, the government at the time, which is the Democratic Party of Japan, with the agreement of the Japanese people, pledged to totally get rid of or decommission the more than 50 nuclear power plants here in Japan. However, the situation following the disaster, particularly in Fukushima, where so many people are suffering from this, has not changed at all.
And the current atmosphere or attitude of the government now in Japan has totally changed...the Liberal Democratic Party...led by Prime Minister Abe, is...completely having no regret and no looking back on ...what happened to Japan, and is instead actually actively pushing this forward. And I’m very fearful now that actually all throughout Japan and through the Japanese people, the atmosphere which is now growing and increasing is a spreading of this Prime Minister Abe’s ideology and worldview.
AMY GOODMAN: Yet he was elected as prime minister.
KENZABURO OE: [translated] Yes, he has won in two elections until now. But, however, now, because he has the majority in both of the houses of the Japanese Parliament, it means he is, in essence, able to do anything, go forward anything. And the first thing he is also trying to do now is to revise the constitution, which was created democratically by the Japanese people following the loss in World War II and Hiroshima and Nagasaki experience....
And now, under the current Prime Minister Abe administration, Japan is moving toward actively participating in United States wars. And what I am now most fearful about is the unfortunately likely possibility under Prime Minister Abe that this second pillar of Article 9 will be in danger, but not only this, that even the first pillar, that Japan may actually, within the next year or two or three or four years, actually directly participate in war...
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
300,000 Japanese: "Protect the Constitution! Protect Okinawa from Shinzo Abe! Don't Start a War!"
Great video via Michael Penn of Shingetsu News Agency (SNA): Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs) protest against the Abe War Bill, forced U.S. military base construction in Okinawa, and in favor of the Peace Constitution, rule of law, and democratic society.
Michael Hoffman's "A political turning point for Japan’s youth," published at The Japan Times on August 1, 2015, explores the mass student movement for democracy and peace for Japan and Okinawa:
Somebody needed to make the point that Abe’s primary accountability is not to U.S. lawmakers but to the people of Japan. Cynical calculations that the people of Japan wouldn’t bother were not unreasonable...
Years pass and nothing happens — then, suddenly, something does, and nothing is the same. What is the catalyst that turns passivity into activism? It’s like asking why this particular straw and not that one broke the camel’s back...
On July 1, 2014, the Abe Cabinet adopted a resolution sharply reinterpreting the Constitution as permitting what for decades had been regarded as forbidden: a global military role for the “pacifist” nation under the name “collective self-defense.”...On July 15, after a debate whose striking features were the vagueness of the government’s explanations and its hamfisted bullying of opposition lawmakers posing awkward questions, the Lower House voted, brushing aside the doubts of Constitutional scholars and of the public...
That was it. The camel sank to its knees...Sunday Mainichi magazine ventured a bold headline: “It’s begun — 300,000 people surrounding the Diet!”
That figure — 300,000 — is deeply significant. It takes us back to May 1960. The prime minister of the day, soon to be ousted, was Nobusuke Kishi, whose administration forced through the Diet a revised Japan-U.S. security pact in a manner strikingly similar to Abe’s handling of the current security legislation. Three hundred thousand is the prevailing estimate of the size of the enraged crowd that massed in front of the prime minister’s official residence, shouting for Kishi’s head. They got it. He resigned a month later.
The 1960 protests against PM Kishi's ramming through of the US-Japan Security Treaty (ANPO)
drew millions of protestors from all walks of life in multiple protests over months.
Demonstrators at the Japanese parliament building, Tokyo, June 18, 1960.
(Photo © Asahi Shimbun Photoarchives)
Saturday, May 30, 2015
The Sense of Sacred: Mauna Kea, Hawai'i and Oura Bay, Okinawa
Indigenous peoples know that sacred sites are centers of collective spiritual and psychological power that go into the past and into the future, connecting generations. Maybe this is why sacred and cultural heritage sites have been targeted for destruction by invading powers for millennia.
In "The Sense of Sacred: Mauna Kea and Oura Bay," published at The Asia-Pacific Journal earlier this month, Katherine Muzik compares the similarities between the struggles to save Mauna Kea in Hawai'i and Henoko in Okinawa to introduce William B.C. Chang's analysis of the foreign settler pattern of violating indigenous religious and cultural heritage rights as well as land rights and indigenous human rights:
“Sacred is not necessarily a place. It is a relationship, a deep visceral relationship: beyond reason, beyond law, beyond rationality.”
These words were recently spoken by William B.C. Chang, a University of Hawaii Law Professor, in his impassioned testimony to the UH Board of Regents, about the current conflict on Mauna Kea here in Hawaii.
To the Hawaiians, the Mountain known as Mauna Kea, or Mauna a Wākea, on the Island of Hawaii, is a sacred place. Thus, the proposed construction of the northern hemisphere’s biggest telescope, thirty meters tall (TMT), 18 stories high, on eight acres of the mountain top, costing $1.4 billion, has recently sparked peaceful but ardent protests and occupations by Native Hawaiians, environmentalists and allies across the Pacific. With 13 telescopes already blighting the landscape, the protesters seek to prevent further desecration.
To the Okinawans, the Sea known as Oura Bay, on the Island of Okinawa, is also a sacred place. For nearly two decades, Okinawans have protested its destruction by US/Japan military expansion.
Besides being sacred and beautiful, what else do these two very distant places share? They share history, of illegal takeovers by a foreign power and the subsequent, on-going outrage among the local populations. Locals in Hawaii and Okinawa are deeply angered by the heinous and reckless environmental destruction their islands have suffered. They are frustrated by the destruction that continues, despite prolonged protests. In both cases, illegal land-grabs by the US have resulted in the waste of their natural resources and the disintegration of their cultural identities. However, being sacred, both places continue to inspire passionate and courageous struggles against foreign dominance.
The Hawaiian Islands were once a kingdom, a sovereign nation. In a series of events, the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893 by a group of US and European businessmen, ending in annexation as a “Territory of the United States” in 1900. And so too, were the Ryukyu Islands, sovereign. Invaded by Satsuma forces in 1609, they were formally annexed by Japan in 1879 as “Okinawa Prefecture”. After World War 2, the US “acquired” Okinawa from Japan, establishing military bases which have remained and proliferated, destructively, for the last seventy years.
Monday, March 9, 2015
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...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."
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."
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
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Kya Kim & Peace Mask Project: The art of symbolism in peace building
Journalist, peace activist and Peace Mask Project team member Kya Kim reminds us of the powerful role of symbolism in creating change towards lasting peace. Kyoto-based Kya Kim and her team strive to spark this lasting peace across Japan, China and Korea:
A divided world creates more insecurity and fear. And fear, too often results in violence. Trust is the courageous act of being the first to break through that fear and reach out to "the other." Peace Mask Project is itself an act of trust, from the idealism that inspires the effort to the individual act of being a Peace Mask Model to the support and participation of hundreds of individuals in a collective effort to advance into a sane and healthy future.
Today tensions are rising in East Asia and many regions around the world. Fear and insecurity are also on the rise. This tension we are seeing does not guarantee violence, but, instead, could be seen as a great opportunity.
Conflict is natural and always present. It is neither negative nor positive in itself. Violence and repression are only one possible response to a conflict and one our societies turn to far too often.
There are many reasons for this: the profitability of militarization for a handful of corporations and individuals; the control and manipulation of a population through fear. But mostly I think it's due to a lack of creativity and cooperation. We are stuck in old habits and old ways of thinking.br />
Today young people have an unprecedented understanding of the greater world. We are becoming increasingly aware of how we are interconnected and interdependent. We find beauty in other cultures. And by reflecting on our own, we are open to growth and to change. This is the reality of our future, and one that needs to be reflected in our societies. Conflict is no longer synonymous with war. It is, rather, an opportunity for growth, an opportunity for peace...
We hope that Peace Mask Project will provide a platform for their shared vision of peace, to build trust by building lasting relationships, and to help them become leaders of a better world...
We do not need for the conflicts of our time to erupt in violence or be resolved through aggression. Everyone of us has a role to play in determining the outcome of our shared conflicts.
How will we participate?
What opportunities will we present through our actions?
Which future will we choose?
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