NHK: "Ainu Find Their Voice"

Via Jen Teeter and Aotearoa Ainumosir Exchange Programme アオテアロア・アイヌモシリ交流プログラム:

NHK World (日本語は以下）has put together a story about our Ainu revitalization initiatives and Erana Brewerton's visit to Japan. With the main focus of the story being scenes in Nibutani of applying the Te Ataarangi method for Maori language revitalization to the Ainu language, there are also interviews of Maki Sekine and Erana. Through this five minute story, we hope that many people will come to realize just how hard and persistently we are working at the grassroots level for Ainu language revitalization.

You can also catch glimpses of these people and more!

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/newsline/201309261624.html

私たちのアイヌ語復興の取組みがエラナさんの来日とともに、NHK 国際のニュースで取り上げられました。マオリ語復興のテ・アタアランギ教授法をアイヌ語に応用している北海道、二風谷でのシーンを中心に、エラナさんや関根真紀さんなどのインタビューを紹介してくれています。５分間のニュースですが、地道な取組みが、たくさんの方の理解につながることを祈っています

Still Praying for Tohoku: Little Change in Yamada, Iwate...

 Yamada in September 2013.  The small town in Iwate Prefecture 

was almost completely submerged by the 3/11 tsunami.  

(Photos: Scott Ree of Namida Project)

Map of Iwate Prefecture.  (Source: JNTO)

Map of Tohoku. (Source: Web-Japan)

---

Background:

"Bureaucrat suspended for calling Tohoku reconstruction 'unnecessary' in 2011 blog post" (Asahi, Sept. 26, 2013) 

Disaster victims expressed anger when they were informed of the industry ministry bureaucrat’s remarks.

“They were uttered by someone who does not know anything about the disaster area,” said a 59-year-old man who lives in temporary housing in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. “He may be smart, but he does not have the mind and heart of man.”

A 60-year-old woman who runs a restaurant in a temporary shopping area in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, said: “We are trying to restore what we built over the years (and lost). As long as there is someone like him, reconstruction is impossible.”

"Tokyo puts Tohoku on games map, but will it be enough?" (JT, Sept. 24, 2013) 

With so many survivors still living in cramped temporary housing units, Yamada said, a lot of people aren’t happy to see the government spending so much cash on Olympic-related events.

"Fearing exodus, disaster-hit towns compete to offer highest subsidies" (Asahi, Sept. 22, 2013)

But the problem of solitary deaths among survivors could be more widespread, as many moved into accommodations rented by municipal offices over a broader area, potentially severing community links, the survey suggested Wednesday.

Complaints are also being raised over the differences in assistance levels in the Tohoku region. Many survivors are stuck in temporary housing because they lack the funds to rebuild.

Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, which hosts a nuclear power plant operated by Tohoku Electric Power Co., subsidizes payments for mortgage interest and provides assistance of up to 3 million yen to keep residents in the town.

The town’s population has fallen from more than 10,000 to around 7,700.

“The reason why we offer better subsidies than other municipalities is that we are more attentive to the issue,” a town official said

"Nearly 290,000 people still living in shelters two and a half years after the Tohoku disaster" (Rocket News, Sept. 16, 2019)

"Tally of solitary deaths at 81 for 3/11 evacuees" (Kyodo via JT, Sept. 11, 2013)

At least 81 evacuees have died alone in temporary housing in Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures since the 2011 quake and tsunami, a survey says.

"Disaster areas critically short of manpower" (Jiji via JT, Sept. 10, 2013)

"Tohoku still in dire need of medical support" (Jiji via JT, Sept. 11, 2013)

Thirty months after tsunami devastated the Tohoku coast, residents are still facing a lack of medical services because of delays in restarting damaged hospitals and clinics and the closures of others.

"7 disaster-area municipalities show biggest increase in elderly needing living assistance" (Mainichi, Sept. 2, 2013)

"Trillions for rebuilding Tohoku go unused" (Jiji via JT, July 13, 2013):

The Reconstruction Agency said Wednesday that ¥3.4 trillion — 35.2 percent — of the ¥9.74 trillion in the fiscal 2012 budget slated to rebuild areas hit by the March 2011 disasters went unused.

The year before, 39.4 percent of the reconstruction budget, or around ¥5.9 trillion, went unspent, indicating the recovery effort has suffered from poor planning...

Last year, ¥4.73 trillion was allocated to rebuild roads and embankments, as well as to relocate residential areas, but 43.9 percent in this category was unused.

Of the ¥655.6 billion earmarked for washing away contamination from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, 67.9 percent was unused, the agency said...

Unless rebuilding moves forward, devastated communities will keep shrinking, further slowing the process, observers said.

"Tohoku Has Been Rent Asunder for Future Generations" (引き裂かれた東北を後世に残す) (Roger Pulvers, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, March 13, 2013)

Quake victims allowed to stay in temporary housing another year" (Asahi, Feb. 25, 2013)

Victims of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake will be allowed to stay in temporary government housing for an additional year as new public housing construction lags in the three hardest-hit prefectures, sources said.

The central government's decision to extend the temporary housing limit to four years came after it was found that only 55 percent of the new houses planned in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures are expected to be completed by the end of fiscal 2014.

The extension also means around 110,000 people still living in prefabricated temporary housing will have to continue to endure harsh living conditions.

About 300,000 people now live in temporary housing, including accommodations offered by the private sector and whose rent is subsidized by the government.

---

Today is the last day of Washi Candle Garden decorated with washi (Japanese paper) 

illuminating messages from Tohoku residents and Tokyoites.

 ("Candles to remember Tohoku" by Magdalena Osumi, JT, Sept. 19, 2013)

-JD

Naomi Toyoda: The Human Cost of Uranium Weapons

The destructive US legacy of "regime change" in Iraq has been foremost in the minds of those who joined the global outcry against the Obama administration's call to bomb  Syria.  Images of white phosphorus bombings; prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib; millions of Iraqi refugees; stories of young widows and children forced to prostitute themselves to survive; and reports of perpetual violence in Iraq are now imprinted in our collective memory.

Many in Japan are especially sensitive to the suffering caused by depleted uranium (DU) to Iraqi hibakusha: children born with mutations and Iraqis of all ages suffering from cancer.

 Naomi Toyoda has covered the human cost and environmental devastion of the US invasion of Iraq, depleted uranium weapons, Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombing survivors, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. He is co-editor of The Unending Iraq War: Questioning Anew from Fukushima.

Toyoda's exhibition, The Human Cost of Uranium Weapons, toured Europe in 2006. The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons has an online gallery of the Japanese photojournalist's compassionate photographs which reflect the profound suffering caused by radioactive weapons in Iraq.

Depleted uranium (DU) is a radioactive heavy metal waste product of the nuclear power and nuclear weapons industry. Their nanoparticle fallout has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, and enters the body through inhalation and ingestion, where they pass through cell walls..  DU can cause or accelerate cancer, mutate genes, and affect the kidneys, immune system, nervous system, respiratory system, and reproductive system.  The United Nations Human Rights Commission considers DU munitions to be "weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect" incompatible with international humanitarian law.

The US is the largest producer and user of DU weapons. The US military has produced DU weapons from nuclear waste since the 1970's.  The US  used uranium weapons in Iraq in 1991; in Bosnia from 1994 to 1995;  in Afghanistan from 2001; and in Iraq from 2003. NATO used depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro in 1999. The US tested depleted uranium in Puerto Rico and Okinawa; the UK tested it in Scotland.

The UN General Assembly has twice called for greater transparency over DU weapons use. In December 2012, 155 countries voted in favor, however the US, UK, France and Israel opposed the text, which also acknowledged public health risks from DU use.

On the 10th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Democracy Now! interviewed  Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail who described the legacy of the U.S. military’s use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus (a chemical weapon) in Iraq and the ongoing plight of refugees in an interview,  "Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement and an Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers":

...in 2005 we saw 1,600 Iraqis with cancer out of 100,000, so a massive escalation that continues.

 And going on to Fallujah, because I wrote about this a year ago, and then I returned to the city again this trip, we are seeing an absolute crisis of congenital malformations of newborn. There is one doctor, a pediatrician named Dr. Samira Alani, working on this crisis in the city. She’s the only person there registering cases. And she’s seeing horrific birth defects. I mean, these are extremely hard to look at. They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to, because of the amount of depleted uranium used by the U.S. military during both of their brutal attacks on the city of 2004, as well as other toxic munitions like white phosphorus, among other things.

 And so, what this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the aftermath of—in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were—that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II. So, Dr. Samira Alani actually visited with doctors in Japan, comparing statistics, and found that the amount of congenital malformations in Fallujah is 14 times greater than the same rate measured in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in the aftermath of the nuclear bombings.

These types of birth defects, she said—there are types of congenital malformations that she said they don’t even have medical terms for, that some of the things they’re seeing, they’ve never seen before. They’re not in any of the books or any of the scientific literature that they have access to. She said it’s common now in Fallujah for newborns to come out with massive multiple systemic defects, immune problems, massive central nervous system problems, massive heart problems, skeletal disorders, baby’s being born with two heads, babies being born with half of their internal organs outside of their bodies, cyclops babies literally with one eye—really, really, really horrific nightmarish types of birth defects. And it is ongoing...

Stunningly, as bad as things were under Saddam—and we have to keep in mind this perspective of Saddam in the wake of a brutal eight-year war with Iran and then the genocidal sanctions for 13 years, from 1991 up until the beginning of this invasion in March 2003—as bad as it was under Saddam, with the repression and the detentions and the torture and the killings, the overall feeling of Iraqis today, in Baghdad and other places in Iraq where I went this trip, was that things are much worse now...

Doug Rokke. who has a PhD in health physics, is one of the many people who have had direct experience with depleted uranium who advocate against it.  When the Gulf War started, he prepared soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare.  In "War Against Ourselves," a 2003 interview at YES! Magazine, he describes how DU caused deaths of his colleagues:

DU is an extremely effective weapon. Each tank round is 10 pounds of solid uranium-238 contaminated with plutonium, neptunium, americium. It is pyrophoric, generating intense heat on impact, penetrating a tank because of the heavy weight of its metal. When uranium munitions hit, it's like a firestorm inside any vehicle or structure, and so we saw tremendous burns, tremendous injuries. It was devastating.

The US military decided to blow up Saddam's chemical, biological, and radiological stockpiles in place, which released the contamination back on the US troops and on everybody in the whole region. The chemical agent detectors and radiological monitors were going off all over the place. We had all of the various nerve agents. We think there were biological agents, and there were destroyed nuclear reactor facilities. It was a toxic wasteland. And we had DU added to this whole mess...

The half life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years. And we left over 320 tons all over the place in Iraq...

 What I saw...led me to one conclusion: uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity, and medical care must be provided for everyone, not just the US...but for the American citizens of Vieques, for the residents of Iraq, of Okinawa, of Scotland, of Indiana, of Maryland, and now Afghanistan and Kosovo...

War has become obsolete, because we can't deal with the consequences on our warriors or the environment, but more important, on the noncombatants. When you reach a point in war when the contamination and the health effects of war can't be cleaned up because of the weapons you use, and medical care can't be given to the soldiers who participated in the war on either side or to the civilians affected, then it's time for peace.

---

More background:

Naomi Toyoda's website (The Asahi Shimbun)

"ICBUW-Japan commemorates 10th Anniversary - U.S. March 2003 Iraq Occupation"
(Int. Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), May 9, 2013)

"A decade on and depleted uranium contamination still blights Iraq" ((Int. Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), March 7, 2013)

"1/250th of a Second — Naomi Toyoda" (Peace Boat Voyage 62, June 7, 2008)

"Iraq – A Nuclear Polluted Land" (Naomi Toyoda, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 2003)

"A Speech by Naomi Toyoda at the EU Exhibition, The Human Cost of Uranium Weapons" (Int. Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, Hiroshima Office, May 14-16, 2007)

JIM-NET - Japan Iraq Medical Network (Japan-based network of NGOs, private medical clinics and private companies that provide technical, efficient and continuous support for Iraqi children with cancer)

Save the War Children: Ban Uranium Weapons (Website of Japanese photojournalist Takashi Morizumi)

"Discounted Casualties — the human cost of depleted uranium" (Akira Toshiro, The Chugoku Shimbun)

Child Victims of War (UK-based NGO that exposes the impact of modern warfare on children)

-JD

Kelly Rae Kramer: "I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m hungry for peace."

Soulful anti-war poem by Kelly Rae Kramer via Common Dreams:

I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m angry

… angry at those who think more killing is the answer...

I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m sick

… sick at the thought of all those shot, bayoneted, bombed, gassed, and nuked in war...

I am not ‘war-weary’, but I am tired

… tired of the claim that war can be ‘humanitarian’
… tired of indoctrination into the false belief that war can bring peace...

...I am not ‘war-weary’; I am anti-war

… because war is always a failure
… a failure of diplomacy and understanding
… a failure of will and effort
… a failure of imagination and creativity
… a failure of ingenuity and investment
… a failure of compassion and morality
… a failure to invent and practice real, nonviolent humanitarian action.

I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m hungry for peace.

________________________________________

Kelly Rae Kraemer, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Peace Studies at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University in central Minnesota

Read the entire poem here at Common Dreams.

Keiji Nakazawa in Barefoot Gen's Hiroshima: "I decided to use manga to confront the Bomb."

Trailer from director Yuko Ishida's Barefoot Gen''s Hiroshima (Hadashi no Gen ga Mita Hiroshima) a documentary film in which the camera man (Koshiro Otsu) follows "Barefoot Gen" creator Keiji Nakazawa as he visits neighborhoods throughout Hiroshima and recalls living through the nuclear explosion when he was six-years-old.

The film opened in Tokyo on August 6, 2011, and Nakazawa died of lung cancer a year later, on December 19, 2012.

Roger Pulvers' wonderful  film review at  the JT connects the nuclear radioactive dots between Hiroshima in 1945 and Fukushima in 2011:

When the bomb dropped in 1945, Nakazawa was a 6-year-old, first-year pupil at Kanzaki National Elementary School, which was a mere 1.2 km from ground zero. Luckily, on his way into school, he lingered by the wall adjacent to the front gate to speak with someone, and that wall saved his life...

Nakazawa’s father, sister and brother...were all crushed by pillars and beams, and killed. His father had been a vocal opponent of Japan’s war of aggression, and he had spent more than a year in prison as a result. The family had been ostracized by the community. This is a bitter irony of all indiscriminate bombing, since it murders many who are not only blameless non-combatants but also proponents of peace.

Nakazawa never forgot what he saw. He turned his personal experience and that of the people of Hiroshima into a series of manga that was carried in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump for 12 years from 1973. The story of Barefoot Gen kept the plight of the victims of the bomb and its radiation in the minds of citizens of the nation that had become the most intimate ally of the country that caused that holocaust, the United States.

This fact led the Japanese government to isolate the issue as something local — to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the other city atom-bombed by the U.S. three days after Hiroshima — as opposed to national. In addition, the vigorous pursuit of “atoms for peace,” an American initiative to promote nuclear power spearheaded in the early 1950s by President Dwight Eisenhower further divorced the radiation spread by the bombs from its possible spread by reactors generating electricity all around Japan.

It is thanks to Nakazawa, and eminent authors such as Kenzaburo Oe, Hisashi Inoue and, most recently, Haruki Murakami — all of whom have taken up the nuclear tragedies of 1945 — that the dangers of radiation lingering in our bodies, our soil, our water, and in the air, are now finally being understood by the Japanese people.

However, a truly remarkable aspect of the story of Barefoot Gen...is its message of optimism and hope. The hero, little Gen, stunned by the devastation and death surrounding him, says, “I’m going to live, to live! I’m going to live through this, you’ll see!”

In those pages...the stench of destruction are everywhere, just as in the prefectures of Tohoku most badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. Yet Gen does not give up hope...

He goes on to point out that the gen in the name is the same character as that in the word genki, which means full of vitality and strong of mettle...

In his message to children, Nakazawa states, “If you come to feel that you wish for a world without war and without atomic bombs, for a world where peace is priceless...then the subject of this film, namely Keiji Nakazawa, will be content.”

Motofumi Asai's in-depth interview, "Barefoot Gen, the Atomic Bomb and I: The Hiroshima Legacy Nakazawa Keiji"i, translated by Richard H. Minear at APJ: Japan Focus explores the anti-war beliefs of Nakazawa's father as well as those of the writer himself who counsels us to be resilient and persistent in the support of respect of life, human dignity, and an ethos of peace:

In order to effect change, each person has to work away at it. I’m a cartoonist, so cartoons are my only weapon. I think everyone has to appeal in whatever position they’re in.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we gradually enlarged our imaginations! We have to believe in that possibility. Doubt is extremely strong, but we have to feel that change is possible. Inspire ourselves. And like Auschwitz, Hiroshima too must sing out more and more about human dignity.

Barefoot Gen anime film online in Japan through Aug. 31; debate continues over ban of anti-war manga series in Matsue

The energetic public debate over the decision by Matsue (Shimane Prefecture) Board of Education to ban the manga series "Barefoot Gen reflects the vibrancy of anti-war attitudes in Japan, a widespread desire of the majority of Japanese citizens to admit and atone for Japanese Imperial wartime atrocities, and to witness for the abolition of uranium and nuclear weapons.

The series depicts realistic images of the entire Pacific War, including Japanese Imperial beheadings and rapes of Chinese people, as well as the US nuclear bombings of Japanese civilians and other wartime suffering.

The controversy has generated an outpouring of support and renewed interest in "Barefoot Gen" whose author passed away in December of last year. Our friends at New York Peace Film Festival report that the anime film adaptation of the manga series, Barefoot Gen,  is available to watch online in Japan until Aug. 31.

Link: http://gyao.yahoo.co.jp/player/00592/v12021/v1000000000000000721/

Synopsis: Barefoot Gen a 1983 war drama based on Keiji Nakazawa's manga series. Director Mori Masaki depicts the final days of the Pacific War and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima from the point of view of a child, Gen Nakaoka, who is caught in the explosion's aftermath.  The film begins and ends with boat symbolism reminiscent of Toro Nagasahi (ceremony during which lit paper lanterns are released on a river to remember the dead).

The story is set during the final days of the Second World War.  Gen's malnourished family struggle survive in Hiroshima. The family wonders why their city has been spared from US napalm (jellied gasoline) firebombings that have destroyed most of Japan's other cities. They sense something is wrong even though they could never imagine that  Hiroshima  had been chosen as a "pristine" target to test one of the two new American nuclear bombs.

On the morning of August 6, Gen, after promising his brother he will take him to the river to play with a toy boat, makes his way to school. Overhead, he notices a single B-29 bomber.  At home, his family watch as a large number of ants ominously enter their home.  Gen drops a pebble he is playing with, and, as he bends to pick it up, a flash of white light erupts in the sky. The eyes of people around him begin to melt. At home, Gen's house collapses, burying his family alive. Gen escaped injury from the flash because he was bent downward in front of a  stone wall, but he is also buried under rubble.

The nuclear blast vaporizes people and destroys most of the buildings throughout Hiroshima. Burned and mutilated people wander through streets looking for water and help. After digging out of the rubble, Gen returns home to find his mother has survived, but his father, sister and little brother are trapped under the ruins of their house. As a firestorm approaches, Gen's father tells Gen they must leave to protect his mother and her unborn child. As they obey Gen's father and leave, they hear their family's screams as they burn to death.

His mother gives birth to a baby girl they name Tomoko; Gen searches for food and help but finds neither in a city filled only with the dead and injured. He finds a mother with a dead baby who shares her breast milk with Gen's infant sister.  People start to show signs of radiation illness: defecating and vomiting blood; losing hair.

After days of searching for food, Gen finds some rice and vegetables in a storehouse.  On August 16, they dig up the skulls of their dead family at their burned home. They're told Tokyo has finally surrendered.  But peace has come too late for them (and many millions of other people throughout the Asia-Pacific, as well as Okinawa and the rest of mainland Japan).  They take in an orphaned child, Ryuta, whom they meet when he tries to steal their food.

To earn money to buy milk for Tomoko, Gen and Ryuta take a job, caring for a dying, embittered man who, in the end, expresses gratitude for their care.  But, of course, Gen's infant sister dies anyway: the odds are stacked against survival in Hiroshima.

As grass and plants start to recover, so does Gen; his hair grows back.  Gen recalls his father's advice: no matter how beaten down, never give up. He decides to fulfill his promise to his brother and builds another boat. Two weeks after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Gen, his mother, and Ryuta go to the river, where they light a candle on top of the boat and release it in the water. They pray as the boat sails away.

-----

"‘Barefoot Gen’ pulled as anti-war images strike too close to home?" (Jun Hongo, JT, Aug. 21, 2013)

"Board’s request to restrict ‘Barefoot Gen’ assailed" (Aug. 22, 2013, Kyodo, JT)

Steve Nguyen: Hiroshima Revisited

In public imagery, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been fixated in time, at the respective moments the two cities were nuclear bombed.

Linda Hoaglund's recent film, Things Left Behind. a cinematic exploration of  photographer Miyako Ishiuchi's exhibition of the same title,  pierces through to the other side of 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945, to explore (and humanize) the lives of the people who died on that day.

In Hiroshima Revisited Steve Nguyen breaks through to the other side of that moment: the ongoing process of rebuilding and healing in the resurrected city.  This beautiful, sensitive short film might be considered a personal sequel to  HIBAKUSHA, an animated documentary/drama featuring his friend, Kaz Suyeishi, now an 84-year-old woman, who "recalls her most vivid and horrific experiences as an 18-year-old Japanese American student during the morning of August 6, 1945 when the atomic bomb dropped on her hometown."

This look at Hiroshima today brings home not only the striving of Hiroshima survivors and their descendants to rebuild their city and lives, but also the struggle of survivors of manmade annihilation throughout our world (Guernica, Chonqing, Warsaw, and many hundreds of cities, regions...)  who have similarly sought to restore what has been destroyed and broken by war.

Artists hold 'thousand-stitch belt' exhibit to encourage war memory, promote peace

Hoping to see their men return home safely from battle, women in wartime Japan would often send soldiers off with a protective amulet called a "thousand-stitch belt" -- or "senninbari" -- a cloth wrap that, as its name suggests, featured 1,000 stitches sewn by 1,000 different women.

To prevent the tradition from fading into history, a Tokyo-based women's artist collective known as "Stand Up Sisters" is holding a "needle and thread for peace" ("Ohariko Project") exhibition at the Hako Gallery in Tokyo's Yoyogi-Uehara district. In addition to educating younger generations about the existence of the "senninbari" tradition, the exhibit also offers visitors a chance to participate in hands-on stitching -- thereby encouraging people to consider history in a more personalized way.

Miho Tsujii, a member of the collective and one of the event organizers, explained that putting together the exhibition was a challenge -- if for no other reason than the fact that almost no information on the practice was available.

"We almost never hear the word 'senninbari' today, but when we do, it is usually surrounded with an air of secrecy," she explained. "This is likely due to the fact that war memories are a very painful topic for people to discuss -- and that the subject also tends to be tinged with accusations of complicity in the war."

Tsujii added that most women likely presented the soldiers with the belts because they wanted them to come home safely -- although some may have done so hoping that the men would die honorably in battle.

"This is just speculation, however, since there has been so little material handed down about 'senninbari' history that we really just don't know for sure," she said. The practice is said to have begun around the time of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and Tsujii added that while the government eventually organized the initiative into a full-scale war support effort, its origins were likely rooted in pre-modern Shintoism.

Stand Up Sisters has held various exhibitions focused on the common theme of encouraging women's empowerment and self-expression through art.

Following last December's return to power of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- known to support creating an official Japanese military, and also the target of feminist criticism during his first term on 2006-07 for his conservative views toward women -- the members of the collective decided to organize an exhibition that would feature the keywords "women" and "war." It was then that they hit on "senninbari."

"In doing our research on the history of the practice, we also came across the technique of "tamadome," or "knot-stitching," which was common among our grandmothers' generation," commented collective member Ayumi Taguchi. "This fit in with our theme of passing down techniques that may be lost to future generations if young people do not learn them."

Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to sit down at the gallery's communal table and stitch for as long as they like -- and in whatever style they want to -- using the available cloth, needles and thread, while also enjoying snacks and relaxed conversation with the artists and other attendees.

"Participating in this project was a fascinating experience," commented local resident Chika Hirata after stopping by the exhibition. "I found the stitchwork to be extremely relaxing -- and I also found myself imagining that women in wartime probably felt a similar sense of calm from concentrating on this kind of handiwork. It must have given them some relief from the complex thoughts that were likely racing through their minds at the time."

"Each of the women who engaged in 'senninbari' had her own unique story to tell," commented Stand Up Sisters member Nao Ushikubo, who also cited members' concern with political matters as a motivating factor in organizing the exhibition.

"With all of the talk in the news regarding constitutional revision and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (free trade talks), we began to fear that Japan was possibly headed down a similar path as it was prior to the First World War, which we found extremely disturbing," she said. "Even this week, around the anniversary of (World War II's) end, the Japanese media is full of reports about how our country is building up its defense capabilities. Clearly, the majority of people here don't realize that this may lead to war, which is really disheartening and frightening."

The gallery is also hosting several related exhibitions in addition to the "needle and thread for peace" workshop, including postcards from the Puerto Rico-based "Honoring our Black Grandmothers" project encouraging island residents to take pride in their racial identity; a display of T-shirts designed by street children in India through the Tara Trust project that will eventually be given to children in Fukushima affected by the nuclear disaster; and sales of handcrafted cloth figures designed by local homeless women through the "Nora" project.

The exhibition is ongoing at the Hako Gallery in Yoyogi Uehara from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Aug. 18, 2013. For further details, see the gallery website at http://hakogallery.jp/event/. 

From the event announcement:

* * * One Thousand Needles Project * * *

During the wars in the last century, a vast majority of women in Japan took part in making amulets to protect soldiers from bullets with thousand stitches on a piece of cloth.

This practice of “Senninbari (one thousand needles)” is hardly known today, or if it is said, it seems to burn the lips. It often faces dismissal for the accusation that it constituted women’s participation in war. It carries too much pain otherwise.

Handwork has always been part of human life. It has been handed down from one generation to another throughout the world, as a tool for living and community connections. Some handworks were born out of sorrow and war.

Handworks shape the soul of their creators. Perhaps we can find ourselves in those works and see how we are living today.

Diversity. Dialogue. Justice. Transparency. Human Rights. Education. Love. Environment. Taking care of oneself. Making a living. Safe and healthy food.

A piece of cloth can be strengthened the more stitches you add onto it.

Similarly, your hopes can can gain strength by connecting with others. Your actions will not end here. This is an endless relay of hope that continues to shift  its shape.

Handworks will resonate across generations, nationalities, ethnicities, religions and differences.

An additional event will be held at the Ogatsu O-link House community center in Ogatsu, Ishinomaki City, from May 1-9, 2015.

-- Kimberly Hughes

Women of Fukushima: Our Tohoku Films

Via Women of Fukushima:

Our Tohoku Films. For people who may have missed some of our Tohoku stories, here they are. Big thanks to Jeffrey Jousan, the common link between all of these films.

Then and Now
http://bit.ly/thenandnowtohoku

Women of Fukushima
http://vimeo.com/51054104

Alone in the Zone
http://bit.ly/aloneinthezone

Aspri Building Hope in Fukushima
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsY-FXLwp_A

Curtains of Love for Otsuchi
http://youtu.be/ljtWzbyFCzU

Playground of Hope - Ishinomaki
http://youtu.be/wrCsySvvelc

Playground of Hope Japanese Version
http://youtu.be/3vQLAVxyizc

Kida Presentation UN April 29th, 2013
http://youtu.be/qPni8KFdRwc

Global Agent Orange Awareness Day

Agent Orange survivor Phuong folding paper cranes with Toshiko Tanaka,

atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima. Photo courtesy of Lee, Jung Yong. 

Related blog:" Peace Boat's 63rd Voyage: 

Atomic bombing survivors (Hibakusha) dialogue with Agent Orange victims"

Via Rose Welsch of Peace Boat, Global Article 9, and US for Okinawa:

August 10th marks the day in 1961 when the U.S. began aerial spraying of toxic herbicides over Vietnam.

Tainted with dioxin, Agent Orange not only sickened Vietnamese people, it also poisoned U.S. service members who were exposed to it. Its effects did not stop when the war ended--second and even third generations of survivors have experienced a wide range of effects, such as birth defects and cancer.

In total, more than 3 million people have been affected by it and related chemicals. Unknown to many, Canadians become some of the first victims of these toxic chemicals when they were sprayed and tested at a large base called Gagetown before being used in Vietnam. Moreover, because U.S. military bases in Okinawa, Korea and Guam were used during the war in Vietnam, people were also exposed to Agent Orange in these places. Laos was also sprayed with Agent Orange, and Cambodia was affected by it when the spraying drifted from Vietnam over its border.

On this day, we also call for individuals, civil society, and governments to work together to create a culture of peace around the world to prevent similar tragedies from being repeated.