March 18, 2010

• Zainichi

  Taxation without representation - From the Economist

  Zainichi - Wiki entry

  Once, many moons ago, I worked in a lab at the NIH.  My mentor there was a world famous HIV researcher (and still is...), and he related many a tale of his youth.  One thing that stood out was his role as a protestor for Zainichi rights.  He told me about a story where he was arrested for protesting.

  It got me interested in the topic, because of the long term conflicts between a number of political entities in the region - understanding the source of the hostilities seemed interesting.  Watching movies on the topic, and gradually polling friends over the many years has proven very interesting...

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  There are no doubt many people with more detailed and nuanced opinions of the issues of ethnic ghettos, ethnic minorities and integration.  It's an issue that every nation faces, from western european to eastern european nations, the Indian subcontinent, Brasil, Germany, the US, and more.  If you have a population, and there's money to be made, immigrants come, be it under force or by choice.

  Growing up primarily in the US environment through the 80-90's meant that I was exposed to the US motifs of black and white politic.  The minority has to ask, "who am I?" in the context of a majority that is different in sometimes obvious ways.  Financial, cultural, physical and geographic differences can easily be compounded by stereotypes and frank prejudice and discrimination.

  As children, we see in broad strokes.  I couldn't imagine that homogeneous Japan might deal with ethnic tensions.  Yet Japan was less homogeneous than I'd realised.  Moreover, the populations had a very specific and emotionally charged history.

  The majority of immigrants in the US moved from places geographically removed, thus with less immediately remembered conflicts.  Imagine transplanting a group of people from a country that is in intermittent conflict with your own people and making them neighbours.  Couple that with complex and possibly hypocritical legal environments, and it makes the blame game all but impossible.

  At heart, the Zainichi questions approach the questions of what it means to be a nation.  Most nations start as single ethnicity groupings.  Re-evaluating that identity is no mean task. 

  What fascinates me most is the interplay of many decades of conflict and immigration in the Zainichi (在日） population... N. and S. Korea, Chinese-born Koreans, etc... as well as the social norms and expectations for that population in modern day Japan. 

  I have no solutions.

  But, the whole idea of being strangers in a strange land has a long literary history - and for good reason.  It's very hard.  Solutions aren't at all easy - as the paradigm for citizenship in the US differs tremendously from the paradigm in many other places.  The acceptance of foreigners as Japanese requires redefinition of what it means to be a Japanese citizen.  For some, it might feel like an identity suicide.

  Conversely, not giving a population within your borders full rights of abode and determination might result in much more sustained unrest by keeping them outside the formal power structures.  That most definitely has drawbacks.  Many so-called rights in the US so enshrined in the constitution remain ideas and not ideals for many other countries.  If I've learned anything in the 3 decades of my life is that many interactions in politics are derived from the fact that different groups of people logically conclude opposing things simply because of differing perspective.  Arriving at some sort of compromise may be harrowing.

  • 2:17 pm
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