Nurses Hashikawa (right) and Yoshida.  Illustration: Ross Siu

Keiko Hashikawa’s hands are steady as she finishes arranging a jumble of technicolour pills and capsules, her calm a contrast to the patient who hurries in, wheezing as he slumps in the chair.

Shakily thumbing his cap and mumbling greetings in earthy Kansai dialect, he washes the medicine down, has his card stamped, and is gone. The treatment room is still again, beams of watery light falling on the recently vacated chair.

Hashikawa, 71, treats tuberculosis patients in Nishinari, a rundown area in south Osaka synonymous with crime, homelessness and unemployment.

The ill health rampant here comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the district’s grinding poverty. Yet that Nishinari has one of the highest concentrations by population of tubercular cases in the world goes shockingly unreported and unnoticed.

A response to the epidemic is at hand, its backdrop the sprawling 1970s complex that forms Nishinari’s centre of gravity. Here, a handful of public health workers like Hashikawa work with TB patients.

Part-shelter, part labour agency, Airin Chiki Labour Centre is a miserable place full of men killing time on shabby futons, drinking one-cups or looking disinterestedly at creased pornos. Pigeon turds pile up of the windowsills. The stench of urine hits the back of the throat.

In a light-bathed room on the seventh floor of the centre’s health clinic the upbeat demeanours of Hashikawa and her colleague Hatsue Yoshida are a welcome contrast to the squalid conditions below.

Short, amiable and possessed by an infectious enthusiasm, Hashikawa moves with an irrepressible energy, speaking rapidly about her work as she pops pills from their plastic in preparation for her next patient.

In charge of the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course) programme, the nurses have overseen the treatment of over 400 TB patients in eleven years.

Originally introduced to Osaka as a pilot programme, DOTS treatment is based on close supervision of patients, who are interviewed, tested, and given tailored treatment courses based on the severity of their illness. Those signed up must attend daily sessions to receive drugs, free of charge, even for the overwhelming majority in Nishinari without health insurance.

The success of the programme in encouraging patients to return daily is founded on the rapport developed by the nurses with their charges, done so in spite of the sociology of the area.

In contrast to the camaraderie characteristic of western homeless communities, most in Nishinari eschew companionship and live solitary lives. And if contact among the homeless is rare, developing relationships with working Japanese shakai-jin such as the nurses is even more unusual.

Hashikawa and Yoshida have countered this obstacle by creating an environment where the patients feel secure enough to return with the regularity required by the programme.

This is the key to the success of DOTS, says Yoshida, who in her sixties is the younger of the couple.

“They are all single men, who live independently,” she says, smiling reassuringly. “They find it hard to properly live and take care of themselves. We feel a duty of care towards them, and that’s why they come back.”

The nurses are non-judgmental towards the troubled lives of the DOTS patients. Solace is often found in alcohol-induced anesthesia or the fleeting thrill of street gambling, while taking adequate care of personal health is of little urgency for those on the street.

“Daily chores are banalities for these people. Any spare money they have is spent on alcohol,” says Hashikawa, as if chiding an errant child. The nurses’ daily contact with the down-and-outs in Nishinari leads to sympathy with their charges.

Such close contact will soon be over: retirement day for Hashikawa is just two months away. Yet even after a long career she is loath to leave her post.

“I’m not thinking about that yet. For the time being, my work is here, looking after these people.”

Hashikawa’s reluctance to abandon her post is understandable. DOTS is understaffed and underfunded, a situation unlikely to be redeemed given the scant political will for the extensive funding necessary for a widening of the programme. New staff will come but it is doubtful that the relationships so painstakingly developed with the unwell will be quickly replaced.

Although not family, Hashikawa is for her patients the closest to kin they have. With her departure a light in the Nishinari dark will fade; a residual glow, one expects, will remain.

A few 35mm flicks from winter.

Ise Jingu is one of Shinto’s holiest shrines and probably the most important site for Japan’s indigenous religion.
Spread over a sprawling, leafy area in Mie Prefecture, Ise is entwined with the very fabric of Japan. The offices of high priest or priestess are filled by members of Imperial Family, with the current high priest the great-grandson of the Meiji Emperor.

The tranquility I had expected during my visit a few weeks ago was conspicuous by its absence, shattered by busloads of tourists wearing garish jackets and chattering noisily as they followed the tour leader’s flag.

Nearly all the day-trippers were elderly, beaming huge grins of satisfaction. I was perplexed: where were all the youngsters?

Slowly the penny dropped.

Just as devout Muslims must complete the Hajj at least once in their life, so must true Shintoists make the pilgrimage to Ise while still on this earth. For the ecstatic pilgrims on that wintry morning, it was mission accomplished: they beaten had the clock, and made it to the shrine before old father time taps.

I won third place in the 2010-11 FCCJ  Swadesh DeRoy scholarship.  ¡Jesus Cristo! My sincere thanks for such a wonderful, unexpected award.

Here’s the article.  Have a peek!

Whither the Buraku Liberation League?  Japan’s Human Rights at the Crossroads

Grey clouds in the winter sky, black soil in the bare flowerbeds, peeling white paint on the cold concrete walls: melancholy hangs heavily over the Aramoto Human Rights Centre, a monochrome milieu lightened only by the thick green ivy that colonises the squat building.

The atmosphere at the east Osaka centre was not always so gloomy.  Only ten years ago it was a thriving bureau for local Dōwa Measures funding, the estimated $134 billion in public money allocated to tackle the Buraku issue – dire living conditions and social discrimination endured by an estimated three million Burakumin, the descendants of Japan’s feudal-era outcasts.

As with the 4,533 Buraku areas across Japan, living standards in Aramoto were lifted dramatically.  Social housing replaced unsanitary slums, a health clinic and youth centre were constructed, tax breaks given to local businesses.

“The Burakumin awoke to the fact that [discrimination] was not their fault,” says Hiromu Nakata, 65, Secretary General of the Zenkokuren, a Buraku rights group, lighting another cigarette.  “Hardship remains, but the worst aspects of the problem have been solved.”

With this partial solution, in 2002 the Dōwa funding expired.  Its cash flow strangled and most pressing work complete, the Aramoto centre fell into decline.  Today the dilapidation of the building is a symbol of the wider malaise of the Buraku movement, hit by a perfect storm of dwindling resources, ageing activists and weak leadership.

How to rejuvenate the movement is hotly debated.  Reformers call a widening of the movement through collaboration with other minority groups, while others, opposed to the inclusion of non-Burakumin, advocate the status quo of fighting purely for Japan’s ‘invisible minority’.

For Japan, the ramifications of the debate are clear.  At stake are the hopes of a permanent solution to the Buraku issue, advances in minority rights and the establishment of a human rights protection system of an international standard.

A human rights alliance

Symbolic of the weakening of the movement is the slump of the Buraku Liberation League (BLL), the strongest Buraku rights group and founder of the post-war movement.  From over 200,000 in the 1970s, membership has shrunk to an all-time low of approximately 50,000.

“The decline is an inevitable corollary of improvements to the [Buraku] problem. Where discrimination disappears, movements inevitably weaken,” says Masayuki Ōga, 73, Honorary Director of the Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute, in staccato Kansai dialect.

But the waning of the BLL need not be terminal, says Ōga. Instead it can act as a catalyst for “a revitalisation of the movement…a jump to a human rights alliance.”

Under the plan, the BLL would use its remaining trump cards (political experience, organisation and ability to mobilise activists) to open its human rights community planning schemes to Japan’s other minorities, such as Zainichi foreigners (those born in Japan but unable to claim nationality and denied suffrage), immigrant workers and disabled people.

The partnership would also lobby nationally for the common goal of pro-human rights legislative reform.  And it is here that the realisation of the idea becomes relevant to the ippan Japanese majority, which has hitherto regarded the Buraku struggle as an irrelevance generously indulged by government largesse.

Japan continues to refuse to introduce anti-discrimination legislation and an independent human rights institution, despite a United Nations call to do so in March last year.  For universal human rights to be enjoyed by all in Japan, government acquiescence to the UN demands is essential.  But without pressure from civil society calls for change continue to fall on deaf ears.

A human rights alliance, created from the ashes of the Buraku movement, would be a powerful voice for reform.  Ōga’s eyes spark with enthusiasm.  “It would change Japan from the bottom up”.

Opposition and intransigence

Hopes for the realisation of the alliance rely on the support of Burakumin activists and leaders, as well as other minority groups.  Scepticism and suspicion, however, exist in both camps.

Activists say that while problems such as substandard housing remain, the movement should concentrate just on the Buraku issue.

“We deal with bread-and-butter rights issues,” says Reiko Yamazaki, Under-Secretary General of the Aichi BLL.  “The focus must be on Buraku communities and the problems within.”

The sparse statistics available show that discrimination does linger.  A 2005 Osaka human rights attitudes survey showed that 20.2% believe that one’s Buraku origin is a factor in choosing a marriage partner.  Inequality also remains: Buraku families in Tottori prefecture are three times as dependent on welfare as others in the area.

The movement’s leadership is similarly wary about reform.  Shigeru Murai, the amiable Chief Director of Osaka Human Rights Association, sees the alliance as a cynical attempt to rescue the dying movement.

“It’s presumptuous to think that simply changing the name [of the BLL] in order to survive would make any difference…it’s a kind of camouflage.”

Alongside this reasoned opposition exists a pattern of antipathy towards collaboration with other minorities.  Activists see the Buraku issue as unique and therefore to be dealt with separately from other human rights problems.  Collaboration would belittle the plight of the Burakumin, equating their struggle with other Japanese social issues.

Jefferson R. Plantilla, Research Director of HURights Osaka, explains: “There is a sense of exceptionalism felt among members of the BLL, the idea that they are at the vanguard of their own particular issue, and don’t want the assistance of others.”

At best, this jealous protection of the BLL’s status harms the chances of the realisation of the alliance.  At worst, it contributes to the movement’s decline.  During the Dōwa funding years the BLL failed to nurture friendly relations with other minorities and missed an opportunity to build a prototype human rights partnership.

“Alliances weren’t cultivated…if they’d been created, other groups could step in and assist the BLL while it’s now weakening.  The expertise and experience of groups working towards human rights in Japan could have been pooled,” says Plantilla.

Stung by this experience, minority rights groups are also pessimistic about the alliance.  In Osaka, where Zainichi Koreans and Burakumin often live cheek-by-jowl, local cooperation has been hindered by ideological intransigence within the BLL, as the historical influence of communism causes frosty relations with ‘capitalist’ South Korean Zainichi groups.  Local BLL branches have “purge[d] activists who support collaboration,” says a source at an Osaka Zainichi group, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  He pithily sums up the situation.  “Without cooperation, the movement cannot develop.”

Back in Aramoto, hopes for the alliance seem as weak as the watery sunshine that momentarily bathes the centre in pale light.  Yet failure to reform is bad news for all connected to the movement.

On its current course the Buraku movement is facing a slow but inevitable death, its work unfinished.  Zainichi foreigners still lack basic rights.  And, with little pressure on the government for reform, it is doubtful that Japan will see the basic human rights legislation and institutions enjoyed by other developed countries.

Some of the shots of the destitute don’t look so different to the less salubrious parts of Osaka today.

Thanks to Mike @ FCI London for the heads-up!

He sups his draught beer and chews his kushiage skewers with the same satisfaction as Messrs Tanikawa, Nishiguchi and Tsunoda, and  (as he admits) has the same love for the Hanshin Tigers as any self-respecting Osakan.

Yet despite being the archetypical Kansai man, Jin is certainly not the same as other Japanese.  Despite being born and bred in Amagasaki, west Osaka, he doesn’t have the right to vote, and must carry a registration card whenever he leaves his house.  He is a Zainichi Korean, one of the 515,000 who cannot take the citizenship of the country of their birth.

In Japan, where nationality is determined by blood, the lottery of one’s ancestry still determines much.

Jin’s parents were brought to Osaka during the war to work in the factories of Kansai, and, like many, did not return to the Korean peninsula on its independence.

“I can’t hide who I am,” he says “I am Korean by blood but Japanese by breeding.”

Such confused identity – and the discrimination which accompanied it – was borne with dignity and stoicism by Jin’s generation.   From the 1960s to 1980s Zainichi Korean groups gradually secured basic rights to social welfare and pensions, and exemption from fingerprinting on re-entry to Japan.

Director of the Osaka Zainichi Foreigner Association, Jin has been involved for over thirty years in the struggle for Zainichi Korean rights. But as he approaches retirement, the battle for equal rights has still not yet been won.  He worries that his children – like he unable to participate in political life – will still face the same feeling of exclusion as him.

“There is a problem inherent in Japan that leads to foreigners being treated as they are.  The attitude of law and politics must change.”

Yet here is the rub: for the necessary legislative and political change to come the Zainichi Korean movement, as a voice for all foreign residents in Japan, must remain strong and continue to lobby the government.  Yet despite being “motivated by their experiences of discrimination” its leaders are ageing.  It is unclear how regeneration will occur, and seems certain that as the ancestral identity of the third and fourth Zainchi Korean generation fades, youth participation in groups such as the Mintōren and Mindan will decline.

The movement is weakening, and with it hopes for the securing of the most basic of human rights: suffrage.  Jin’s good mood darkens slightly at the thought.  “The Zainichi problem won’t be solved in my time.”

Names changed at request of interviewees

Already the 4th of January is here, with – it must be said – alarming speed.  After an autumnal/early winter break, Naniwa Notebook returns, full of good intentions for regular updates in 2011.

Happy New Year!

Some recent shots of residents of my fine city.