日本人と外国人は違っているところ

これは日本人です。　Hau japoniar bat da.   This is a Japanese.

これは外国人です。　Honako hau atzerritarra da.   This one is a foreigner.

wtf

After one whole year receiving money transfers from Europe, correction, getting calls from the bank every single time asking what the money was for and then, only then, having it put into my account, meaning my money was in limbo when I needed it everytime they couldn't reach me, I get this letter. Honestly, wtf?! Why do they say 'foreigner' when they mean 'criminal/terrorist'?

日本の民族問題

外から見ると日本は一つの民族だと思います。でもそうではありません。歴史的に日本は、他の国も、一つの言葉と一つの文化の上に作られました．一般的に言えば、日本は、多分フランスも、成功をしたり、一つの文化の上に作られて、両国では他の違う文化が見えなくなってきました。他の国は、例えばスペインとか、一つの文化にまとめたかったけれども、結果的に国の中の他の文化とか言葉などがなくならずに残って強くなりました。国を作るところ一緒にできる人もいる、例えばスイスなどのように、違う文化と言葉でも，ドイツ語とフランス語とイタリア語とロマンジュ語話したり、あまり問題ないで、一緒に一つの国を作りました。

現在日本に色々な民族がいる。一番多いのはアジアの他の民族とかアメリカへ移住をした日本人と関係があるグループですけど、世界の他の先進地域に比べて、移民が少ないです。では移民が多すぎると思っている日本人もいる。

国連によって日本で：

• 人種差別と差別はまだ日本でも一般的です
• 日本は20年前に労働者を受け入れ始めたが、まだ移民の権利保護を提供するための法律を採用していない
• 日本政府は移民とその子供たちの人権を保護するための多くの課題に対応していない
•  多くの場合移民の苦情は警察によって、拒否されました
• 移民が差別を受けることなく、住宅、教育、健康の観点から共生できる社会制度作ることが必要
• これまで外国人労働者の保護政策に失敗しました

海外から来ている人が受けている取り扱いを分かるように、見えなくなって、まだいるその文化歴史的に受けた取り扱いを見てみよう。

このプレゼンテーションで三つのグループに関して話したいと思います。そのグループはアイヌと部落民と琉球というグループです。

アイヌ

アイヌというグループは北海道と千島列島とサハリンの土着民です。日本人と混ぜられたから、現在何人がいるか言うのはやや難しいですが、量は２万５千から２０万までです。

アイヌは狩りとか魚釣りをしたり、かれらの宗教は自然でした。１３００年のころに日本人と始めの接触を受けましたが、１８６８年の明治維新まで問題が起こりませんでした。１８６８年に北海道が日本に付加されて、次の３６年で地と言葉と宗教と習慣などなくりました。アイヌの地が日本人に取られて、西部スタイルの農場が作られました．日本語を話させて、日本語の名前を使わせると入れ墨の禁止も続きました。そして日本人に「犬」を呼ばれました。

２００８年でアイヌ土着民の地位が日本の政府から承認されましたが、その承認は今さら遅いです。そして本当の承認ではなくて、アイヌセンターは札幌から遠くて、田舎でつくりました。だからアイヌは、今日も表には見えなくなっています。

部落民

神道の世界で汚い仕事すると汚いひとです。だから昔から死刑執行人とか、葬儀人とかとか革人とか肉屋人など汚いだと思われて浮浪者にされました。例えば別の寺が使って、東京で路面電車が作られる時に部落民近所は最後でした。

法律的にこの区別は明治維新まで続いて、実は、後でもありました。１８５９年に裁判官は部落民が普通の日本人の１／７だと言って、今はも西日本の大阪と京都と広島などで起こっていますが、ミデイアではタブーです。１９７５年に部落民とかれるの家どこだと教えてあった本が作られました。その本はNISSANとかTOYOTAとかHONDAとかDAIHATSUなど会社に使われて、部落民を結ばないようにしました。今日はも使われているのでは思われています。

琉球民族

沖縄の土着民です。１３７５年から明治維新まで王国でした。１７世紀に九州のさつまはんは琉球を制服しましたが、明治維新と、前も見た猛烈な過程を始めました：人の名前が日本語に代わて、教育システム通り日本語を課すされました。

戦争後から１９７２年まで沖縄はアメリカ合衆国に治められました。その時間の中で琉球語を話せる人はまだ多かったですが、今日は少ないです。１９９５年にされた調査は沖縄の人の４０．６％が自分は琉球人だと思って、２１．３％が日本人だと思っているのことがわかります。

最後に私は知っている人について話したいと思いなす。私の友達の話すです、れなさんとパウロさんの話です。れなさんは日本人ですけど、彼女のお父さんは琉球人だから、差別を避けるために子供のころからお母さんの名前を使っています。バスクのパウロさんとれなさん結婚してこたろちゃん生まれました。法律で、パウロさん日本人じゃないので、こたろちゃんには父がいません。後で戦争後から日本で住んでいる韓国人は日本の国民になることができません。全部ひどいことだと思うので、変わることは必要だと思います。

日本の外国人党

Intervention in the streets of Tokyo. Modified political campaign poster on official election propaganda boards.  

Posters were placed on space no. 5 on official election propaganda boards in various locations around Kita-ku and Arakawa-ku between 5 and 6 AM and removed a few hours later. Lack of financial as well as human resources didn’t make a broader and potentially more effective intervention possible. Maybe next election? 

Japan is a country with a very little immigration flow. And yet in the Japanese society, the idea of too many immigrants arriving and settling in is taking hold. However, statistically, Japan hardly does get any immigration, especially when compared to the rest of the industrialized countries. The outcry towards the conservation of traditional values, supposedly threaten by foreigners coming to Japan, towards keeping Japan Japanese and for the Japanese is, in some cases, almost hysterical. The struggle of the most concerned, the right-wingers driving through Tokyo in Japanese flagged black vans, is undertaken in western black suits and western black ties, which makes it funny, almost surreal, if not pathetic.

The government contributes to the idea of the 'bad gaijin*' with laws that imply the foreigner is a potential criminal, i.e., picture and fingerprints taken at airports or third generation Koreans, descendants of those kidnapped and forced to come to Japan and work as slaves, not being considered citizens and therefore not being able to take part in any election process let alone vote. The media, collaborates with these laws either by not talking about them or endorsing them with passion. The police ask to show their ID to anyone who does not look Japanese in the streets when not rioting into student guest houses. All this adds up to the idea that Japan does not welcome foreigners, and yet, there’s a big contradiction, as many Japanese love anything foreign and Japanese society itself is most welcoming. At least at first.

The 日本の外国人党 (Nihon no Gaikokujin To or Japan’s Foreigners’ Party) does not exist, but it could very well do, as it may be necessary. Such a party is rare in other industrialised countries, true, but that’s maybe because it is perfectly legal there. If other industrialised countries would do the same Japan does with their foreign residents, there would be no Kurdish and Turkish MPs in the German Reichstag, no black ministers in France, no presidents with non-Basque and non-Catalan origins in Basqueland and Catalonia... There wouldn’t even be a Sarkozy, whose father is Hungarian!  Didn’t we all agree racism is bad? Isn’t it politically incorrect to be openly racist also in Japan? Well these laws are racist.

The日本の外国人党 does not exist then, but its candidate does. His name is Heinz-Christian Strache and he is the president of the openly racist neo-Nazi FPÖ (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs). Just thought it ironic that if for any reason someone like him would come to Japan, he would be in the very same situation he wants to put foreign people through in his country, Austria.

The message of this intervention is, as well as its staging, simple. The poster was taken from the original FPÖ campaign on their website, the original design maintained and new mottos related to Japan and its foreign residents were added. The almost childish in its evidence, populist if you want to and therefore not easy to contradict はい！外国人も人間です (Yes! Foreigners are also Human Beings), and the more political and related to the current injustice/tragedy people who are Japanese but not considered to be are living, (sometimes even by themselves): 平等な権利 (Equal Rights). The name of the candidate appears written in katakana.

 

*gaijin is slang for foreigner

and then there was a police raid at our place...

Yes, I'll be moaning again. Yes, I'm cool now but I've been angry/let down again. Yes, racism has come my way twice recently, again. No, I'm not happy about it.

Pic edited from this one.

Last Thursday (happy birthday to me) I was out with a couple of friends in Kabukicho. I missed the last train, too bad, but then I remembered a mate left her bike at school and that I had the key as she won't be back in Japan any time soon. Right, I'll just ride home, as I always do. So I set off for school -a bare 10 minutes walk from Shinjuku Station-, take the bike and start pedaling towards Arakawa.

I'll spare you the details on my exquisiteness in what it comes to riding a bike, on me going on the pavement, slowly, 'cos it was dark and I know I'm cannon fodder to the ever so nice, smily and democratic Japanese police, especially at night. Oops, I didn't spare you the details there... Sorry! Anyway, I pass a Koban, a Koban where not so long ago a policeman stopped me because I had no light right after a Japanese -and therefor pure in his être- rider passed him without one either. Of course he didn't stop him because the poor thing had obviously forgotten his light, whereas I, the evil gaijin, was riding without one to shock Japanese grannies and challenge his authority. The good citizen riding before me had probably no job because a greedy foreigner like me had taken it from him after killing his babies and stealing his wife, and so he had no money for a torch. That's why he didn't stop him but he did me.

Well, I pass it and keep riding when I feel a presence behind me: it's two cops following me on their bikes. I stop. I won't even hear what they have to tell me, I know the shit they're going to spit so I just pull out my ID and tell them it's a friend's bike and that that is the 7th time they stop me and that I know it is because I'm a gaijin. Uneasiness follows, but they finish their representation of fake order keeping in a record time, order keeping that's actually more racial harassment or racial profiling, which I'm sure they already did in Arizona before all the fuss but are going to do entirily legally now. Of course they deny the reason for them pulling me over being racial but, in all this time I have only come to hear about them stopping one Japanese guy, and that was probably because they thought he was Korean or Chinese, as said by the Japanese guy himself.

It's unpleasant, makes me angry but I have to keep on going. I reach Tabata where I parked my own bike some hours before so I go fetch it. It's gonna take me 10 minutes walking from here with my -now- two bikes. I should've been more intelligent: a gaijing carrying to bikes at almost 2 in the morning! Bingo! So 15 minutes after the said nice encounter I walk by a police car stopped on one side of the street with its red lights on, escorted by the two bikes I'm pushing with both my hands. I don't know what they're doing at the side street but, apparently nothing as important as the highlight of their careers, something to be honored with an OBE at least, that'd be me, a gaijing, with two bikes. So they come after me.

I can't help but roll my eyes before I close them in front of the 2 cops. I also pant, loudly. They start ranting about the usual things as I slowly park the bikes, hand them my ID before they even ask for it and tell them pointing at one bike first, then the other, the names of the owners and let them know both of them are my friends. Then I go on by saying 'I have Japanese friends and none of them, nor their friends, nor the friends of their friends and families have ever been pulled over, stopped or asked anything regarding their bycicles. Never in their lifetime. This is the 8th time you stop me in 2 years and the 2nd in 15 minutes, and it is only because I'm a gaijin'.

My Japanese is obviously not that good, but that's what I say in my mind and they get it, 'cos they say sorry and let me go without even checking on the bikes' registration numbers.

...and then there was a police raid at our place.

That is sadly not all, folks. Yesterday morning there was a police raid at our place. They didn't even ask for permission to enter the house, they just went in with their smiles and good manners -and their guns, and their guns- searching for gaijins to register. I asked one of them if I'm already registered at the city council, what's the point of this and he said they needed the information for the local police. Alright, can't you get it from the city hall without molesting us? No, they have to make clear that being a foreigner in Japan is not for free, you've got to be constantly reminded they think you don't belong here. He said they shared no information with the city hall. Yeah, right.

It consisted on a green sheet -of which I should've taken a picture- you have to fill in, in which they explain no intromission is intended, but it didn't say you are not obligued to fill it in. That I learnt later. So you fill it in, name, address, occupation, arrival date, departure date... you hand it over and they're gone. They don't check your passport, I could have written I am Michael Jackson from Neverland and they would've gone away as happy and satisfied, so what's the point? You tell me.

I think it's the sideburns... I wish it was the sideburns, it is not but, I trimmed them just in case and so far, 36 hours after the raid, no other cop pulled me over.

Pic taken from debito.org

polizia beti polizi

Just a quick update to confirm what we all know. I was riding my bike with no light. I was riding just behind a Japanese guy who had no light either. We approach a koban* with a policeman standing outside in front of it. The Japanese guy with no light rides through but I get stopped and asked where mine is. This has been the 6th time a policeman pulls me over and the 1st time in which I actually was doing something not permitted, that is riding with no light. So was the Japanese guy riding before me but, my infraction is ten times worse: I am not Japanese.


On the other hand the weather is nice :) Can't wait for Hanami!

He's all worried because he just saw a gaijin**, and as we all know, gaijins are always up to no good. Photo found and modified from this one.

*police box
**foreigner

oi, there's something sticking out of my armpit!

 

 

It's some minutes before 9 am. I stop to take a picture of something I find interesting so I lean my bike against the wall. It is obvious I'm just stopping to take a picture, I have the camera in my hands, arms sticking out, looking through the LCD screen. It's a backstreet, not busy at all. 

A Japanese granny comes from behind and says something I don't understand. She repeats it 2 or 3 times more and starts pointing at my bike so I intelligently start to understand what she means -I'm level 4, I'm getting there-: you can't leave your bike here. 

The last time she says it she takes of her anti-allergy mask so that I can see her face, a face full of anger. She can't realize that I'm not leaving my bike there, obvious as it is she can't see that I'm only taking a picture, that it's only a matter of seconds until I'm finished. And she can't see all that because I'm a gaijin, a foreigner, and she doesn't like me. 

I'm all polite all the way until I see her face full of contempt, then she turns into an old rug from the respectful old lady she was. And I lose my nerve. I burst 'ちょっと待てね！' as in 'Can't you fucking wait?'. Not that I know how to swear in Japanese, but that's what I mean and she got it and walked away.

After a loooong day at school I set off on my bike again: I wanna get home, chill out. School is some 10k's from home, 45 minutes of an up and down mamachari ride. 

When I'm almost there the police pull me over. It's around 8 pm and I think 'Great, as I didn't cover my share of racism this morning!'. I get ready for 20 minutes of racist none sense, I know this, It's happened 4 times before. This time it's 3 policemen, it might take forever. But then one of them opens his snout and barks it is dangerous for me to go with the cars, that I should use the pavement. I think it's funny and slightly silly, as everybody goes with the cars, but it's nice of him, isn't it? And maybe suspicious too. 

I slowly eat my miss-conceptions and prejudices as he speaks and he slowly looks down to the registration number of the bike. Snap! I wasn't wrong at all. He starts talking about the bike, is the bike mine? I'm tired, I wanna get home and I remember the incident with the Wicked Witch of West Shinjuku this morning, so I lose it again. 'Aaaaah, is that it? It's always the same, isn't it? It is because I'm a gaijin? Do you wanna see the papers?'. I'm amazed at my Japanese that moment. He goes 'Oh, have you got the papers?', as in 'Wow, we found an intelligent one!'. 

So they check the papers, everything's in order and they set me free letting go a thousand 'Sumimasen', 'Gomendasai' and 'Ki wo tsukete's. They can apologize as long as they want: they stopped me because I'm white, I know it, they know it, but they don't give a flying shit. I have never ever seen a Japanese and his/her bike being stopped before. I've been stopped FIVE times.

Anyway, not matter how hard some (just a few of them) try, I still love this city. So they're gonna fail all the way.  

traveller=criminal

So I'm back in Japan although I could as well be back home. The only thing I'm doing in this country is having fun, getting to know it, learning the language... and all that spending my own savings. Yet this is somehow bad.

You can come to Japan for 3 months as a tourist, then you've got to go away. Okay, no prob, that's what I did. I came to this country back in September 2007 on the 26th and left December 18th. I came back on Monday and they almost didn't let me in. The reason? I haven't got a clue, really. And that adds to the fact that now they take both your fingerprints and picture. It is degrading, very upsetting. The immigration officer sent me to a room where another officer started asking me things like why I was coming back and what for.

I like Japan, its people and language, please arrest me. Yes, 3 months is not enough to see everything, even though that's not the case, the case is that I like it here. I've been working -hard or not, that's depending on the day- for the last years and I've taken a year off. Lapidate me. I've got the time and the money to travel around and I like it in Japan. Excomulgate me. Is there anything wrong with that? Apparently there is. The government considers staying too long is not visiting but residing. I showed them my savings account and that was the turning point for them to let me go on with my life, after making a copy of it of course. Disgusting.

Through all the process they were very nice, after all they're Japanese. The second officer said things like "I'm sorry, but I have to ask you" like implyimg it was absurd but he had to. To finish with, when he told me I could go on an enter the country, he recommended me a shorter stay because if not they most likely are not going to let me in a third time.

It is not one world, it isn't, there are governments to remind you it isn't.

tipiko topiko edo antzeko desaparezido

San Frantzisko Xabierren berraragipena nintzelakoan nengoenean, hona hemen errealitate koxka. Askotan entzun izan dut (dugu) txinatar (ekialdear) guztiak berdinak direna. Nik pentsatu izan dut beti eurek be gu bardin ikusten gaituztela, eta froga badot. Ekialdear guztiak ez dira bardinak, nahiz eta mendebaldar askori hola iruditu, mendebaldar guztiak bardinak ez garen lez.

Gaur Edgarrekin geratua naiz Ikebukuron. Bertan bere lagunekin, Carles eta Marianorekin eta japoniar bi neskekin (izena ahaztua daukat) elkartu gara. Neskek mutiko honen antza dekodana diote. Bera bezalakoa omen naiz, baina ileagaz. Hona hemen esan dudanaren froga erantzungaitza: euren begietan, geuretako hainbatenetan lez, mendebaldar guztiak berdinak gara.