dapat lang!

RM laureate wants Japan to face truth of war atrocities

By Lito Zulueta
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:51:00 08/31/2008


MANILA, Philippines—Lamenting the “culture of silence” that has made Japan ignore its “stigmatized communities” and keep a stony silence about the atrocities it committed in East Asia during the Second World War, Japanese book publisher Akio Ishii, the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, wants to compel his countrymen to face “the truth of history.”

In fact, he is looking for a “good and respected Philippine history book” that his Akashi Shoten publishing house could translate into Nippongo and publish “to convey the truth of World War II.”

“The Japanese people should learn from the Asian viewpoint. They should read books that clarify the truth of history,” said Ishii who was interviewed through his interpreter and editorial executive, Jinno Hitoshi.

Akashi Shoten has already published books on the “comfort women,” women in Japanese-occupied territories like the Philippines and Korea who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during the war.

It has also published a guide to the Philippines under its Area Studies imprint, “Understand Contemporary Philippines in 60 Chapters,” edited by Manila-based journalist Takushi Ono with Takefumi Terada.

Façade

In its citation of Ishii, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation said that in publishing books about Japanese discrimination against minorities and other rights abuses, particularly during the war, Ishii has brought to light “complicated realities” that lie “behind Japan’s famous façade of social harmony and homogeneity.”

“Often hidden from view are troubling elements of the country’s social life involving stigmatized communities such as the burakumin and the minority ethnic groups like the Ainu or the many Koreans, Filipinos and other foreigners living in Japan today,” it said.

An institution in feudal Japan, the buraku system was a form of “social hamletting,” or segregation.

“Also hidden, and often denied, are troubling accounts of Japan’s past role as an imperial power,” the RMAF said.

The Magsaysay Award for Ishii is a recognition of “his principled career as a publisher, placing discrimination, human rights, and other difficult subjects squarely in Japan’s public discourse,” the RMAF said.

Ishii will join the six other Magsasay awardees this year in ceremonies at the Cultural Center of the Philippines today, Aug. 31 with President Macapagal-Arroyo as guest of honor.

Maverick and minority

In his public lecture (Sept. 1 at 3 p.m. at the Ramon Magsaysay Center), Ishii said he will tackle the “rightist drift” in the last 20 years among members of Japan’s younger generations, exemplified by the immediate former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, which has resulted in Japan glossing over its record during the Second World War in its history textbooks.

Ishii is considered a maverick in the Tokyo publishing world. Although Akashi Shoten pales in size when compared with Japan’s big-time publishing houses, it is big in heart with its dedication to publishing about human rights and social issues.

Ishii said there’s a “propensity of the Japanese publishing world to view issues surrounding discrimination as taboo.”

“To create a discrimination-free society, the important role taken by the publishing business cannot be underestimated,” he said.

“The publishing business must become a bastion for the movement to eliminate discrimination in thought and culture,” he said.

Thus was born 30 years ago the Akashi Shoten, which publishes books on human rights and the marginalized, such as the burakumin, Korean minorities, the elderly and the disabled, women and children, and people from developing countries like the Philippines who go to work in Japan.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadl...-war-atrocities

Ishii knows what he’s talking about—or what he’s publishing—since he himself descended from a burakumin family.