Neighboring Countries
Bananas today are cheap and perfectly shaped. These bananas are grown by Filipino workers who are showered everyday with agricultural chemicals banned in Japan. They are underpaid and often get sick. In the cities, there are many so-called street children.
Profit seeking Japanese companies in other Asian countries are often guilty of many irresponsible acts. One of the primary causes of flood in Asia and particularly the disaster brought on by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines is the massive tree-felling operations by Japanese corporations. There are families that come from rural areas, because Japanese companies took away their land. Others have to go to foreign countries to find jobs. Since about four years ago, Kamagasaki began to receive many foreign workers.
Because these facts are not taught in schools, they made a play titled "Bananas and Kamagasaki." Through the play, they learned that their lives are supported and enhanced by the sacrifices of other Asian people.
Major Japanese corporations probably would not want to hire the young people of Kodomo no Sato. But even if they are offered a job, they would refuse, because they want to do away a with society where only profits and affluence are sought after at the expense of others.
In the summer of 1990, some members of Kodomo no Sato including elementary school children, went to Thailand and the Philippines. In Thailand, they helped children living in the slums of Khlong Toei build a park. In the Philippines, they stayed at the home of youth and children from Blihan who had been forcibly relocated from Smokey Mountain in Tondo during the Marcos era. It was an encounter of two groups of children who are both socially oppressed in their own countries.
Indigenous People
In the summer of 1992, we went to Hokkaido to meet the Ainu people, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, and to study their culture. What made us interested in Ainu was a fight between two workers at a Yoseba, a place where day laborers are picked up. One of the two was an Ainu. The other man told him, "You, Ainu, go back to Hokkaido."
A place that used to be called Ainumorishi many years ago was invaded by the mainland Japanese in what they called "conquest of the land of Ezo." After many years of fighting during the Meiji Era, the mainland Japanese completely occupied the land, without any treaty exchanged with the Ainu (no such cases exist in other countries). The name of their land was changed to Hokkaido. Like the indigenous people of many other countries, the Ainu have been robbed of their lifestyle, culture, language and rights, forced to assimilate. In so-called the "Ainu hunting," the mainland Japanese treated the Ainu as slaves, and called them barbarians. Deep-rooted discrimination against the Ainu has brought about and still exists today.
"Teacher, there are 37 students plus one bear attending class today," reports a student, indicating an Ainu child. Some Ainu children are refused to be held hands by other children, and hit by the teacher who tell them "It is your fault." There are mothers who say, "I cannot tell my child that he is an Ainu."
Once a Japanese prime minister said, "Japan is a country of only one ethnic group." He was criticized from abroad for the statement. But the Japanese government still call the Ainu "old natives."
Japanese schools do not teach children the real history and the people who suffer. We went to Ainumorishi and witnessed them with our own eyes. Everywhere we went, the name of places were in Ainu language. Children of Ainu were studying Ainu language and dances and celebrating traditional festivals in a movement to restore their culture and rights.
The United Nations designated this year "the International Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples." With "the Law for the Protection of the Old Natives in Hokkaido" still in effect, can Japan really eliminate ethnic discrimination, restore the infringed rights of the indigenous people and other minority groups, and establish a society which guarantees their lifestyles and cultures? Are schools today preparing children to take on that task? It won't be an exaggeration to say that the answer is 100 percent no. Grades students receive are more important in today's schools than educating them about human rights.
The beauty of Ainumorishi's natural environment was beyond our imagination. We were all impressed by the Ainu's appreciation of nature and the lifestyle in coexistence with the nature. Mr. Shigeru Kayano, who taught the ways of the Ainu to the children of Kodomo no Sato, says the following in "Pesshi (ripple)," published on May 28, 1992: "Speaking of the protection of nature, there is no such expression in Ainu language. If the nature, that is to say, the sea, mountain, river or bird had a month to speak, they would say 'Don't be arrogant to say that the nature should be protected. We, the nature, do not want to be protected. As long as you lead a plain life, we can provide you with trees to make paper, start fire, or build a house.' I am sure the gods of the nature would say so."
In the Christian tradition, there is an idea that the nature is there to be controlled by humans. It is this idea that destroyed the environment to the present extent. I feel strongly that we must reform this idea. Mr. Kayano says, "We human beings are too extravagant. It was our pursuit of luxury that made the electric companies and the capitalists create such monsters as nuclear power plants. I don't want trains, cars, or airplanes to be faster than now. The brightness of electrical lights could be half or one third of what it is now. I think we must hand down to future generations, the mountains, rivers, crop fields, villages and towns where people can live.
As Kayano says, we use new electric appliances one after another for convenience, exposing our children to deadly radiation. Sprays we use to make things cleaner have destroyed the ozone layer. I think we must face the fact that the more we seek luxury and affluence, the more we discriminate people and disrupt the environment. In other words, the "gakureki" society is destroying the ozone layer, increasing radiation exposure and threatening the life and future of our children. Because this kind of society demands that children study harder, so they can join reputable companies, and lead stable, extravagant lives. Incidentally, 1992 was the year the Earth Summit was held.
The Most Important Rule
I hope you understand why I write about everything from everyday life to environmental problems. In today's schools, these issues are not taught at all. But these are things that are very important for a human being to be human.
What's important as a human is written in Mark - Chapter 12, 28-34. These are rules of Christians. To love our neighbors as we love ourselves is to understand other people's pain. The children of Kodomo no Sato in Kamagasaki are learning to understand other people's pain. Because they take the side of the marginalized and oppressed, they were born to bear the cross.
If understanding other people's pain is the most important thing for a human being to live like a human being, we should reform the "gakureki" society. It is a system that puts our children into major Japanese corporations which exploit the people of other countries for the benefit of a few. It is a society which fosters only those who can be useful to Japan, casting away those who are not.
I am not claiming that children not study or drop out of school. Children should study truth and humanity. The Ministry of Education is requiring schools to sing "Kimigayo" as the national anthem and hoist the Hinomaru flag as the national flag. The Board of Education of each school punish teachers who do not follow these guidelines. There are too many teachers with little awareness of the society or people, who accept and conform to the "gakureki" society. I cannot help but question the present educational system.
This kind of society is sustained by adults, particularly mothers, who tell their children to study without questioning the quality of their education. They only wish for the individual happiness and life of affluence for their own children.
Children today endure tremendous competition and pressure in the hell of the "gakureki" society. The most notable example is the incident of a high school girl crushed to death between the school's iron gates. Her death was incurred by a teacher who tried to shut out the students who were coming in late. The students who saw the teacher shut the gate kept running, jumping over the girl who had fallen to the ground. We have allowed the "gakureki" society to eat away the minds of our children. When the children of Kodomo no Sato heard this news, what they said was, "Why didn't they help the girl, their friend? Why didn't say anything against the teacher?" Those who can ask this question perhaps understand what the most important thing is. But for those students who kept running, the society has taught them that being on time for an examination is more important that helping a friend in need. Which value do we want our children to have?
We need change now. We need to reform ourselves to be able to live as human beings. Children will not be able to escape the hell of "gakureki" society that distorts their values unless we struggle for a reform with a sincere heart.
Mr. Kayano says "It is the time to think how we can control our worldly desires."
The same things is written in the Bible. Let's think about what will happen if we keep on pursuing luxury. Then what should we do? Matthew - 6: 24-34, and Mark - 10: 17-31.
"Let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" Mark - Chapter 10: 13-16
By Tomoko Shoho