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Uh, forgive my ignorance, but what's a burakumin?
Below I am posting detailed information on the subject in the hopes that by
answering everyone's questions that further posts concerning this subject
will need not be made publicly on this board.
The Burakumin discrimination problem is probably some of the worst form of
discrimination that I've seen. It's not even a form of discrimination based
on color. Where as long ago, Burakumin were discriminated based on what they
did for a living. Today, it's based upon lineage. The problem is fading, but
it still is a problem.
For further information, go to www.google.com and type in burakumin.
-Troy
Excerpts from a website concerning the subject:
http://jbe.la.psu.edu/7/alldritt001.html
-----------------------
The Burakumin: The Complicity of Japanese Buddhism in Oppression and an
Opportunity for Liberation
By Leslie D. Alldritt
Northland College
Ashland, Wisconsin
lalldritt@northland.edu
In James Clavell's celebrated novel Shogun, the following description
appears: "Jan Roper interrupted, 'Wait a minute, Vinck! What's wrong, Pilot?
What about eters?' 'It is just that the Japanese think of them as different.
They're the executioners, and work the hides and handle corpses.'"(1)
Elsewhere in the book, the term eta [eters] appears, yet an explanation of
these people is never provided.
The eta or now more appropriately called burakumin-literally, "village
people"-is an oppressed class within Japan. As noted by DeVos(2), the
burakumin is Japan's "invisible race." Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney states that the
burakumin are "invisible" due to the fact that there are no physical
characteristics that distinguish them from other Japanese.(3) However, there
have been and continue to exist arguments that the burakumin are racially
distinct from the majority of the Japanese people.(4)
The burakumin have also been referred to as the eta-hinin, a term that is
still in use today. The word eta can be translated as "much or very
polluted/unclean,"(5) and the word hinin simply means "nonperson." Thus,
this group within Japan has been determined to have no identity by the
majority Japanese, no genuine personhood (one of the derogatory terms used
against the burakumin is yotsu, which refers to a four-legged animal), and
therefore, not surprisingly, oppression and mistreatment have historically
been their lot. Despite a general betterment of their situation in the last
three decades-primarily due to legislation(6)-the burakumin continue to be
considered disparagingly in the Japanese public consciousness and subjected
to discrimination.(7)
<snip>
Ohnuki-Tierney states that the burakumin are said to number approximately
three million people (in a Japanese population of about 126 million). There
is, however, much dispute surrounding the number of burakumin in Japan.
Jean-Francois Sabouret writes in his book, L'autre Japon, les burakumin(8),
"According to official estimates, the burakumin population (in 1978) was
1,841,958, distributed in 4,374 ghettos, and disseminated in 1,041 towns and
villages in thirty-four prefectures."(9) However, Sabouret cites the BKD
(League for Liberation of Buraku) [Jp. Buraku Kaiho Domei] as arguing that
the government figures are inaccurate:
According to the BKD (League for Liberation of Buraku), the government
figures are inexact for two reasons: the first is that not all of the
burakumin are in poverty, and not being poor, they do not solicit government
subsidies [apparently one of the devices the Japanese government uses to
determine numbers]. The others prefer to remain in [financial] difficulty so
as to not publically declare that they are burakumin, better to be equal to
a poor Japanese than to an assisted burakumin. The second reason is similar
to the first, in effect, the sum allowed for the resolution of the buraku
problem is not proportional to the amount of demand, and the BKD accuses the
government of not wanting to hold to the genuine figure for the sake of the
economy.(10)
Interestingly, Sabouret states that the BKD advances the three million
people number based on a projection dating back to the Meiji Period
(1867-1912), that because 3 percent of the population was made of burakumin,
and because the population was approximately thirty million, then as the
population of Japan has quadrupled, so then too has the burakumin population
increased four times to its approximate three million number.
According to the Management and Coordination Agency of the government, as of
March 1987 there are 4,603 Buraku districts with a total population of
1,166,733. These figures, however, only represent those areas classified as
Dowa districts. Actual figures may amount to as many as 6,000 Buraku
districts with over 3 million Burakumin.(11)
The Buraku Liberation News (March 1998) stated that, according to a survey
conducted by the Japanese government, "there are 4,442 communities with
298,385 households and a population of 892,751 throughout the country where
Dowa projects have been implemented."(12) This number, though, does not take
into account other communities not covered by the Dowa legislation and the
numbers of buraku people who live in non-buraku areas. Shigeyuki Kumisaka,
the Director of the IMADR (International Movement against All Forms of
Discrimination and Racism), goes on to support the 6,000 community number in
the same article cited above.
The burakumin tend, as the Dalits of India(13), to be found in selected
occupations. Many burakumin are employed in small factories connected with
their traditional occupations, such as butchering and leather and fur
processing. Others are farmers, fishermen, and unskilled laborers. Although
many individuals have become economically or socially prominent, the average
standard of living is far below that of the non-burakumin.(14)
A prominent theory that is forwarded to account for buraku discrimination is
precisely that they historically did those tasks (butchering, leather-work,
and so forth) that no one else wanted to do and, as a result, were
classified as lower class, and so began a tradition of societal
discrimination.(15) In regard to marriage, the burakumin have historically
been endogamous(16), bias being perpetuated primarily by the non-burakumin
and certainly in part by the burakumin themselves. As Ian Neary comments,
"Many burakumin themselves accepted this [prejudice and discrimination],
regarded themselves as different and their separate and unequal treatment as
justified."(17) The genesis of this "separate and unequal treatment" has
both a political and religious aspect.
The Genesis of the Discrimination Toward the Burakumin(18)
Japan, from its earliest history, had groups of people that were
discriminated against socially. The discriminated group that seemingly
evolved over time into the burakumin, however, has differed in membership
such that it can be reasonably claimed that buraku discrimination, as such,
did not exist before the Tokugawa period. Kitaguchi agrees with this
assumption and makes the point that modern-day burakumin may not be traced
back to the Edo (Tokugawa) period.
As a great majority of them [modern-day Buraku people] can in fact be traced
back to this group, it is only natural that the Buraku story could start
with the Edo period. However, if we are tracing the lineage of modern-day
victims of Buraku discrimination, on the assumption that every single one of
them is a blood descendent of the eta caste, we could not be further from
the truth.(19)
Notwithstanding the difficulty in tracing buraku lineage, a closer
examination of the historical pattern of discrimination against the
oppressed group in Japan that foreshadows the buraku is instructive toward
elucidating the current, justificatory claims for discrimination in that the
source of current discrimination stems from traditional practices and
stereotypes.
Interestingly, in ancient Japan, lower-class groups may have had some
privileges. Jinsaburo Oe, in Fukaisareta Fukashokumin Kannen (The
Juxtaposition of the Untouchables Idea) (20) asserts that
In ancient times, hinin discrimination did not exist. Rather, due to their
ability to associate with the Kami, they were feared and respected.(21)
Further, these people were additionally respected for their involvement in
the arts, notably as dancers and Noh musicians. Ohnuki-Tierney describes the
case for substantial contributions by these people in kabuki, noh, and
kyogen.
Biographies of many of the artists and artisans during this period recorded
their "humble origin," that is, their belonging to the special status group.
Examples include Zen-ami (1393-1490?), who designed the Fushimi Castle for
Hideyoshi; Kan-ami (?-1384) and Zeami (?-1443), the father-son pair who
developed the sarugaku (the forerunner of the noh play); and Noami
(1397-1471) and other masters of the tea ceremony.(22)
At this time in Japanese history, there did, however, exist discrimination
toward certain occupations such as "leather workers, grave keepers, people
who cleaned, and horse handlers."(23) This occupational discrimination
certainly has survived to the modern period.(24)
With the coming of Buddhism to Japan in the middle of the sixth century C.E.
came an opprobrium against eating meat, which was extrapolated to concerns
about the impurity in handling meat. As in India, this injunction came to be
associated with handling dead humans as well. Consequently, anyone who
engaged in related activities was, by definition, impure and to be
avoided.(25) This emphasis on purity and impurity had a long history in
Japan associated with Shinto, yet the Buddhist doctrines invigorated and
dogmatized this proclivity within Japanese society.
As Buddhism permeated its way through Japanese society, the notion of
pollution came to include the idea that it could be caused by contact with
the bodies of dead animals, and thus came to be associated with leather work
and even the eating of meat. Gradually the Shinto concepts of imi (taboo)
and kegare (pollution) which were associated with human death became linked
to the Buddhist prohibition on taking any life. First government
proclamations which outlawed the eating of flesh of certain domestic animals
occurred in AD 676.(26)
This gap between the pure and impure was exacerbated during the Heian Period
(794-1185), where the lowest in society were termed senmin (as opposed to
the ryomin [the good]). These senmin, during the tumultuous Sengoku jidai
("warring period" of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) came to populate
the leather workers that assisted the daimyos (warlords) in supplying them
with leather "armor" and other battle equipment. The senmin for their
contribution were generally provided with some tax relief and poor land, and
were expected to be the first line of defense in case of attack by other
daimyos or any peasant revolt.
It was during the Tokugawa Period (1603-1867) that specific discriminatory
policies arose toward the burakumin, and it is here that it is generally
argued that the burakumin became established as a discriminated-against
group. As Shigeyuki Kumisaku describes this period:
In the period of the 16th and the 17th centuries, the ruling class placed
these groups at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Feudal lords assigned
them some duties as petty officers, while forcing them to contribute leather
goods as tax.(27)
There were other occupations in which the buraku people became proficient
during this period, including shoemaking, making bamboo articles, and
constructing ceremonial drums (taiko).(28)
Atsutane Hirata (1776-1842), the Shinto reformer, in his writing Shinteki
Nishuron, argued that the inherent baseness or impurity of the burakumin
necessitated their separateness.(29) The burakumin, who once served
important functions in Shinto shrines, were now barred from shrine
visitations (1774).
Specifically between 1715 and 1730, a reform entitled the Kyoko Kaikaku went
into effect and began to separate the burakumin from other members of
Japanese society deliberately.
In Tokyo, from the mid 1720s, hinin were regarded as being of lower status
than the eta, they were all (apart from their chiefs) forbidden to wear any
kind of headgear even when it was raining, the men were to keep their hair
cut short, the women were not to shave their eyebrows or blacken their
teeth.(30)
This discriminatory marking of the oppressed classes soon spread to the rest
of Japan. This marking was particularly affected through the use of
registries.
In Kyoto (1715) and Tokyo (1719) surveys of the eta:hinin population were
carried out and the registers drawn up were ordered to be kept separate from
the other registers . . . At the same time, the authorities introduced a
taxation system which placed burdens on the eta who were under direct
control of the Tokugawa and placed restrictions on the type of clothes the
hinin were permitted to wear.(31)
This use of registries is critically important if we are to understand the
history of oppression against the burakumin. If one was a handler of meat or
dead bodies, or engaged in other polluting activity, then one would be
ritually impure for a time. After a period of time, the impurity would or
could, through certain ritual activity, be expunged and no longer relevant.
Yet, with the use of the registries, the incidence of pollution within
certain occupations became stigmatized and permanent in that not only was an
individual deemed as inherently impure, but so too his or her family name.
The beginning half of the nineteenth century brought about yet another
extension of separateness. Included in the Tempo Reforms (1830-1844), in an
obvious movement to draw more acutely the differences between commoners and
the burakumin, was a restriction on burakumin entering the homes of
peasants. In addition, a further stratification was forwarded that somehow
divided what had previously been conceived as one group into two: the eta
and the hinin. This confusion of ranking, exacerbated by differing, regional
stratifications, only perpetuated the cycle of government-sanctioned
discrimination, which perhaps was its intent, that is, to provide for
competing groups to be influenced against one another by the Tokugawa as
needed. It was not that all discriminated-against groups and individuals
followed these rules, and certainly many were successful in working around
them; however, there was a systematic effort to institutionalize
discrimination politically by enacting policy.
The Meiji Period ostensibly should have brought a better situation for the
burakumin as Japan ended its period of relative isolation from the
international community. In 1871, with the Meiji Emancipation Edict
(Ordinance No. 61), the Japanese government did take steps to discontinue
the lowest social ranks and removed their official status by renaming the
eta as shin heimin (new common people); however, no real financial or
educational support was provided to make this emancipation a reality, and
similarly, no change had been effected in the Shinto-Buddhist views of the
now "new common people." Furthermore, the period ensconced a new hierarchy
with the Emperor at its head that continued to promote separateness.(32)
Thus they [burakumin] were forced to live as tenant farmers in rural areas,
and in urban areas as laborers, continuously falling into the ranks of the
unemployed or semi-employed, or as the proprietors of small businesses.
Discrimination, far from being eliminated, became even worse.(33)
It wasn't until the twentieth century that a buraku liberation movement
began in earnest, influenced by other international liberation movements
such as the Hyonpyonsha movement in Korea, the Russian revolution, and the
Rice Riots (Kome-Sodo). The National Levelers Association (Zenkoku
Suiheisha) was founded in March 1922. Some social advances were initially
obtained, but the Second World War suppressed the movement.
In 1946, the movement re-instituted itself as the National Committee for
Buraku Liberation.(34) The war devastated all of Japan, and the burakumin,
already in dire conditions prior to the war, experienced an intensification
of penury and disease. Through sustained political activism, the burakumin,
in conjunction with concerned others, have caused legislation to be passed
since the war that has dramatically bettered conditions for themselves.
These improvements have come primarily in such issues as better housing and
education. Inexpensive housing has increased dramatically in Dowa areas, and
where a quarter-century ago, only 30 percent of burakumin students
matriculated to high school, currently over 80 percent do.(35) There have
been both corporations and religious bodies involved in the struggle for
greater opportunities for the burakumin. This is not to say that the
problems do not persist for the burakumin as they continue to suffer from,
in comparison to the majority Japanese, higher illness rates, higher
unemployment, lower wages for the same jobs, illegal lists that corporations
buy and use to avoid hiring buraku people, discrimination in marriage, and
myriad abusive and discriminatory attacks on their person and position.