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Tokyo's downtown multicultural Roppongi district was the center of some heated scenes and clashes Tuesday between an increasingly vociferous ultra-nationalist group whose hate speeches against non-Japanese, particularly Korean, but also Chinese residents in Japan have been increasing in frequency and venom of late, antiracist citizens groups and the police.
The largely anti-Korean protest in Tokyo, comprising around 1, 000 members and affiliates of the notorious Zainichi Tokken wo Yurusanai Shimin no Kai -- known also as the ultra-nationalist group Zaitokukai -- a self-proclaimed "citizens' group" that will not tolerate "special privileges" being given to Korean and Chinese residents in Japan, was just one installment of a nationwide campaign of hatred levied by the group Tuesday in both official and unofficial capacities, spanning other major cities including, but not limited to, Osaka, Nagoya and Sapporo.
Zaitokukai, led by the infamous Makoto Sakurai who was arrested along with eight of his cohorts recently for a physical altercation with a Korean resident of Japan during a recent protest, turned out in force at an innocuous children's park in Roppongi and conducted an hour of anti-Korean rabble-rousing through megaphones, as Imperial flags were waved, as bemused parents who had headed to the park to play with their kids looked on in utter astonishment.
"This is a children's park in the middle of a residential area," Sachiko Toda, 33, a full-time mother of two told Xinhua.
"We came here to play on the swings and the slides and all of a sudden the police cordoned off the park and advised us to leave as Zaitokukai had arranged a demonstration from mid-afternoon here, " said a bemused Toda.
"It's utterly disgusting. And shame on the local government for allowing it to happen where my children play. It reflects poorly on what is an upscale area frequented by foreigners and it reflects poorly on Japan," Toda exclaimed.
Zaitokukai, whose numbers grew as the speeches in the kids' park continued, believe that some Koreans, known as "Zainichi Koreans" are being given special legal privileges by the government here to integrate them into Japanese society and the group, some of whose members wear Imperial Army-inspired uniforms and others who have what can only be described as a Yakuza ( Japanese mafia) "swagger" -- both of which physically reflect their aggressive, menacing and proven violent tendencies -- ardently object to, among other things, the fact that Koreans can use Japanese names here.
They argue that if a Zainichi Korean, meaning permanent ethnic Korean residents of Japan, or long term Korean residents of Japan, who can trace their roots back to Korea from when it was under Japanese colonial rule during WWII and have retained their Joseon or South Korean nationalities, were to commit a crime here, for example, on the news or in the newspapers the offender would come across as being Japanese.
Zaitokukai also vocally oppose those long-term Koreans who have been given permanent residence status by the Ministry of Justice and, as such, are eligible to claim the same welfare benefits as Japanese citizens. Somewhat ironically, however, Zainichi Koreans also include Japanese citizens of Korean descent, who have acquired Japanese nationality by naturalization, or by birth from one or both parents who have Japanese citizenship.
As the intensity of the demonstration increased Tuesday, adjacent to the once tranquil Mikawadai Park in Roppongi, a small impromptu group of antiracist citizens congregated to make sure Zaitokukai's hate-infused diatribe, which calls for Zainichi Koreans, as well as other non-Japanese residing here, to be stripped of their legal citizenship, kicked out of Japan, belittled in public, harassed on the streets and in their places of business, and, in the most extreme and mind-boggling cases, assaulted, raped and murdered, did not go unanswered.
And as Zaitokukai's decibels and numbers increased, so did those of the antiracist counter protest.
"Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is promoting Japan ahead of the Olympics in 2020 as a 'foreigner friendly place,' but this, as it stands, is utter nonsense," Takako Fujimori, 68, a veteran member of the rapidly-expanding Tokyo chapter of Citizens Against Racism (CAR) told Xinhua.
"If this were indeed the case, Zaitokukai's government- permitted, public acts of racist hatred would be banned by the state for fueling racist-triggered violence, as has been the case and documented by the media in the recent past," Fujimori said.
"But despite condemnation by the United Nations for allowing hate speeches to take place, the government is turning a blind eye, so it's down to organizations like ours, who take an impassioned stance against racism in all forms, to make sure that when groups like Zaitokukai take their fascist attacks public, we stand united to answer back: 'Racists go home,' as was our official slogan today," said the CAR figurehead.
She went on to say that the political landscape in Japan under Abe's regime has changed at such a rapid rate that regular Japanese citizens have yet to grasp the gravity of the situation and the fact that since coming to power, Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party have, in the blink of an eye, ushered the nation down an ultra-nationalist path, which has wrongly demonized Japan' s closest neighbors including South Korea and China and underscored this by brushing aside Japan's pacifist Constitution and remilitarizing the country.
"I'll keep campaigning against racist, fascist and ultra- nationalist factions because Japan itself went down that route in WWII, and, following a bloody defeat that left two of our cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki leveled, we, as a nation, learnt a lesson by the hardest means possible that our old Imperialist ways were wrong and it's our job to keep informing the world to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again," said Fujimori.
"Zaitokukai. They are not Japanese. They don't speak for us. We are the true voice of Japan. They are animals," a tearful Fujimori proclaimed.
As Zaitokukai, under heavy police chaperone, were escorted from the park along their pre-planned demonstration route, the CAR mobilized more supporters to engage Zaitokukai verbally, by way of their own placards reading, 'Zaitokukai go home,' 'U.N urges Japan to crack down on hate speech,' 'Stop racism, unite together, and 'I'm Korean, so what?' and megaphones vocalizing similar antifascist messages.
As a somewhat heavy-handed police force focused more of their attention on the peace-loving antiracist counter-protesters, questions were being asked by onlookers and passersby as to why such blatantly racist marches were being permitted.
"We're here on vacation and had no idea what all the commotion was. When we found out the details of Zaitokukai we were astounded," Trevor Matthews and his wife Veronica, on a trip from Paris, told Xinhua.
"This simply should not be allowed to happen. We certainly did not expect this in Japan," the couple in their fifties concurred.
But in term of Japanese law, there is a clear distinction between a "hate crime" and a "hate speech," despite groups like Zaitokukai exploiting the law and operating in a grey area.
Hate crimes are punishable by law, but individuals and groups who make hate speeches can do so with complete impunity.
Human rights groups like CAR have been tirelessly calling for legislation to curtail instances of hate speeches but have seen their efforts gain little traction in parliament.
Indeed, a survey of attitudes toward discriminatory language revealed recently that of 700 Japanese lawmakers polled, only 46 of them even had an interest in the topic. This, despite the fact that Japan, unbelievably, has been a signatory to the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination since the mid-1990s.
"Despite the escalation of hate speeches in Japan and general discrimination towards ethnic minorities, the government is not looking to prioritize the introduction of domestic hate-speech legislation," a notable political analyst told Xinhua in a previous interview.
Japan today is home to an estimated 600,000 ethnic Koreans, many of whom are the descendants of the nearly 800,000 Korean workers forcibly brought to Japan to work during Japan's colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsular in WWII from 1910-1945.
