Buraku

is a name for a low-status social group in Japan. It is a term for ethnic Japanese people with occupations considered as being associated with , such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, or tanners.

During Japan's feudal era, acquired a hereditary status of untouchability, and became an unofficial caste of the Tokugawa class system during the Edo period. were victims of severe discrimination and ostracism in Japanese society, and lived as outcasts, in their own separate villages or ghettos. status was abolished officially after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, but the descendants of have since continued to experience stigmatization and discrimination in Japan.

Terminology

is derived from , a Japanese term which refers literally to a small, generally rural, commune or hamlet. People from regions of Japan where "discriminated communities" no longer exist (e.g. anywhere north of Tokyo) may refer to any hamlet as a , indicating use of the word is not necessarily pejorative. Historically, the term was used for an outcast community that was discriminated against officially and formally.

A term used much for settlements is , an official term for districts designated for government and local authority assimilation projects.

The social issue concerning "discriminated communities" is usually referred to as or, less commonly, .

During the feudal era, the outcaste were termed , a term now considered derogatory. towns were termed .

Some refer to their own communities as and themselves as .

Other outcaste groups from whom may have been descended included the . The definition of , as well as their social status and typical occupations varied over time, but typically included ex-convicts and vagrants who worked as town guards, street cleaners or entertainers.

During the 19th century, the term was invented to name the and because both classes were forced to live in separate village neighborhoods.

Historical origins

The predecessors to , called or formed as a distinct group some time during the Heian period, AD 794-1185. Initially, they dealt with pollution but were not considered defiled personally. From the Heian period through medieval period, were regarded as having the ability to cleanse ritual pollution, and in some portrayals were even considered as having magical powers. were associated with the tanning industry and had the exclusive rights to tan hides.

, meaning "non-human", was another pre- status, applying to beggars and camp followers of samurai. Their position was more mobile and they were thought to be less polluted. The Tokugawa shogunate regarded beggars as and allowed them to beg in designated areas. They had to work as restroom attendants, prison officers, or executioners. One famous or is , who was the chief of , and street performers in the Kantō region, and was given the exclusive license of tanning, candle wicks and others and made a fortune.

End of the feudal era

The feudal caste system in Japan ended formally in 1869 with the Meiji restoration. In 1871, the newly formed Meiji government issued the decree giving outcasts equal legal status. It is currently known better as the . However, were deprived of the exclusive rights of disposal of dead bodies of horses and cattle and the elimination of their monopolies of certain occupations actually resulted in a decrease of their general living standards, while social discrimination simply continued.

During the early Meiji era, many anti- riots () happened around the country. For example, in a village in Okayama when "former " tried to buy alcohol, four men were killed, four men were injured and 25 houses were destroyed by commoners, and in another village, 263 houses of were destroyed and 18 people of former were killed, which was part of an anti-Government riot. The practice of eating meat existed even during the Edo period, but the official ban of consumption of meat from livestock was ended during 1871 in order to "Westernise" the country, and many former began to work in abattoirs and as butchers, as they were thought to be experienced with the handling of dead bodies. Slow-changing social attitudes, especially in the countryside, meant that abattoirs and their workers were often met with hostility from local residents. Continued ostracism as well as the decrease of living standards resulted in former communities becoming slum areas. Prejudice against the consumption of meat continued throughout the Meiji period; in 1872, a group of , who objected to the Emperor's consumption of meat, tried to enter the Tokyo Imperial Palace and four of them were killed. They claimed that gods would leave Japan because the Japanese had eaten meat.

There were many terms used to indicate former outcastes, their communities or settlements at the time. Official documents at the time referred to them as , while the newly-liberated outcasts called themselves , among other terms.

Nakae Chōmin worked for the liberation of . He transferred his resident registration to and denounced the discrimination against them when he campaigned during the election of 1890 from Osaka and won.

The term , now considered inappropriate, started being used by officials during the 1900s, and resulted in the meaning of the word ("hamlet") coming to imply former villages in certain parts of Japan.

Attempts to resolve the problem during the early 20th century were of two types: the philosophy which encouraged improvements in living standards of communities and integration with the mainstream Japanese society, and the philosophy which concentrated on confronting and criticising alleged perpetrators of discrimination.

Post-war situation

Although liberated legally during 1871 with the abolition of the feudal caste system, this did not end social discrimination against nor improve their living standards; until recently, Japanese family registration was fixed to an ancestral home address, which allowed people to deduce their ancestry.

Demographics

The number of asserted to be living in modern Japan varies from source to source. A 1993 report by the Japanese government counted 4,533 throughout the country. Most were located in western Japan, while none were located in Hokkaido and Tōhoku. About three quarters of the districts are in rural areas. The size of each community ranged from less than five households to more than 1,000 households. The Buraku Liberation League (BLL) has extrapolated Meiji-era figures to arrive at an estimate of nearly three million .

In some areas, are in a majority; per a 1997 report, they accounted for more than 70 percent of all residents of Yoshikawa (now Kōnan) in Kōchi Prefecture. In Ōtō, Fukuoka Prefecture, they accounted for more than 60 percent. Japanese government statistics show the number of residents of assimilation districts who claim ancestry, whereas BLL figures are estimates of the total number of descendants of all former and current residents, including current residents without any ancestry.

According to a survey performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government during 2003, 76% of Tokyo residents would not change their opinion of a close neighbor whom they discovered to be a ; 4.9% of respondents, on the other hand, would actively avoid a neighbor. There is still a social stigma for being a resident of certain areas associated traditionally with the , and some lingering discrimination in matters such as marriage and employment.

Discrimination in access to services

While in many parts of the country settlements, built on the site of former villages, ceased to exist by the 1960s because of either urban development or integration into mainstream society, in other regions many of their residents continued to suffer from slum-like housing and infrastructure, lower economic status, illiteracy, and lower general educational standards.

In 1969, the government passed the to provide funding to these communities. Communities deemed to be in need of funding were designated for various , such as construction of new housing and community facilities such as health centers, libraries and swimming pools. The projects were terminated in 2002 with a total funding of an estimated 12 trillion yen over 33 years.

Social discrimination

Cases of social discrimination against residents of areas are still an issue in certain regions. Outside of the Kansai region, people in general are often not aware of the issues experienced by those of ancestry, and if they are, this awareness may only be awareness of the history of feudal Japan. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic and the campaigns by the Buraku Liberation League to remove any references in the media that may propagate discrimination against them, it is rarely presented by the media.

Prejudice against most often manifests itself in the form of marriage discrimination and sometimes in employment. Traditionalist families have been known to check on the backgrounds of potential in-laws to identify people of ancestry. These checks are now illegal, and marriage discrimination is diminishing; Nadamoto Masahisa of the Buraku History Institute estimates that between 60 and 80% of marry a non-, whereas for people born during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the rate was 10%. Many companies were known to have used lists of addresses that were developed first in 1975 to exclude the . The average income of a family was significantly less than the national average (60% in 1992).

Cases of continuing social discrimination are known to occur mainly in western Japan, particularly in the Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, and Hiroshima regions, where many people, especially the older generation, stereotype residents (whatever their ancestry) and associate them with squalor, unemployment and criminality.

No discriminated-against communities were identified in the following prefectures: Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Fukushima, Tokyo, Toyama, Ishikawa, and Okinawa. Hokkaido and Okinawa have had their own separate history of discrimination of their native ethnic groups the Ainu and the Ryukyuans, respectively.

Yakuza membership

According to David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro in ''Yakuza: The Explosive Account of Japan's Criminal Underworld'' (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1986), account for about 70% of the members of Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest yakuza crime syndicate in Japan.

Mitsuhiro Suganuma, an ex-member of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, testified that account for about 60 percent of the members of the entire yakuza.Archived a
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine

incident

In November 1975, the Osaka part of the Buraku Liberation League was alerted about the existence of a book named . Investigations revealed that copies of the hand-written 330-page book were being sold secretly by an Osaka-based business to numerous businesses and individuals throughout Japan by a mail order service named Cablenet, at between ¥5,000 and ¥50,000 per copy. The book contained a nationwide list of all the names and locations of settlements (as well as the primary means of employment of their inhabitants), which could be compared against people's addresses to determine if they were residents. The preface contained the following message: "At this time, we have decided to go against public opinion and create this book orpersonnel managers grappling with employment issues, and families pained by problems with their children's marriages".

More than 200 large Japanese companies, including (according to the Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute of Osaka) Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Daihatsu, along with thousands of individuals purchased copies of the book. In 1985, partially in response to the popularity of this book, and an increase of the Osaka prefectural government introduced "An Ordinance to Regulate Personal Background Investigation Conducive to Buraku Discrimination".

Although the production and sale of the book has been banned, numerous copies of it are still in existence, and in 1997, an Osaka private investigation company was the first to be charged with violation of the 1985 statute for using the text.

Nonaka incident

In 2001, future Prime Minister of Japan Tarō Asō, along with Hiromu Nonaka, was among the LDP's chief candidates to succeed Yoshirō Mori as premier of Japan. Nonaka, the former Chief Cabinet Secretary, is of ''burakumin'' descent. During a meeting of LDP officials at which Nonaka was not present, Asō reportedly told the assembled group, "We are not going to let someone from the become the prime minister, are we?"Yamaguchi, Mari
"Discrimination claims die hard in Japan"
''The Japan Times'', January 25, 2009, p. 2. Nonaka subsequently withdrew as a candidate. Asō's comment about Nonaka's heritage was revealed in 2005. Asō denied that he had made the statement, but Hisaoki Kamei, who was present at the 2001 meeting, stated in January 2009 that he had heard Asō say something "to that effect".

Hashimoto incident

Tōru Hashimoto, a lawyer, former governor of Osaka Prefecture, former mayor of Ōsaka City and the founder of the political party Nippon Ishin no Kai, was the subject of an article in 2012 published in the magazine , entitled , which claimed his father to be and his relatives members of the yakuza. The article further elaborated that Hashimoto was eccentric and dangerous based on his "blood". Hashimoto, who was the mayor of Ōsaka at that time, excluded the newspaper '' The Asahi Shimbun'', the wholly-owned subsidiary company of the magazine's publisher, from a press conference and demanded an explanation from the publisher. Hashimoto later sued the publisher and the writer for defamation. The Buraku Liberation League, who did not endorse his policies, also remonstrated. The publisher had a third party examine the incident and apologized. The president of the publisher, , resigned to take responsibility.

Burakumin rights movement

As early as 1922, officials of the Hisabetsu Buraku organized a campaign, the , to advance their rights. The Declaration of the encouraged the to unite in resistance to discrimination, and sought to create a positive identity for the victims of discrimination, insisting that the time had come to be "proud of being ". The declaration portrayed the ancestors as "manly martyrs of industry" and argued that to submit meekly to oppression would be to insult and profane these ancestors. Despite internal divisions among anarchist, Bolshevik, and social democratic factions, and despite the Japanese government's establishment of an alternate organization, the Yūma, designed to reduce the influence of the , the Levelers Association remained active until the late 1930s.

After World War II, the National Committee for Burakumin Liberation was initiated, changing its name to the during the 1950s. The league, with the endorsement of the socialist and communist parties, influenced the government into making important concessions during the late 1960s and 1970s.

During the 1960s, the Sayama Incident publicised the problems of the group. The incident involved the murder conviction of a member of the discriminated communities based on circumstantial evidence, which is generally given little weight vs. physical evidence in Japanese courts.

One concession was the passing of the ''Special Measures Law for Assimilation Projects'', which provided financial aid for the discriminated communities. In 1976, legislation was also approved banning third parties from investigating another person's family registry. This traditional system of registry, kept for all Japanese by the Ministry of Justice since the 19th century, would reveal an individual's ancestry if consulted. By the new legislation, these records could now be consulted only for legal cases, making it more difficult to identify or discriminate against members of the group.

During the 1980s, some educators and local governments, particularly in areas with relatively large populations, began special education programs which they hoped would encourage greater educational and economic success for young members of the group and decrease the discrimination they faced. rights groups exist presently in all parts of Japan except for Hokkaidō and Okinawa.

have been established across the country by prefectural governments and local authorities; these, in addition to promoting rights, campaign on behalf of a wide range of other groups such as women, the disabled, ethnic minorities, foreign residents and released prisoners. Even into the early 1990s, however, discussion of the 'liberation' of these discriminated communities, or even their existence, was rare in public discussion.

Buraku Liberation League and the

The Buraku Liberation League is considered one of the most militant among 's rights groups. The BLL is known for its fierce "denunciation and explanation sessions", where alleged perpetrators of discriminatory actions or speech are summoned for a public hearing before a panel of activists.

Early sessions were marked by occasions of violence and kidnapping, and several BLL activists have been arrested for such acts. The legality of these sessions is still disputed, but to this date the authorities have mostly ignored them except in the more extreme cases.

In 1990, Karel van Wolferen's criticism of the BLL in his much-acclaimed book '' The Enigma of Japanese Power'' prompted the BLL to demand the publisher halt publication of the Japanese translation of the book. Van Wolferen condemned this as an international scandal.

The other major activist group is the (or , affiliated to the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). It was formed in 1979 by BLL activists who were either purged from the organization or abandoned it during the late 1960s, due to, among other things, their opposition to the decision that subsidies to the should be limited to the BLL members only. Not all were BLL members, and not all residents of the areas targeted for subsidies were historically descended from the out-caste.Upham (1987).

The often disputed the BLL, accusing them of chauvinism. The conflict between the two organizations increased during 1974 when a clash between teachers belonging to a JCP-affiliated union and BLL activists at a high school in Yoka, rural Hyōgo Prefecture, put 29 in hospital.

In 1988, the BLL formed the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR). The BLL sought for the IMADR to be recognized as a United Nations Non-Government Organization, but in 1991, the informed the United Nations about the alleged human rights violations committed by the BLL in the course of their 'denunciation sessions' held with accused 'discriminators'.

According to a BLL-funded think tank, when cases of discrimination were alleged, the often conducted denunciation sessions as fierce as those of the BLL. Nonetheless, the IMADR was designated a UN human rights NGO in March 1993.

On March 3, 2004, the announced that "the issue has basically been resolved" and formally disbanded. On March 4, 2004, they began a new organization known as the or .

Religious discrimination

Jodo Shinshu Buddhism originally patronized the lower castes. The effect of this encouragement, however, was that it resulted in a series of anti-feudal rebellions, known as the Ikkō-ikki revolts, which seriously threatened the religious and political status-quo. Accordingly, the political powers created a situation whereby the Jōdo Shinshū divided into two competing parts, the Shinshu Otani-ha and the Honganji-ha. This had the consequence that the sects became less anti-feudal.

Later the state also forced all people to belong to a specific Buddhist school according to the formula:

In consequence the Honganji, which during Rennyo's leadership of it had defiantly accepted the derogatory label of 'the dirty sect' (see Rennyo's letters known as the Ofumi/Gobunsho) now began to discriminate against its own burakumin members as it jostled for political and social status.

In 1922, when the National Levelers' Association (Zenkoku-suiheisha) was initiated in Kyoto, Mankichi Saiko, a founder of the society and Jodo Shinshu priest, said:

After many petitions from the BLL, in 1969 the Honganji changed its opinion on the burakumin issue. Zenkairen, which disassociated from the BLL in 1968, regrets this decision.

Religious discrimination against the burakumin was not recognized until the BLL's criticism sessions became widespread. For example, in 1979 the Director-General of the Sōtō Sect of Buddhism made a speech at the "3rd World Conference on Religion and Peace" claiming that there was no discrimination against burakumin in Japan.

Notable burakumin

* Tadashi Yanai, founder and president of Uniqlo
* Tōru Hashimoto, politician of the Nippon Ishin no Kai, lawyer, the 52nd governor of Osaka Prefecture, and former Mayor of Osaka city

* Jiichirō Matsumoto, politician and businessman who was called the "buraku liberation father"
* Ryu Matsumoto, politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature)
* Toru Matsuoka, politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet (national legislature)
* Rentarō Mikuni, actor
* Manabu Miyazaki, writer, social critic and public figure known for his underworld ties
* Kenji Nakagami, writer, critic, and poet
* Hiromu Nonaka, chief cabinet secretary (1998–1999)

See also

* Buraku Liberation League
* Feudal Japan hierarchy

Discrimination in Japan

* Racism in Japan
* Human rights in Japan

General

* Caste
* Untouchability
** Baekjeong, the former outcast community of Korean society.
** Dalit, a collective term for the outcast endogamous communities of India and Nepal.
** Cagot or Agotes, the former outcast community of France and Spain.
** Tanka (danhu) ("boat people") in Guangdong, Fuzhou Tanka in Fujian, si-min (small people) and mianhu in Jiangsu, Gaibu and Duomin (To min; ) in Zhejiang, '' jiuxing yumin'' ( in the Yangtze River region, yoh-hu ("music people") in Shanxi
** Bụi đời, outcast community of Vietnam after Fall of Saigon.

References

Bibliography

Main text originally fro
Library of Congress, Country Studies
'Religious Discrimination' and 'Jodo shinshu Honganji' sections adapted fro

an

* Alldritt, Leslie D. ''The Burakumin: The Complicity of Japanese Buddhism in Oppression and an Opportunity for Liberation''
* Amos, Timothy P. "Portrait of a Tokugawa Outcaste Community", ''East Asian History'' (2006) Issue 32/33, pp 83–108
* Amos, Timothy P. ''Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan'' (2011)
* Amos, Timothy. "Fighting the Taboo Cycle: Google Map Protests and Buraku Human Rights Activism in Historical Perspective." ''Japanese Studies'' 35.3 (2015): 331–353.
* Amos, Timothy. "Binding Burakumin: Marxist historiography and the narration of difference in Japan." ''Japanese Studies'' 27.2 (2007): 155–171.
* Fowler, Edward. "The Buraku in Modern Japanese Literature: Texts and Contexts", ''Journal of Japanese Studies'' (2000) 26#1 pp 1–39
* Groemer, Gerald. "The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order." ''Journal of Japanese Studies'' 2001 27#2 pp 263–29
in JSTOR
* Kasahara, Toshinori. ''Shin Buddhism and the Buraku-min'' (1996 Honolulu Higashi Honganji)
* Neary, Ian. "Burakumin in contemporary Japan", in ''Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity'', Michael Weiner, ed.
* Neary. Ian. "Burakumin at the End of History", ''Social Research'' (2003) 70#1 pp 269–294, online.
* Shimazaki, Toson. ''The Broken Commandment''
* Suzuki, D.T., Oiwa, K. ''The Japan We Never Knew: A Journey of Discovery'' (Stoddart Publishing, Toronto: 1996)
*

External links

The Headquarters of Buraku Liberation League




* ttp://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/discussionpapers/2005/Ito2.html Cooperativeness and Buraku Discrimination discussion paper by Takuya Ito in th
''electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies''
October 31, 2005.


discussion paper by Alastair McLauchlan in th
''electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies''
January 31, 2003.


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070911035844/http://www3.osk.3web.ne.jp/~blrhyg/ ひょうご部落解放・人権研究所Burakumin research institute)

全国部落解放運動連合会
National Buraku Liberation Alliance)�
全国地域人権運動総連合
(National Confederation of Human Rights Movements in the Community) �
Zenkoku Jinken Ren Blog

部落問題研究所
(Burakumin research institute)

京都部落問題研究資料センター
(Burakumin in Kyoto research data)

自由同和会
Burakumin rights group)

全日本同和会
(Burakumin rights group)

部落解放同盟全国連合会
(Burakumin rights group)


'' The New York Times'', November 30, 1995. Nicholas Kristof on the state of toleration at that time.

"Japan's Outcasts Still Wait for Acceptance"
''The New York Times'', January 15, 2009. Article by Norimitsu Onishi on Buraku history and current status, with a focus on Hiromu Nonaka, a prominent politician of Buraku descent.

Old Japanese maps on Google Earth unveil secrets
Sat May 2, 2009 - Jay Alabaster, Associated Press.

"Mysterious Past Meets Uncertain Future in Tokyo's Sanya District"
''Digital Journal'', October 31, 2009. Blair McBride on Buraku status of North-East Tokyo area.
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