Sink the Asahi! ... the Neo-nationalist Attack
The State Secrets Protection Bill (2013)
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 5, No. 1, February 2, 2015.
Hier geht's zur pdf-Datei
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von Japan Focus.
Sink the Asahi! The ‘Comfort Women’ Controversy and the Neo-nationalist Attack
How did Japan’s 135-year-old liberal flagship end up in the crosshairs of neo-nationalists?
David McNeill and Justin McCurry
Before last year it is doubtful that many Japanese knew the location of Glendale, California – an L.A. suburb with a population of 200,000 known for its large Asian population and the Big Boy fast-food chain. That’s changed, thanks to an unimposing bronze statue of a young woman installed last year in a local park that has become a microcosm of the toxic history war between Japan and South Korea.
The statue was meant to commemorate the suffering of women herded into wartime Japanese brothels – and to symbolize justice denied. Since the unveiling, however, the city has been targeted by diplomatic protests, hundreds of angry letters and a lawsuit demanding its removal. Japanese nationalist politicians even say the statue has triggered discrimination against Japanese schoolchildren in America.
The dispute took a farcical turn on Oct. 21 last year when Glendale City Council heard testimony from long-winded rightist video blogger Tony Marano. Marano travelled hundreds of miles from his home and took a break from warning against nefarious communists, Koreans who “eat dogs off the street” and President Obama’s plot to turn America into a Muslim nation, to pick up the cudgel against the hated memorial.
Hiroshima, Auschwitz und Erinnerung
Hiroshima und Auschwitz
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 3, No. 1, January 19, 2015.
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von Japan Fpcus
Zum Download als pdf hier
Never Again: Hiroshima, Auschwitz and the Politics of Commemoration
もう二度と… 広島、アウシュヴィッツと記念の政治学
Ran Zwigenberg
Abstract:
Ran Zwigenberg makes a case for revising the history of Hiroshima and its global connections and importance. Focusing on the little known episode of the 1962 Hiroshima-Auschwitz Peace March, he argues that the march was a unique point of convergence between multiple national narratives of victimization. The Peace March illustrates the emergence of a shared discourse of commemoration of WW II following the Eichmann trial and others, which agents like the marchers facilitated and which emerged from multiple Western and non-Western sources.
In 1962 a young Jewish American psychiatrist by the name of Robert Lifton visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Lifton described his visit to the museum in a letter to his friend David Riesman, “I had seen many such pictures before…but somehow seeing these pictures in Hiroshima was entirely different…we left this part of the exhibit reeling…Both of us anxious, fearful and depressed–Betty [Lifton’s wife] to the point of being physically ill.”1 Lifton decided to stay in Hiroshima and help its survivors. His research greatly altered our understanding of Hiroshima and the psychiatry of trauma. It would be hard to find similar responses by visitors today. The Liftons’ reaction to the museum was not just a function of their encounter with the horror of Hiroshima but of the heightened awareness of the importance of the city in light of the global tensions that would bring the world to the brink of nuclear war that same year. The museum and Peace Park today are far calmer places. Perhaps even too calm. The message of peace, felt so urgently by Lifton, has lost its edge in Hiroshima. Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani captured the mood of the place succinctly when he wrote, “In Hiroshima…even the doves are bored with peace.”2 The serenity and passivity of the memorial begins right at the entrance to the museum,
2014: Beyond Reality
Radioaktivität - Atomkraft
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 46, No. 1, November 24, 2014.
Download der pdf-Datei hier
Beyond reality – or – An illusory ideal: pro-nuclear Japan’s management of migratory flows in a nuclear catastrophe
Cécile Asanuma-Brice
Three years have passed since the earthquake and consequent tsunami of March 11, 2011, which led to the explosion of a nuclear power plant in Northeastern Japan. Since then, a central concern in managing the damage is how to handle the relocation of people displaced by the destruction of the earthquake-driven tsunami and the dangers of radiation. In December of that year, we wrote up a precise assessment of the damage caused to the housing sector, the system for rehousing victims of the tsunami, and also the nuclear contamination that has spread widely in part of the Fukushima region and neighboring districts.1 The government reported the existence of 160,000 displaced persons, of whom 100,000 came from within the prefecture and 60,000 outside of it. Since the government adopted a policy favoring the return of the displaced to their home districts, which are still heavily contaminated, the official estimate today is 140,000 refugees: 100,000 within the prefecture and 40,000 outside it. However, these official figures are the fruit of an extremely restrictive registration system, to which a not insignificant number of inhabitants have refused to submit.2 The displaced population is in fact appreciably greater than the official statistics would have us believe. What is the situation of nuclear refugees in Japan today? What local policies have been put in place to protect the inhabitants during these three years, as the government sought to manage a disaster of global proportions? What are the motivations of the authorities in seeking to compel the population to return to zones that are still partly contaminated, despite the ongoing risks and in the absence of any request to return? These are a few issues that I will seek to clarify in this paper.
Seeking Peace - The Korean Peninsula
Frieden auf der koreanischen Halbinsel
Seeking Peace: the World Council of Churches and the Korean Peninsula
World Council of Churches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct12dXvW4q0
Veröffentlicht am 19.11.2014
The division of the Korean Peninsula and the Korean War marked the WCC since its beginnings in an era when, after the end of World War 2, the hope was that a more peaceful era would begin.
The efforts to find a response to the tragedy of division came into visible effect when, in 1984, the WCC's Commission of the Churches on International Affairs convened the founding consultation of the Tozanso Process. "At the time it was an act of prophetic courage" says the Rev. Prof. Dr Sang Chang of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, WCC president for Asia. During this period the Korean Christian Federation [based in the DPRK] became regular observers at WCC Assemblies. After the post-9/11 climate of dissipating possibilities for direct encounter, the WCC 10th Assembly in 2013 provided an opportunity for the wider international ecumenical community to become re-acquainted with the reality and consequences of the division of the Korean people.
Website of the WCC 10th Assembly: http://wcc2013.info
More information on the International Consultation on Justice, Peace and Reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula, June 2014: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/press-cen...
ST2014 - Wittenberg: Brief an die Kirchen
Studientagung in Wittenberg
Gerechter Friede in Ostasien
For the English version scroll down, please.
Gemeinsam auf dem Pilgerweg der Gerechtigkeit und des Friedens
Brief an unsere Geschwister in Südkorea und Japan
Der Segen Gottes sei mit Euch,
der Segen des Schöpfers der Vielfalt und der Einheit,
der Segen des Versöhners und Erlösers,
der Segen des Trösters.
Wir, Mitglieder der Deutschen Ostasienmission (DOAM, Gründungsmitglied der EMS-Evangelische Mission in Solidarität und des BMW-Berliner Missionswerk) sowie Gäste aus Korea und Japan und Teilnehmende an der Konferenz „Gerechter Friede in Ostasien“ haben uns in Wittenberg, Deutschland (29. September – 1. Oktober 2014) versammelt.
Im Rahmen dieser Tagung feiern wir das 130-jährige Jubiläum der Ostasienmission und erinnern uns an eine reiche Geschichte voller Begegnungen mit euch, unseren Geschwistern in Südkorea und Japan. Wir erinnern uns an das gemeinsame Vertrauen, das über Jahrzehnte durch unsere gemeinsamen Anstrengungen für Demokratie, Menschenrechte, Gerechtigkeit und Frieden zwischen uns gewachsen ist und möchten unseren Dank ausdrücken für die vielen Gaben die wir von euch empfangen haben.
2014: Nobel Peace Prize Nomination
Global Article 9 Campaign and Peace Boat Statement
Hier die Erklärung als pdf.
2014 Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Raises Global Awareness of Article 9 as Peace Mechanism
October 10, 2014
The Global Article 9 Campaign and Peace Boat congratulate Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for being awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. The recognition of their common struggle for education and against extremism is a boost to civil society workers for peace everywhere.
Although not selected as the Laureate, the nomination of the Japanese people who conserve Article 9 of the Constitution for the Nobel Peace Prize has attracted international attention to the existence of the war-renouncing clause.
ST2014 - Wittenberg: Festvortrag
Studientagung in Wittenberg
Weitere Beiträge zum 130jährigen Jubiläum der Ostasienmission siehe hier
Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg der Gerechtigkeit und des Friedens – mit Leben gefüllt!
Prof. Dr. Fernando Enns, Vorstandsmitglied der Deutschen Ostasienmission (DOAM) hielt den Festvortrag beim 130jährigen Jubiläum, das in der Ev. Akademie zu Wittenberg gefeiert wurde. Wir freuen uns, diesen Vortrag hier abdrucken zu dürfen.
"... Liebe Freunde, Geburtstage eignen sich nicht nur als willkommene Anlässe, in großer Dankbarkeit für alles, was sein durfte, zurück zu schauen, vielleicht auch seinen Frieden zu machen mit dem, was Unvollkommen geblieben ist, mancher Abschiede zu gedenken, die zu bewältigen waren, sondern: immer geht es auch um die Hoffnungen auf das Kommende.
Ganz offensichtlich versteht sich die OAM nicht als musealer Verein, der nur noch die Reste einer einst größeren Vergangenheit verwalten will – da gebe es genug, denn für manche von Ihnen macht die Mitarbeit und Unterstützung der OAM ja eine weite Spanne ihres eigenen, persönlichen Lebens aus. Nein, wenn sich eine Missionsgemeinschaft zum 130jährigen Bestehen versammelt und auch bereit ist, auf jüngere Stimmen zu hören, dann fragt sie auch – und vor allem – nach dem, was in der Zukunft auf sie wartet. Welche Aufgaben sind jetzt dran? Welche nächsten Schritte sind zu gehen? Welche Strukturen sind dafür nötig? Welche Schwerpunkte sollten gewählt werden aus den vielen – manchmal zu vielen – Möglichkeiten?
Welche Nöte sind die jetzt Dringlichen?
Welche neuen Beziehungen sind dafür einzugehen und welche alten Beziehungen werden eher zu einem Balast? – Aber vor allem: wer sind jetzt die Menschen „am Rande“, bei denen Gott selbst Wohnung nimmt, bei denen das Wort Gottes – als Euangelion – Trost und Erneuerung verheißt? ..."
Lesen Sie bitte den ganzen Vortrag (pdf-Datei) hier