Lecture #16: Burakumin

There are said to be 2 –3 million Burakumin in Japan today.

Major population concentrations in the Kansai and Northern Kyushu areas –Osaka and Fukuoka and their neighboring cities.

  1. Originally they were foreigner… maybe Koreans, or maybe the lost tribes of Israel etc.

As far as I know, no serious scholar believes this today.

2. Maybe they were the losing side in some ancient civil war, taken prisoner and deprived of their civil rights.

Some limited geographical evidence.

3. Descended from people who practiced despised occupations (a) related to death: butchery, leather-tanning, grave-diggers, executioners (b) sex industry, traveling actors, monkey-handlers etc. (c) others harder to explain, e.g. straw handicrafts

Definitely at least part of the story. Burakumin work in many of these industries to this day.

4. Designated as outcasts as punishment for crimes committed by themselves or their parents / ancestors.

Definitely at least part of the story too. But scholars still argue about the relation between theory #3 and #4.

E.g. Despised because of occupation? Or forced into occupation as punishment?

Outcasts in Tokugawa Japan

ETA　穢多 An inherited status, passed on to one’s children. Marriage permitted, but only with a fellow Eta. Obliged to live together in ghetto-like settlements, usually outside the city walls. Jobs included making weapons (leather being an important component.) Within Eta settlements there was another hierarchy, with headmen (Eta-gashira).

HININ　非人 Status imposed as a punishment for (1) Running away from your village; (2) Petty theft by youths under the age of 15; (3) participating in failed double suicides; (4) running illegal gambling games…etc.

Hinin, being “non-people,” could not legally marry. By the same logic, the status could not be inherited: officially, they had no children.

They too had bosses –“Hinin-gashira”.

AUGUST 1871 – The Emancipation Edict (sometimes translated the Liberation Edict). The designation of “eta”and “hinin”are formally abolished, but unfortunately are replaced with the term “new commoner” (shin-heimin) in government documents, enabling discrimination to continue. Also around this time the word "burakumin" 部落民 comes into use as another euphemism for "eta/hinin”. It literally means “hamlet people”. Their settlements are sometimes called hisabetsu buraku (discriminated hamlets) to distinguish them from ordinary hamlets…

1903 – First organized attempt to launch Buraku liberation movement.

1906 – Tôson Shimazaki published The Broken Commandment (Hakai破戒) .

1922 – Launch of the Suiheisha movement.

(See this URL for a full English text of the Suiheisha Declaration

1936 – Ji’ichirô Matsumoto, the leading figure in the Suiheisha, elected to the Diet as a candidate for the Social Masses Party.

1942 – Suiheisha dissolved under wartime government.

1951 –‘All Romance’ incident. Magazine condemned by Buraku activists for defamatory description of Burakumin in a work of fiction.

1955 –Foundation of the Buraku Liberation League (BLL) 部落解放同盟 (Buraku Kaiho Domei), biggest and most effective of the many groups fighting for liberation…main successor to the Suiheisha.

Key BLL issues:

EDUCATION / Most children from Buraku areas not going beyond junior high school.
EMPLOYMENT / Firms using guides to Buraku districts to avoid employing Burakumin.
HOUSING / Many Burakumin living in ghetto-like slum districts.
MARRIAGE / Many parents forbidding their offspring from marrying Burakumin.

1963 – Sayama Incident: Kazuo Ishikawa, a mentally-retarded Burakumin youth, framed by police for a kidnap-murder he certainly did not commit. (Released in 1994, but his conviction stands and is still protested today.)

1969 – Law on Special Measures for Buraku Improvement Projects is passed. Start of a series of legal measures to improve lives of Burakumin.

1982 – Law on Special Measures for Regional Improvements [5 year validity]

1987 – Law on Specific Governmental Budgetary Measures Concerning Projects for Dôwa Regional Improvements [5 years, later extended to 10]

1969-1994 Over 17 billion yen spent on LSM projects in housing, health and education.

Main features of Special Measures Laws

1. Better housing (kairyô jutaku) with heavily subsidized rents in Buraku areas.
2. Grants to finance higher levels of education for Burakumin youths.
3. Soft loans for Burakumin-run businesses.
4. Libraries, culture centers, sports facilities etc.

Great advances in material standards for Burakumin. But new problems too: Argument over who is eligible for the goodies; new discrimination caused by jealousy among other poor people excluded from SML benefits (resulting in problem of ese dowa koi: fraudulently claiming benefits by pretending to be a Burakumin). Also SMLs slow down assimilation by encouraging Burakumin to continue living in Buraku districts to get SML benefits.

Relatively slow rate of marital integration:

Year / All-Buraku marriages / Buraku / non-Buraku marriages
1919 / 97% / 3%
1963 / 64% / 36%
1993 / 42.5% / 57.5%

Compare with faster rate for Japan-resident Korean population:

Year / All-Korean marriages / Korean-Japanese
marriages
1960 / 66% / 33%
1970 / 56% / 43%
1980 / 42% / 57%
1990 / 16% / 84%
1995 / 17% / 83%

1992 – The BLL announces that It will NOT campaign for any further extension of the Special Measures Laws, with the result that they lapse in 1997.

Movement, already divided, splits further over SML issue:

4 different Buraku liberation groups (many other minor ones):

1. 部落解放同盟（解同本部派）

Buraku Kaiho Domei (Kaido Honbu-ha)

The main BLL, c. 150,000 members

2. 全国自由同和会

Zenkoku Jiyû Dôwakai

Conservative group affiliated to the LDP、c. 50,000 members

3. 全国部落解放運動連合会（全解連)

Zenkoku Buraku Kaiho Undo Rengokai (Zenkairen)

Affiliated to the Japan Communist Party

4. 部落解放同盟全国連合会（全国連）

Buraku Kaiho Domei Zenkoku Rengokai (Zenkokuren)

Left-wing splinter group opposed to abandoning the SMLs.

Japan’s most famous Burakumin: Hiromu Nonaka, former secretary-general of the LDP. Hails from Sonobe, a small town in Kyoto prefecture. Former railway man and trade unionist. Slightly mysteriously (?), Nonaka is known as one of the most nationalistic right-wingers in the LDP, despite his background and open support for Burakumin and ethnic Koreans. Partly this can be understood in terms of Kyoto politics. Kyoto is one of the few cities ever to have had a Communist-run city hall, and the JCP has traditionally opposed special measures for Burakumin, preferring to view the problem as a class issue.

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