Good neighbors to diversity

汝の隣人を愛せよ

The court ruled that the bathhouse's refusal to grant them admission was an act of racial discrimination and ordered the operator to pay a total of ¥3 million, saying that the defendants had suffered a violation of their human rights as well as psychological injury. The court also ruled that the city government had taken measures to end the ban against foreigners and that it should not be held responsible for the actions of the bathhouse, since a local government is not obliged to perform duties under international law.

This trial is notable for three reasons. First, how should we strike a balance between business rights and human rights? Second, how should we distinguish between foreigners and Japanese? And, third, is Japan making sufficient efforts to eliminate racial discrimination?

Regarding the first point, bathhouse facilities in Otaru began putting up "no entry for foreigners" signs in the early 1990s, when the number of visits by Russian sailors suddenly increased following the end of the Cold War. Some of those Russians displayed extremely bad manners in the bathhouses, such as drinking and reveling noisily on the premises. Such behavior threatened to turn Japanese customers away; as a result, the bathhouses started to refuse entry to all foreigners.

According to one nongovernmental organization that is involved in the problem of discrimination against foreigners in Japan, as of 2000, the move by facilities to ban the entry of foreigners had spread from Hokkaido to Okinawa. The court decision in Sapporo sounds a warning to such business practices.

As for the second point, one of the defendants, a university lecturer named Debito Arudo, hails from the United States but actually has Japanese nationality. He is married to a Japanese woman and has two daughters. Arudo, though, was treated as a foreigner because of his appearance. This makes us wonder about the definition of a Japanese. Indeed, many Japanese seem to have a fixed idea of what a Japanese should look like. They have no trouble digesting the reality of a Japanese-Peruvian or Japanese-American, but reverse the words and they have a strong resistance to the notion of Peruvian-Japanese or American-Japanese.

However, we now live in an age in which more than 30,000 "international marriages" are reported in Japan each year. Eventually, terms like Chinese-Japanese and American-Japanese will probably become commonplace. It is time for the Japanese to recognize that the age of diversity has hit home.

The third point is related to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Following the spread of neo-Nazism in Europe, the convention was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1965. Japan eventually ratified the convention 30 years later in 1995 — the 146th country, and the last of the advanced countries, to do so. Even then, Japan was slow to establish related domestic legislation. In March 2001, in a final opinion paper on Japan, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination strongly urged Japan to enact legislation on the elimination of racial discrimination that carries penalties.

A U.N. study report issued in March 2000 notes that Japan's low birthrate and the increasing average age of its population will force it in 50 years to accept about 310,000 immigrants a year to maintain its labor force. That's the equivalent of the population of a medium-size city. When a relatively uniform society takes in large numbers of people with different cultural backgrounds, there will be some anxiety and friction.

According to the recently issued white paper on the police, as the number of foreigners entering Japan has increased over the past decade, the number of crimes involving foreigners has risen 2.3 times and the number of arrests has jumped 1.6 times. Such problems will not be solved by harboring a dislike of new neighbors and shutting them out. We must build a society that gently and kindly embraces different peoples and minorities. It is important for each of us to be prepared. That should be the lesson of the Sapporo District Court case.

The Japan Times:
November 18, 2002
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      問題の訴訟は小樽市の入浴施設で利用を拒否された外国出身の男性3人が、人種差別撤廃条約に反するとして、施設の経営会社と市に600万円の損害賠償を求めたもの。地裁は、原告が人権侵害と侮辱を受けたとして会社側に300万円の慰謝料支払いを命じる判決を言い渡した。また、自治体には人種差別撤廃における国際法上の義務はないとして市への請求を棄却した。

      裁判は3つの点で注目に値する。第一に、商業的権利と人権のバランスをどう取るのか。第二に、外国人と日本人をどう区別するのか。第三に、人種差別撤廃に関する日本の努力は十分か。

      第一の点について、小樽市の入浴施設は、ロシア人水兵の利用者が急増した90年代初頭、水兵の一部が飲酒して騒ぐなどマナーが悪かったことから「外国人お断り」の看板を出し始めた。今回の判決はそうした商習慣への警告ととれる。

      第二の点について、原告の有道出人氏は米国出身だが日本国籍を取得しており、外見で外国人と判断された。では、日本人の定義とは何なのか。日本にも、多様性の時代がやって来たのだ。 第三の点は、65年に国連総会で採択された人種差別撤廃条約に関わる問題だ。日本が条約を批准したのは30年後の95年で、国内の関連法の制定も遅々として進まなかった。

      日本は出生率低下と高齢化により、50年後には労働力確保のため年間31万人の移民を受け入れざるを得なくなるという。そうなるとある程度の文化的摩擦は避けられない。

      外国人入国者数が増えるとともに、外国人が関わる犯罪が増加してきた。しかし新しい隣人を嫌い、閉め出していてはこの問題は解決しない。様々な民族や少数派の人々を快く受け入れる社会を築かなくてはならない。我々一人一人にその心構えが必要だ。札幌地裁の判決はそれを教えてくれた。

The Japan Times Weekly
November 23, 2002
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