Peace Philosophy Centre, based in Vancouver, Canada (est. 2007), provides a space for dialogue and facilitates learning for creating a peaceful and sustainable world. ピース・フィロソフィー・センター(カナダ・バンクーバー 2007年設立)は平和で持続可能な世界を創るための対話と学びの場を提供します。피스필로소피센터(캐나다·밴쿠버 2007년 설립)는 평화롭고 지속 가능한 세계를 만들기 위한 대화와 배움의 장소를 제공합니다. 欢迎来到和平哲学中心!我们来自加拿大温哥华,我们致力于促进对话及建立可持续发展的和平世界。欢迎您留下宝贵的评论。Follow Twitter: @PeacePhilosophy / "Like" Facebook: Peace Philosophy Centre メールEmail: peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com
To view articles in English only, click HERE. 日本語投稿のみを表示するにはここをクリック。点击此处观看中文稿件。한국어 투고★Follow Twitter ツイッターは@PeacePhilosophy and Facebook★投稿内に断り書きがない限り、当サイトの記事の転載は許可が必要です。peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com にメールをください。Re-posting from this blog requires permission unless otherwise specified. Please email peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com to contact us.
캐나다에서 인사드립니다, 안녕하세요. 올해도 제주도에 계신 여러분이 12월 13일에 난징대학살 추모 행사를 하시는 것에 깊이 경의를 표합니다. 1937년 당시, 조선은 일본에 식민지 지배를 받고 있었습니다. 제주도 사람들에게서 빼앗은 땅에 알뜨르비행장을 만들고, 전쟁 기간을 통틀어서 제주도 사람들은 일본군에게 강제로 동원당했습니다. 일제는 식민지 지배에 더해, 현지 사람들을 가해에 동원한다는 이중의 죄를 저질렀습니다. 그럼에도 불구하고, 현재의 제주도 사람들이 알뜨르비행장에서 난징 폭격이 행해졌음을 뉘우치고 추모식을 하고 있습니다. 저는 깊이 머리를 숙이지 않을 수 없습니다.
이곳 밴쿠버에서도, 지난 12월 7일, 차이나타운에서 난징대학살 추모 집회를 했습니다. 이 지역도 선주민족에게 빼앗은 땅입니다. 당일은 난징 출신자나 일본에 폭격당한 충칭 출신자도 집회에 와주셨습니다. 일제의 상흔을 짊어진 어르신도 와주셨습니다. 난징대학살이나 수많은 일제 잔학행위의 기억이, 세월을 초월해, 세대를 초월해, 태평양을 초월한 많은 사람들 속에 남아있음을 통감했습니다.
한반도는 아직도 분단되어, 한국전쟁도 종결되지 않았습니다. 일본은 그 기인(起因)이 된 식민지 지배를 하였고, 그리고 현재까지 그것을 반성하지도 않고, 통일을 막아서는 외부 세력의 일부가 되었습니다. 일본과 대한민국은 미군에게 지배받던 상태 그대로이며, NATO(나토)의 동아시아지부 같은 존재로 여겨지고 있습니다. 저는 일본의 역사책임과 마주하면서, 아시아의 동포로서 한반도 사람들과 손을 잡고, 현재의 전쟁을 멈추고, 미래의 전쟁을 방지하는 노력을 계속하고자 합니다. 난징대학살을 기억하는 날에, 이 맹세를 새로이 합니다. 네버 어게인!
Here is the text, in English, with Chinese translation (simplified and traditional) by Arc Zhen Han, of my speech at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Vigil, held in Chinatown, Vancouver, BC, Canada, on December 7, 2024. With the video compiled and subtitled by E. Kage. See more information here.
Nanjing Massacre Memorial Vigil Address
December 7, 2024
Satoko Oka Norimatsu
Hello my name is Satoko Oka Norimatsu. I am a writer and organizer for historical justice and decolonization of East Asia and the Pacific. I am originally from Tokyo, Japan, and since 1997, I have lived here, in the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Thank you so much for coming to our memorial, on this cold winter day.
Growing up in Japan, I never learned about the history of the Japanese Empire’s wars and colonization. When I was 17, I got an opportunity to study at an international school in Victoria, and then, for the first time, I learned about the Japanese Empire’s war crimes and atrocities, from fellow Asian students from Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. This was the beginning of my journey. As a citizen of Japanese ancestry, my responsibility is to help bring awareness to this history, to fight the history denialism, and to help bring justice to the victims, families, and members of the victimized communities.
Today, December 7, marks the 83rd anniversary of the 1941 Japanese surprise attacks against the British and the United States’ colonies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Japan waged these attacks to continue the empire’s aggressive war and occupation in China that had been continuing since their invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932.
The Empire of Japan’s aggression against China goes back further, the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the military intervention with the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5, the military invasions to Shandongs in 1927-28. In 1927, my father was born in Hankow, now part of Wuhan, Hubei Province. My grandfather was the president of a newspaper company in the Japanese colony in Hankow. When my father was 2 months old, his family went back to Japan, and my grandfather died immediately after that. I deeply regret that my grandfather took part in the Japanese occupation of China.
Japan intensified its aggression against China after the Lugou Bridge Battle on July 7, 1937, waged a full-scale battle in Shanghai in August that lasted for 3 months, afflicting thousands of civilians, then marched on to Nanjing in early December. This is when the Japanese Army committed the Nanjing Massacre: the mass slaughters of tens of thousands of Chinese POWs, unarmed soldiers, and random, brutal killings of tens of thousands of civilians, and savage raping and killing of tens of thousands of women and girls. If you have read Iris Chang’s Rape of Nanking, or any other literature on the Nanjing Massacre, no one would argue that it was one of the worst, most horrendous atrocities in human history. These Japanese military leaders and soldiers, heavily indoctrinated with the emperor-centred fanatic racist ideology that made them believe that Japanese were a superior race to their Asian neighbours, were capable of conducting the most ferocious, inhuman acts against fellow human beings.
Nanjing Massacre was not the only massacre in the war. There were countless massacres, bombings, forced labour, rape and sexual slavery, chemical and biological warfare, “kill-all, burn-all, and loot-all” conducts throughout the war until Japan finally surrendered in August of 1945. Next year, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the WWII, which meant liberation of all the Asia-Pacific countries and regions under the Japanese occupation. Today, the Japanese government, its political leaders, media, education, and the society in general are largely in denial or in ignorance about the unspeakable suffering that the Japanese wars brought to the people of the Asia-Pacific and POWs of Allied nations. It is a shame.
There are, however, people in many parts of Japan who take this history to heart, and hold commemorative and educational events around the time of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day --- as far as I am aware, in Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kobe, Hiroshima, Kochi, Nagasaki, and Okinawa. While the Japanese government ignores it, hundreds of Japanese citizens visit Nanjing, to attend the National Memorial Ceremony held there on December 13. I was there in 2007, the 70th anniversary, and 2017, the 80th anniversary. The scarf I am wearing today is from the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, with the Chinese velvet cress, the symbol flower for the remembrance for Nanjing.
Here, I join my colleagues in Japan and beyond, renewing our pledge for “Never Again,” never again to allow our country to be an aggressive military power and wage wars, the promise of the Article 9, the war-renunciation clause of the Japanese post-war Constitution.
On this 87th anniversary, I would like to express my deepest condolences for the victims and families of the Nanjing Massacre, and for the victims and families of the countless atrocities by the Empire of Japan. Never again. Thank you.
Satoko Oka Norimatsu is Co-Chair of Article 9 Canada, Director of Peace Philosophy Centre, Co-author of Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018).
简体字 Simplified Chinese version:
你好,我的名字是乘松聡子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)。我是一名致力于东亚和太平洋地区历史正义与去殖民化的作家和活动家。我来自日本东京,自1997年以来,我一直生活在加拿大温哥华——穆斯克姆族、斯阔米什族和特斯雷沃图族印第安人的传统领地。非常感谢大家在这个寒冷的冬日来到我们的纪念活动。
乘松聪子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)是加拿大第九条会(Article 9 Canada)共同主席、和平哲学中心(Peace Philosophy Centre)主任,并合著了《抵抗之岛:冲绳对抗日本与美国》(Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States,罗曼与利特菲尔德出版社,2018年)。
繁體字 Traditional Chinese version:
你好,我的名字是乘松聡子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)。我是一名致力於東亞和太平洋地區歷史正義與去殖民化的作家和活動家。我來自日本東京,自1997年以來,我一直生活在加拿大溫哥華——穆斯克姆族、斯阔米什族和特斯雷沃圖族印第安人的傳統領地。非常感謝大家在這個寒冷的冬日來到我們的紀念活動。
乘松聰子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)是加拿大第九條會(Article 9 Canada)共同主席、和平哲學中心(Peace Philosophy Centre)主任,並合著了《抵抗之島:沖繩對抗日本與美國》(Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States,羅曼與利特菲爾德出版社,2018年)。
This post is in Japanese. Please use a translation program to read it. 这篇文章是日文的。请使用翻译软件阅读。這篇文章是日文的。請使用翻譯軟體閱讀。
司会をつとめた Nikkei Vancouver for Justice のベックさん(右) とメガンさん(左)
12月7日午後5時から、バンクーバーチャイナタウンにて、南京大虐殺追悼集会を行いました(Nikkei Vancouver for Justice, カナダ9条の会、ピース・フィロソフィーセンター共催)。この時期のバンクーバーは雨ばかりですが、なぜかこの集会の間のために雨が止まったかのような幸運に恵まれ、屋外で無事に追悼集会を行うことができました。
予想以上の、50人かそれ以上の人が来てくれました。若者中心に運営したイベントであったことは歴史記憶を継承する上で意義深かったと思います。Nikkei Vancouver for Justice のベックさん、メガンさん、またチャイナタウンで活動するチャイニーズ系の若者たちがたくさん手伝ってくれ、よいコラボレーションとなったと思います。日系人や日系移民も10人ほど来てくれました。
きたる12月7日(土)午後5-7時、チャイナタウンの中華門前(50 East Pender St., Vancouver, BC) で、南京大虐殺87年の追悼集会を行います。カナダ9条の会、ピース・フィロソフィー・センター、Nikkei Vancouver for Justice など、日本にゆかりのあるグループや個人と、チャイナタウンにゆかりのある有志の仲間と共に企画しました。スピーチ、追悼の時間などを予定しております。ぜひご参加ください。屋外ですので暖かい服装で来てください。雨天決行。お問い合わせは南京大虐殺追悼集会実行委員会まで nanjingvigil@gmail.com
In March of this year, a man stationed at Kadena Airbase in Okinawa was indicted for the kidnapping and sexual assault in December 2023 of a girl under 16. Only when it was reported in the local media on June 25 did the Japanese government in Tokyo inform the Okinawa Prefectural Government of the indictment. It was also revealed that a Marine was charged with attempting to sexually assault a woman in May. The delayed reporting of these cases is widely viewed in Okinawa as a Japanese government cover-up.
Sexual assaults have plagued Okinawa ever since U.S. forces first arrived there in 1945. According to Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence (2023), there have been 655 rapes, attempted rapes, and attempted kidnappings. These figures are just the tip of the iceberg; sexual violence is always under-reported. With U.S. and Japanese courts hardly delivering any justice for the victims, whose families and communities are hosting the bases purportedly for the protection of people throughout Japan, these assaults have sparked some of the largest demonstrations and sustained grassroots action against U.S. bases. In the aftermath of the 1945 battle, American soldiers kidnapped women and girls from refugee camps and raped them. A five-year-old was raped and murdered in 1955. In recent decades Okinawans have organized huge anti-base rallies, such as after the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl in 1995, and after the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in 2016.
Okinawa reverted from twenty-seven years of U.S. military occupation to Japanese administration in 1972, but the bases still occupy large areas of land, with U.S. forces numbering some 26,000. Okinawans are burdened with 70% of the total U.S. military presence in Japan. Yet their island chain accounts for only 0.6% of the nation's total land area and about one percent of Japan’s population. In addition to sexual assaults, the bases bring noise from military airfields that interrupt classes in schools and disturb the sleep of local residents. Leakage of PFAS "forever" chemicals poison the drinking water. Aircraft crashes and drunk-driving kill local residents.
We, the Okinawa Interest Group, invite you to join us on the 4th of October (the 5th in Japan) with two featured guest speakers, Suzuyo Takazato and Alexis Dudden.
Suzuyo Takazato, Co-chair of Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence and a former member of the Naha city council, helped establish a rape crisis center for the victims of military sexual violence and has worked for peace by resisting the militarization of Okinawa.
Alexis Dudden, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut and Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore, helped organize a 2015 letter signed by a group of American academics condemning Japan’s denial of the history of its military sex slavery. A recent piece of hers, “Okinawans must not be overlooked in new US–Japan counter-crime forum”, has been published in the East Asia Forum.
Steve Rabson, a member of the Okinawa Interest Group and professor emeritus of Brown University will comment on the guest speakers’ talks.
As with our previous “open press conference,” we will set aside time for participants to ask questions to our two speakers. Let’s gather online to study and benefit from the insightful analysis of two leading feminists on topics such as the patriarchal values that run deep in the military community of the U.S. bases in Okinawa.
「1923年の関東大震災後の朝鮮人・中国人大虐殺に関する国家責任を否認する日本政府に対する日系ディアスポラ市民団体による共同声明 Nikkei Diaspora Statement on Japan’s Denial of the Great Kanto Earthquake Korean & Chinese Massacre of 1923」が、神奈川新聞に取り上げられました。
「関東大震災絵巻」(淇谷 作;新井勝紘氏がネットオークションで入手)より、朝鮮人虐殺場面と見られる画面 The part that appears to be a scene of slaughter of Koreans in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake 1923, from Kanto Daishinsai Emaki, by Kikoku, discovered by Arai Katsuhiro)
Today, September 1 (August 31 in North America), marks the 101st anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, after which over 6,000 Korean and about 800 Chinese people were killed by the Japanese police, military, reserve soldiers, vigilantes, and other civilians, encouraged by the propaganda by the Japanese government that Koreans were committing crimes (they were not). It is one of the worst hate crimes of human history and yet so little known outside of Japan. It happened in the context of the Japanese colonial rule of Korea (1910-45), when Japanese colonial authorities were more and more fearful of the growing Korean resistance. Today, more than a dozen Nikkei groups mostly based in North America have together issued a statement demanding the Japanese government to recognize the history, not deny it, and take measures to right the wrong. Peace Philosophy Centre is one of the endorsers of this statement, and we can be reached at peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com.
Nikkei Diaspora Statement on Japan’s Denial of the Great Kanto Earthquake Korean & Chinese Massacre of 1923
August 31, 2024
Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles
Today we speak in one voice on the 101st anniversary of the Great Kanto Massacre — the violent mass murder of over 6,000 Koreans and an estimated 800 Chinese throughout the Kanto region of Japan, solely on the basis of their ancestries.
Historians have asserted that the Kanto Massacre was an act of genocide: an international crime for which the state must be held responsible. However, Japan denies its own history, despite an abundance of evidence and survivor testimonies.
We unequivocally condemn Japan’s denial of state responsibility in the Kanto Massacre as a cowardly act that signals an alarming resurgence of imperial values and interests. The majority of Korean and Chinese victims of the Kanto Massacre were pushed out of their homelands colonized by Imperial Japan. These migrants fueled the imperial war machine as disposable labor, in weapons factories, infrastructure development, mining, and so on. During the Japanese aggressive war against China from 1931 to 45, Japan forcefully mobilized women and girls from Korea, China and other areas, in the Japanese military sexual slavery system. It was through their exploitation that the Imperial Japanese government pursued nation-building and waged wars of aggression throughout the Asia Pacific.
We are a diverse group of North America-based diaspora, predominantly Nikkei, Zainichi Korean, and Zainichi Chinese of diverse genders, representing more than a dozen social justice organizations throughout Turtle Island, also known as the United States and Canada, where European settlers committed genocide against the Indigenous people to steal their land, resources, and traditional knowledge. Settlers went on to benefit off the enslavement of people from the African continent, and following emancipation, Asian ‘coolies,’ in their imperial pursuit of Manifest Destiny on their backs.
For ten months now, we have seen the live-streaming of genocide funded by our tax dollars — of well over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry — by the settler-colonial state of Israel, which has been waging a 75-year campaign to dehumanize and erase the Palestinian people with American weapons, under the cover of the U.S. in the name of “military necessity” and “national security.”
Today, in the United States, there is increasing hate and violence against LGBTQ people. In 2024, more than 600 legislative bills against transgender people have been submitted, 44 of which have been signed into law. We believe it is not a coincidence that hate crimes against LGBTQ people are on the rise. When the state controls sexual, gender and reproductive functions of the population and excludes specific groups as a burden or threat to the whole society, then history has already shown us they can be subject to wholesale violations, if not elimination.
During WWII, support among Americans and Canadians for the mass incarceration of their fellow citizens solely due to their Japanese ancestry was considered patriotic. Therefore, we know firsthand that racism is the real threat to human rights. Racist assumptions of inherent criminality, immorality, and defectivity are precisely what makes genocide possible, and are directed against victims of genocide the world over, including against the Koreans and Chinese in Japan in 1923.
All future generations deserve a country that has resolved its past mistakes so future descendants of perpetrators do not have to inherit problems for which they are not personally responsible. Acknowledgment of the Kanto Massacre is a necessary first step towards a genuinely post-imperial Japan. Furthermore, we demand the Japanese government meet international standards for state accountability to victims of human rights violations that include, but are not limited to, an official state apology, full investigation and disclosure of the truth, reparations to victims and victims’ families, guarantees of non-repetition, and teaching this history in the textbooks for future generations.
To deny state responsibility, and the racism that it promoted, comes at too much of a cost, shattering the real possibility of equality and peace. For example, the arsonist who in 2021 burned Zainichi Korean residential buildings in Utoro, Kyoto, as a show of hostility toward Koreans. Back in 1923, under the government's blessings and encouragement, it was the civilians and leaders of fire stations or local neighborhood groups that took up arms and “valiantly” went after the “criminal” Koreans in Emperor’s name.
You — the Japanese government — are responsible to humanity, and above all to your own constituents of today and tomorrow. In the name of all peace-loving people of Japan and Nikkei around the world, we call on the government of Japan to take the opportunity now to respect and uphold the value of human rights today, in order to guarantee a future that is inhospitable to genocide against any group and thus, can promote lasting peace and security for all.
Lastly, but not least, we wish to convey our collective condolences to all families of victims. May the souls of our ancestors rest in peace, and their memory a source of our collective solace and strength.
We are: (organizations listed in alphabetical order)
Article 9 Canada, Canada
Eclipse Rising - US/Japan
Hiroshima Palestine Vigil Community, Hiroshima
J-Town Action and Solidarity, Los Angeles
Nikkei Decolonization Tour (NDT), San Francisco Bay Area/Japan
Nikkei Resisters, San Francisco Bay Area
Nikkei Uprising, Chicago
Nikkei Vancouver for Justice, Vancouver
Nodutdol, US
NoNukes Action Committee, San Francisco Bay Area
Paper Cranes for Palestine, Toronto
Peace Philosophy Centre, Vancouver
San Francisco Comfort Women Justice Coalition, San Francisco Bay Area