Lost and Found - Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan by Hiraku Shimoda

It is still a pretty widespread idea that Japan, during two centuries of Tokugawa-led seclusion, was a unified monolith, managed peacefully and efficiently by the central powers in Edo. Within this narrow focus, one tends to omit the fact that the mavericks leading the Meiji Restoration had the difficult task of uniting to their cause a people dispensed over 260 distinct domains. At the outbreak of the Meiji Restoration Japan was messy and full of troubling divisions and, as one would expect, parts of the population couldn’t shake off the past or old loyalties with ease. This dividing line between old and new was carried out at a regional level, with some domains clinging to bakufu allegiances while others embraced the Satsuma and Chōshū alliance (satchō). The regional split is why the road to ‘modernity’ was not an easy one: on numerous occasions it took a bloody turn, the worst example being the Boshin War (1868-1869) which culminated in the disestablishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate and saw the return of the imperial court to prominent position of power. Far from ending the regional split (even through various collective and individual punishments imposed by the victors) the peace and stability following the Meiji Restoration was every so often disturbed by calls for regional independence, preservation of regional identity and historical revision of the actors of the Boshin War. All of these features had been drastically reduced, transformed and amalgamated as requisites of a newfangled, modern nation-state. The obstinate cries supporting the original form of these features were most famously and vociferously expressed by the defeated bakufu supporters, the people of Aizu domain. The circumstances which set Aizu apart and gave it the rare courage to clash with the increasingly-autocratic Meiji government are the subject of Mr. Hiraku Shimoda’s book Lost and Found - Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan.

Mr. Shimoda takes stock of a special topographical counterpoint to the notion of Japanese homogeneity and territorial uniformity by investigating a region where the strong local identity was often disconnected from the collective national ethos. In doing so, he confronts the massive reshaping of Aizu’s regional culture during the Meiji period and the resistance generated by such historical transfiguration. But if this local identity was so tenacious, so set against the forces building a nation-state (and, synchronously, an empire) then where is Aizu today? 

No political unit called Aizu has existed since 1868… One must squint at a map just to see the word Aizu appear as a mere vestigial prefix on the names of several towns and villages scattered across western Fukushima prefecture.

Situated in the heart of Tohoku region, Aizu comprised the western mountainous part of Fukushima Prefecture. During the Edo period, the area was a Tokugawa protectorate, responsible for keeping a look-out on northern daimyōs with dubious loyalties such as the Satake, Date and Nanbu. The region was generally stricken by poverty and only the city of Wakamatsu had a reputation for trade and prosperity. Against these adverse conditions and because it recognised the strategic importance of an ally in an area far from Edo’s reach, the Tokugawa continued to support Aizu financially and militarily until the tragic outcome of the Boshin War. While the foundations of adherence to the Tokugawa cause can be traced back almost two centuries before the Meiji Restoration, it is worth noting here that, even during the Edo period, Aizu had a reputation for unruliness, especially when it came to samurai standards of proper behaviour. In addition, what could be interpreted as a sense for regional loyalty or even strong regional identity was not exactly developed along strict lines but was more the object of self-serving, financial prosperity and survival:

The rulers and the ruled could diverge greatly on who and what ‘belonged’ in Aizu and how much they valued the domain as a rightful place of belonging that merited their allegiance. The domain did what it could, naturally enough, to keep human and material capital within its borders for the sake of domainal well-being.

This predilection for self-preservation rather than regional loyalty was evident after the Aizu resistance was crushed by the imperial forces in the Boshin War. Various witnesses recorded the failure on the part of the commoners to express pity or sympathy towards the daimyo and his generals who were captured and carried off to Edo as prisoners of war. This indifference especially shocked the commander in chief of the victorious Tosa army and compelled him to express his feelings as following:

“When I witnessed all the commoners fleeing with their belongings on their backs, I was deeply impressed… The people avoided conflict and scattered, with none feeling any debt to the many generations of lordly benevolence… Upon seeing the fall of their country, the people felt no more remorse than did some livestock — how could this be?”

How is it possible that after the demise of their mighty Tokugawa supporter, Aizu became synonymous with a hotbed of ‘rebels’ and ‘enemies of the court,’ a mix of rowdy people who vehemently resisted and constantly frustrated forced amalgamation into the budding Meiji nation-state? And why, from this resistance, did it emerge as a primary exemplar of steadfast loyalty to the imperial cause? The reasons are interestingly varied and Mr. Shimoda presents them with the skill of a masterly historian. 

After the Boshin War 70 percent of Aizu’s rice crops were destroyed and the land was plunged into poverty and famine. While the Meiji restorationists regarded these dire straits as a fit punishment for a region that acted against their goals, soon they had to revise their isolationist policy and to contribute to the socio-economic conditions of the area. This was highly necessary as between 1868 and 1876 Aizu was a hub for counterfeiters, bandits and antigovernment insurrections. Kido Takayoshi, one of the main protagonists in the Meiji Restoration, denounced Aizu as “the greatest villain of all” and sought to “instil fear by punishing the unruly rebels… and make it impossible for others to harbour any rebellious thoughts.” Another course of action which was seen as necessary for the creation of a strong, unified state was the relocation of Aizu samurai families so as to reduce the influence which they might have had upon local feelings of disloyalty and unruliness. As one statesman aptly put it, “there is no better way to imperialise the people and wash away old habits than samurai relocation.” 

All of these actions enraged the Aizu people and reinforced their antagonism toward the central government. This enmity was already rooted in the terrible devastation brought upon the land in the aftermath of the Boshin War. But with the displacement of the old families and the encroachment of modern industrialisation supplanting old forms of mercantilism and sustenance, they also felt that their culture was being forced out of the region. Aizu locals voiced their displeasure in various petitions, calling out for the return of the Matsudaira lords (who have ruled Aizu by Tokugawa decree for centuries):

“We are a people who have always lived in an isolated land enclosed on all four sides, and we are stubborn in our ways. We are accustomed to the several centuries of benevolent nurturing by Matsudaira lordship… The ways of our old lord have seeped into our skin over more than two hundred years, and they cannot be forgotten even for a moment…”

The anger increased in 1876 when Aizu was incorporated into Fukushima prefecture. Mr. Shimoda regards this move as the straw that broke the camel’s back because it gave the people of Aizu a platform to hold even more tightly unto to their views of regional exceptionality and resulted in pronounced demonstrations of local identity.

It was the climate of modern national consolidation that fostered this local self-discovery. Faced with external violations of unstated but long-understood borders — an insensitive gerrymandering where Tokyo’s designs seemed grossly incongruous with established practices — some residents of  former Aizu were driven to reaffirm local norms and discover their distinct locality. Both prefectural rule and administrative consolidation had aimed for nation-building efficiency, but those impositions gave rise, most unwittingly, to a sharper awareness of Aizu’s regional identity relative to its neighbours and the new nation.

From this strong notion of personal and collective identity prevalent in the ex-Aizu province, the concept of Aizuppo became established. A singular definition of this term (which is in use even at the present) is hard to pinpoint. To be sure, it harkens back to the notion of “the Aizu spirit” that was invoked regularly and obsessively during the late Meiji Period to signify strength of character, loyalty and, above all, stubbornness in the face of drastic change and modern reform. “The Aizu spirit” was (and is) thus a thoroughly conservative notion, one that adhered to the acute exceptionalism of a supposedly unchanging tradition. 

The famous stubbornness of “The Aizu spirit” gradually began to be equated with steadfast loyalty which, in the nationalistic and military environment of the Meiji period, was the most admirable and supreme virtue the Japanese people could have. And because absolute loyalty toward country and emperor was the criterion that all good citizens had to demonstrate, the Aizu locals could now claim that they were the paragon, the embodiment of this moral attribute. Owing to its committed and unfaltering support for the Tokugawa government throughout history, the Aizu province had proven to be reliably loyal and so the designation of “rebels” attached to them and to all bakufu supporters in history textbooks had to be revised. The Aizu people couldn’t be rebels when in fact they most ardently and loyally supported the original Japanese state, seeing it through to its tragic demise. The sacrifices made by being on the wrong side of history were enough to warrant special consideration in the case of Aizu as it not only endured disproportionate humiliation and punishment compared to other provinces, but it eventually disavowed its ties to the old regime by taking down Saigō Takamori’s troops in the Seinen War of 1877 (otherwise known as the Satsuma Rebellion). All of this energised a grand region-wide movement in support of the elimination of the appellation of ‘rebels’ when referring to Aizu people, which even drew the passionate assistance of Tokutomi Sohō, the famous journalist and historian. Mr. Shimoda details with intriguing zest the well-publicised fight over textbook terminology but I cannot focus on this matter here. Nevertheless the report on this subject is one of the most exhilarating episodes in the book, well worth exploring. 

Furthermore I decided not to go into the excellent account of the famous Byakkotai contained in the latter part of the book. Mr. Shimoda does an outstanding job of demystifying this historical episode. I will say this though: while the Japanese nation-state was being wrenched onto a new track of history, it needed new narratives to keep the people galvanised to its cause. Imperialism needed a new disguise, a rhetoric that could be easily consumed by the public. Into all of this came “the Aizu spirit” which proved to be the most popular promoter of loyalty to the nation-state on the strength of its weighty history and convincing symbolism. National identity — a strong sense of it, necessarily accepted by everyone —  was at the forefront of governmental work in the Meiji period. Devising and institutionalising collective appreciation for a sense of belonging to a greater, unifying whole proved to be tougher than it was expected: regional differences constantly undermined this project imposed from above and from outside. In the end, these regional differences allowed room for finding a distinct socio-cultural place in the emerging national landscape that was in much need of uniformity and conformity in order to stay strong. And even regions wanted to be part of a strong nation. In Aizu’s case, Mr. Shimoda best exemplifies this trajectory when he remarks the following:

Aizu’s sense of difference — articulated through decades of identity rhetoric and captured by the idea of a so-called Aizu spirit — emerged out of an ultimately synthetic project whereby those who had once been deemed different sought to, and largely did, overcome that difference. In doing so, they could discover a homeland that satisfied local claims to legitimacy while ultimately confirming the nation’s supremacy. Thus an Aizuppo could be undeniably and unapologetically Japanese; in fact, there could hardly be an Aizuppo without a Japanese.

Work cited:

Shimoda, Hiraku. Lost and Found. Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan. Harvard University Press, 2014.

On the Margins of Empire - Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan by Jeffrey Paul Bayliss

     

Norma Fields’s book In the Realm of a Dying Emperor made a strong impression when it came out in 1991. In the preface, Norma laid out an acute observation which, characteristic of her fearless disposition, explored the complexities of her book’s content and exposed the bleak, precarious nature of what it meant to live in one of the world’s ‘most orderly and prosperous societies.’ An intimate passage strips bare the historicity behind the prose (misguidedly implied by the author’s credentials as a foremost specialist in East Asian Studies) and recovers its purview, elevating the book into the realm of personal confession and social criticism:

When there are neither visible oppressors nor victims, and where memory of historical suffering has grown remote, freedom becomes subtle, banal, and finally, elusive. To call attention to its flight amidst pervasive prosperity is a thankless undertaking. Most who embark on such a venture have not chosen it. They have been driven to it, by vivid confrontation with the residues of historic oppression, by encounters with victims and oppressors, who are, after all, produced even in times of prosperity and peace as well as war, and finally, by recognition of the repressiveness of everyday life, a recognition they cannot dispel in spite of potency of common sense, most especially the belief in the existence and importance of social harmony.

The unnerving quality of these lines makes itself present in Jeffrey Paul Bayliss’ On the Margins of Empire - Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan, the subject of this review. Unlike Norma’s book, which deals with a Japan in the midst of a psychologically-redefining, collective upheaval following the death of the Showa Emperor in 1989, Bayliss’ book approaches a Japan at the turn of the twentieth century, when the country found itself in the throes of an unrelenting and successful pursuit of Western industrial technologies, vital requisites for its own militaristic and imperialistic aims. The bulk of Bayliss’ monumental archival research deals with the periods of time mentioned in the title, specifically the late Meiji period (1868-1912), the Taishō period (1912-1926) and the prewar and interwar Shōwa period (1926-1945). The political, social and economic traumas of this interval and their importance in the historical formation of a modern Japan cannot be overstated but they have been tackled more extensively by other writers. In this book, Bayliss is concerned with the sophistications of the relationship between Korean and Buraku minorities under the auspices of violent modernization, failed attempts at a democratic process and the militarization of all aspects of life, to mention just a few of the major overhauls of the social order during the scramble to create Dai Nippon Teikoku (‘the Great Empire of Japan’).

The common plane where Bayliss’ and Norma’s intellectual concerns actually intersect is revealed by the first line of his Introduction:

For those with more than just a casual interest in modern Japan, the once widely held notion of it as a remarkably homogenous, socially harmonious nation has been exposed as a historically contracted and carefully maintained fiction - one that conceals a diversity of groups of various ethnic and social backgrounds in order to deny their claims to membership in the nation and facilitate discrimination and exploitation.

 Bayliss’ book, as the title aptly reveals, examines the history of the Burakumin and the Koreans and the formation of their identities from victims of a protracted discriminating social order that has its roots in Japanese antiquity to militant activists in a hostile modern environment afflicted by war and repression. For these social categories their oppressors are visible, intolerance is a constant living reality and freedom is not only a distant panacea but, in Japan of the Taishō and early Shōwa years, it is also a dangerous, even criminal, object of interest. There are many injustices portrayed in this book but Bayliss’ main aim is not to compile a catalogue of historical proofs for an acrimonious audience. His main purpose (at which he excels) is to draw on a voluminous assortment of primary and secondary resources to construct an almost complete overview of the development of Buraku and Korean identities. These two distinctive groups on the margins of Japanese society progressively converge, influence each other and eventually break apart in their mutual pursuit of recognition, tolerance and equality. 

The cultural, social and political realities behind the convergence and the split dominate the pages of the book. Bayliss’ choice to investigate these two minorities together, in a comparative manner, is nothing short of exciting, if not necessary, especially in light of the extensive research on single-minority focus which dominates the scholarly field. As the author points out, the Burakumin and the Koreans shared not only a long history of discrimination and exploitation, but they also lived together in the same communities and often worked in the same industries. As I read through, there was no doubt in my mind that, despite their many differences, contradictory allegiances and distinct identities, the Burakumin and the Koreans had their points of contact.  

The book is organized around seven chapters. To perform an individual analysis of each chapter is counterintuitive as the material covered by Bayliss is too compelling and sweeping; moreover, the author himself summarizes each chapter in his Introduction. I will instead focus on a few interesting historical points described in the book.

Chapter One takes a detailed look at the origins and evolution of discriminatory attitudes towards Koreans and Burakumin beginning with the Edo period (1603-1868) and continuing through the Meiji period (1868-1912). In order to exercise greater control over all the social strata of a newly-unified country, the Tokugawa government instituted policies that made outcaste status hereditary and legally bound. It is noteworthy to mention that a class of outcaste people (senmin or ‘unclean people’) existed even before the Edo period and it included such groups as the eta (‘much filth’) and the hinin (‘un-human’). Members of the senmin underclass undoubtedly lead a desolate existence ripe with exploitation and segregation but the Tokugawa government gave them defined roles and functions in the society (such as skinning animals, making leather, collecting and removing human waste and corpses) and these were protected and preserved by decree. Despite their prominent role, the senmin were almost virtually absent from accounts handed down by Edo period scholars — in sharp contrast to the Meiji intelligentsia who, in its attempts to build a nationalistic, all-inclusive notion of what it meant to be 'Japanese,' never ceased to hypothesize on the hereditary origins of the Burakumin, fostering more discrimination and exclusion throughout their findings and debates. 

        Another contrast to the Meiji period was the Tokugawa high regard of Korean culture, a consideration which began to wane with the appearance of kokugaku (national studies) scholars in late Edo period. From hereon and continuing beyond the Meiji period, the general view of Koreans as inferior was exemplified (and amplified) by Japanese Prime-Minister Itō Hirobumi’s assertion that a ‘subservient way of thinking’ (jidai shisō) was an inherent and causative factor to the general economic and cultural stagnation of the Korean peninsula (an evaluation that gave rise to the much-accepted teitairon or ‘stagnation theory’ among Japanese historians of that era). Bayliss does a comprehensive job of tracing the hardening of this view among Japanese nationals from mythological origins (in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki) to social Darwinian discussions characteristic of the post-industrialized capitalist ethos which flourished in Japan at the time. All of this was happening in the backdrop of a vitalized consolidation of the nation-state centering on the emperor as a symbol of national and racial unity (a process which coalesced in the notion of kokutai). Most revealing of this first chapter are the condescending and disparaging views towards the Korean and Buraku minorities by important literary figures, scholars and dignitaries such as Fukuzawa Yukichi, Katō Hiroyuki, Nitobe Inazō, Kita Sadakichi and Shibukawa Genji, to mention a few famous ones. Later it became apparent that these views were part of a more elaborate strategy to build a national identity lacking any visible imperfections or impurities, and to stage the foundations of a modern Japanese empire.

The subsequent chapters take a look at Japan’s imperialistic foundations and the seismic changes of public opinion towards war at a large socio-cultural level. The aftermath of the Korean annexation in 1910 led to the further joint marginalization of Korean and Buraku minorities and also, more notably, to their distancing from each other. This distancing was caused in large part by their opposing views concerning Japan’s global exploits. We find out that Burakumin were loyal to the state as it proceeded to exercise political and economical control over Korea, whereas Koreans understandably denounced Japan’s imperialistic incursions into their land. The Burakumin felt that by pledging uncritical support to the emperor and to the imperialistic aims of the state, they would be recognized as patriotic citizens equally worthy to be included in the greater Japanese nation-family and their discriminated status would cease to exist or, at least, be alleviated. For their part, Koreans were supportive of a self-governing Korea and their open endorsement of ‘illegal’ independence movements (most notably the March 1st Movement of 1919) vexed the Japanese. Regardless of their conflicting positions confronting the much trumpeted developments of Japanese militarism (domestically) and imperialism (externally), the principal aim of both Burakumin and Koreans surpassed political loyalties.  According to Bayliss, 

The divergent paths taken by each group were not simply the result of choosing which nation one ‘naturally’ belonged to, but came about as each formed different answers to the same fundamental problem: how to restore and maintain a sense of pride and self-worth within a society that denied human dignity to those it imagined as irredeemably different from the majority.

From the late Meiji period all the way until the conclusion of WWII, the Koreans and the Burakumin were caught in the relentless effort by the Japanese state to convert them into true ‘imperial subjects’ (kōmin). This involved the total disregard of any sort of claim to personal privacy as the state inserted itself in the community and the private lives of the Burakumin by means of kyōfūkai (moral reform societies) which sought to ‘reform’ and ‘re-educate’ the outcastes in order to make them true Japanese. These ‘cosmetic’ strategies proved to be major failures chiefly because they did not improve in any way the material livelihoods of the outcastes or the economy of their community. As for Koreans, the push to turn them into loyal citizens proved to be more brutal especially in the case of those advocating Korean independence or tried to organize into leftist societies that were sympathetic to their cause. In the midst of a rigorous and committed implementation of anti-leftist suppression, propagators and supporters of leftist ideology were hunted down, arrested, tortured and sometimes killed, while leftist organizations were banned and disbanded. By the late 1930s, Japan had endured several economic downturns and was aggressively extending its colonizing reach beyond Korea and China. This development called for ‘total mobilization’ at home:

An important part of this effort was to convert everyone, including minorities, into loyal, cooperative subjects who would contribute to the war effort and not be a burden to the state in its time of unprecedented crisis. The human dimension of ‘total mobilizaiton’ was in essence a renewed emphasis on the old slogan of ikkun banmin [‘one ruler, many people’], the idea of one familial nation, with the emperor as father and the subjects as his children.

In exchange for being part of this ‘family’ Burakumin and Koreans had to endure cruel statist exploitation in the form of slave-labor. Thousands of members of these minorities were forced to work together long, destructive hours in mills and mines (in conditions that were largely unsafe and unhygienic) with no prospect for advancement and no end in sight. Bayliss’ book offers a range of forthright descriptions of these working environments. What stands out from his outline however is not the degree of brutality that befell the Koreans and the Burakumin but the evidence of an upsurge in interminority relations which lasted until Japan’s defeat in 1945. And although these contacts were largely motivated by self-interest or, every so often, resulted in violent clashes or, in many cases, ended up popularizing the racial and social differences stirring up acerbic dissociation among the minorities, there were certain areas of association that enjoyed the participation of both Burakumin and Koreans. As Bayliss mentions in his last chapter,

…whether it was buraku women and Korean men marrying in the wake of the Pacific War, Suiheisha organizers and Korean residents of Higashi Shichijō reaching out to one another in the wake of the flood… or even buraku landlords who were willing to stick up for their Korean tenants in the face of community opposition, these acts by individuals of both minorities revealed a peculiar kind of mutual understanding and trust, born of the shared experience of living at the ostracized margins of Japanese society.

There is more to say about Bayliss’ detailed exploration of Suiheisha (a political organization founded in 1920 to fight against discrimination and defend the interests of the Burakumin until it was forced to disband in 1940); the financial and political successes of a small number of memorable and exceptional individuals among the outcastes and Koreans; the displacement of minorities or ‘unwanted elements’ to the remote regions of Manchuria in order to facilitate the state’s imperialistic expansion; the influence of leftist thought and the dynamics of proletarian organization which gave minorities the necessary ideological apparatus and the courage to demand equality in the face of classist adversity. All of these items get their own interesting chapter: nothing that can be written here can match the grand scope and sharp narrative of the book.

The insertion of Norma Field’s quote in the opening part of this review may have seemed marginal at first glance and, indeed, forced. For the unaware, it is truly insensitive to imply that the social traumas experienced by the Burakumin and the Koreans living in prewar and wartime Japan are comparable to the ‘social traumas’ in the aftermath of Hirohito’s death. But while the death of the emperor ushered a new era (Heisei) the discrimination against visible and invisible minorities remained in place and, with minor variations, it stood the test of time. Even today, Buraku ghettos still exist.* In these ‘times of prosperity and peace,’ black vans belonging to the Zaitokukai (a nationalistic, far-right group) drive through Zainichi Korean neighbourhoods chanting violent, derogatory slogans, calling out for the deportation of non-Japanese foreigners. Following a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, permanent non-Japanese residents are refused the right to access the nation’s welfare system.* These ‘visible’ displays of intolerance (camouflaged in the deceiving mantle of economical restructuring and freedom of expression) carry a historical burden. So what can be done to prevent the harmful growth of intolerance and discrimination in these times of globalization, when the rights of minorities are unjustly propped against overriding measures in the servitude of financial capitalism (a different sort of empire), when national history is cultivated in a petri dish of collective amnesia? Bayliss concludes his book on a somber tone, one which could be the starting point for an answer:

This was the dilemma that had plagued these minorities since the late Meiji period: assimilation was no guarantee of acceptance. Only when the majority no longer had any recognition of difference, past or present, could these minorities be accepted as equals. This unforgiving logic was as true for minority individuals as it was for the groups with which they bore an association. For burakumin and Koreans in Japan during the age of empire, it meant a place on the margins, regardless of whether they conceived of liberation from discrimination in terms of complete acceptance by the majority or complete freedom from association with it. 

Works cited in this article:

Bayliss, Jeffrey Paul. On the Margins of Empire: Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan. Harvard University Asia Center, 2013.

Field, Norma. In the Realm of a Dying Emperor. Random House LLC, 2011.