Japan recognizes Ainu as an indigenous people

Chile has several indigenous ethnic groups including the Rapa Nui (Easter Islanders), Aymara and Mapuche. All three represent nearly one million members of Chile’s total population of 16 million. However, none these Chilean three indigenous groups have been recognized in Chile’s constitution.

Japan is a nation of 127 million inhabitants. Within this enormous group, the Ainu barely exceed the capacity of Chile’s Estadio Nacional (65,000). The question is: why did Japan’s parliament and the prime minister finally address this issue? It should also be noted that neither Japan nor Chile has pushed for a constitutional amendment.

“The Ainu are a people who inhabit the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Some historians suggest that they even came to the area during the last ice age (or 18,000 years ago). The interesting thing is that they do not look like the Japanese. They have Australoid and Caucasian features,” indicates Ariel Takeda, author of the book Japoneses-Chilenos and a frequent contributor to this Website.

The Ainu look different from what we would consider typically Japanese, especially their eyes. The Ainu have eyes which are unique due to their people’s shared facial characteristics. “The Japanese have always regarded them as outsiders. The Ainu have undoubtedly suffered discriminatory treatment and the typical (historic) ills of (all Ainu); namely, the loss of their lands and, without going into further detail, discrimination, at least in the workplace,” continues Takeda.

However, this condition is going to change in the near future because, as of June 2008, the Japanese parliament issued a resolution recognizing the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan. The text of the legislation also includes a direct request to the government to take “immediate” action to help to Ainu, which, among other issues, has historically trailed behind the rest of the country in economic terms. The Ainu are, in fact, one of the poorest groups in Japan.

Two factors explain the Japanese authorities’ sudden recognition of the Ainu community. The first would seem to be related to the upcoming G8 meeting in Sapporo, which also happens to be the capital of Hokkaido. This will undoubtedly be viewed as a positive measure by the international media set to cover the event. 

The second would seem to be geostrategy. The age-old dispute between Japan and Russia over the Kuril, or Chishima Islands, involves the Ainu because members of their group reside there to this day. Thus, an advance on the Ainu issue means progress on the Kuril dispute.

All of the above would seem to lead towards reparations payments. But in Japan, as elsewhere in the world, the payments of reparations by a national government can be quite controversial. And in this case, it is unclear whether or not financial restitution will even be made, at least in the short term. “The issue of money has always been a sensitive issue in Japan, particularly for the Supreme Court, which has historically been reluctant to do this kind of thing. (The Court) ruled against making reparations payments to neighboring nations after WWII, so I (predict) the Ainu will get some other kind of compensation,” stated Luis Diaz, Chilean professor of Applied Linguistics (English-Japanese translation). 

Professor Diaz also explains that, despite similarities, making comparisons between Japan’s Ainu people and Chile’s Mapuche would be a mistake. “We should be clear about the fact that the Mapuche legal cases (pending in Chilean courts) are much greater (in scale) than those of the Ainu. With out getting into too much detail, I have yet to see (even) the initial steps towards satisfying (Mapuche) territorial claims. But we will just have to wait and see what happens in the future. After all, nothing is written (in stone),” Diaz concludes.

In any case, the government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has said it is taking the resolution very seriously and that it plans to establish a taskforce to discuss the Ainu rights and implement Parliament’s measure.