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Greetings!
Last
Monday, after assuming his post as the new minister of defense earlier this
month, Eto Akinori visited Okinawa governor Nakaima Hirokazu for the first
time, expressing his desire to strive towards a "visible"
reduction of the burden of the US military on the prefecture. The reality
was otherwise, as the Japan-US decision to relocate some of the functions
of the Futenma base to a new facility in Henoko remains set in stone.
Construction officially began in July in the face of determined Okinawan
opposition, and a month later a US Congressional Report noted the
"heavy handed actions" of the Japanese government to force the
new base on Okinawans. Now, in an Appeal
From Okinawa to the US Congress, anthropologist Hideki Yoshikawa
examines the environmental issues that have been ignored by official
studies, calling attention to the responsibility of the American military
to consider the silent majority that is the natural environment of Okinawa and honor its
own environmental assessment procedures.
An
Asia-Pacific Journal report with resonances of the police profiling of
American Muslims examines the disturbing practice of Police
Surveillance of Muslims and Human Rights in Japan carried out in
the guise of combating terrorism. The story came to light following the
leak of police documents in 2010. With the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in 2020,
and successive UN Commissions faulting Japan's discriminatory policies
toward foreigners, Japanese behavior toward visitors will be in the public
eye.
Hiranmoy
Lahiri explores the fantastical realism of the films of
Miyazaki Hayao, who (again) announced his decision to retire from active
film-making last year. On the occasion of Miyazaki's receipt of a Hollywood
Lifetime Achievement Award, Lahiri distinguishes his works from common
anime, which arguably invoke concepts such as "mono no aware"
(the pathos of things) and serve to promote ecological concepts.
Finally, we are delighted to
announce the co-winner of the Kyoko Selden Translation Prize for 2014: So
Happy to see Cherry Blossoms: Haiku from the Year of the Great Earthquake
and Tsunami, edited by Mayuzumi Madoka and translated by
Hiroaki and Nancy Sato. The title of this collection comes from a haiku
written in 2012 by a boy from Yamada-machi on the coast of Iwate. An
excerpt from Co-winner David Pearsall Dutcher's translation of the eleventh
century tale Sagoromo monogatari will appear in a future issue.
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