Nikkei Community Welcomes Peace Boat

December 3, 2003

On December 3, 2003, Bay Area activists and community organizations welcomed over 200 participants of Peace Boat at the Women's Building in San Francisco. Peace Boat is a Japan-based NGO (non-governmental organization) founded in Japan in 1983 committed to establishing a global network to support initiatives in the fields of peace, human rights and sustainable development. During the last 20 years, Peace Boat has carried more than 17,000 people on 41 voyages to over 100 ports in over 50 countries. Peace Boat is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Following is a speech delivered in English by Grace Shimizu of Nosei and interpreted into Japanese by Miho Kim of Nikkeis for Justice and Peace.

[Note: Due to time limitations, the portions of this speech in italics were deleted from the presentation.]

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A warm welcome to our friends from the Peace Boat!

And on behalf of the Nikkei organizations here in the SF-Bay Area which support the Peace Boat, we are especially honored that you chose this part of the United States to share your messages of peace and international solidarity. We, as Nikkei people, gain inspiration from our brothers and sisters in Japan who have initiated this amazing global project.

As Nikkei people, whether we are living in Japan or here in the US or in other countries around the world, we are persons of Japanese ancestry. We are also people who are not of Japanese descent but who are a part of communities which have a connection with the heritage and culture of Japan and the legacy of Japan's history and role in the international community. Nikkei in the US are a diverse people. We are US citizens, both born in the US and naturalized. We are nationals of Japan, of Peru, Brazil, and other countries who have immigrated here for study, work and a better life, here with and without proper documents. We are hapa; we are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer-identified and straight; we are of all ages. We are Zainichi Koreans, Burakumin, Ainu, Okinawans, and many other ethnicities and nationalities. We are those accepted into the mainstream and we are those who are marginalized and made invisible, both within and outside of our communities.

I must admit that I have only just recently learned about the Peace Boat and its exciting work to build a global network to support the on-the-ground work for peace, human rights and sustainable development. I was surprised to learn of the roots of the Peace Boat, of how in the early 1980s Japanese youth realized that they were not getting the truth of Japanese imperialist aggression during WWII, that their own Japanese government was distorting the truth by revising history textbooks.

For us Nikkei in the US, we are also waging an ongoing struggle to reclaim our history and to hold the US government accountable for its policies and actions during and after World War II. Decade upon decade have passed, and the US government has not fulfilled its commitment of redress to Japanese Americans. The US government has not granted proper redress for the war crimes perpetrated against Japanese Latin Americans. The US government has refused to honor its promises to the Pilipino veterans for their wartime service. And the US government stands behind the Japanese government in its refusal to properly acknowledge and redress the victims of Japan's wartime atrocities, including the slave laborers, prisoners of war, sex slaves, the victims of medical experiments, and the list goes on. And these "victims" are not mere statistics or faces you see on TV. To many of us here, these are our very own parents, grandparents, our families.

The Peace Boat is an important contribution to the peace movement in Japan and around the world. The Peace Boat shows that we can educate ourselves and build solidarity and working relations, people-to-people across national boundaries. And we must do this because the majority of everyday people around the world are realizing that we cannot rely on our current governments to stop war, ensure peace and our security. We cannot rely on our current governments to uphold our human rights, to promote truth or to ensure justice.

Our commitment to truth and equality requires that we question the mainstream history of our countries, the histories that have been written by the victors of imperialist aggression and those in power. Our commitment to peace and justice requires that we sharpen our ability to see and understand the world from the experiences and perspectives of those of us who are not the victors, but rather the colonized, the oppressed, the marginalized, the invisible.

After the tragedy of 9/11 and its shock waves around the world, parallels have been drawn with Japan's military attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. And we are seeing history repeating itself. Employing the rallying cry, "either you're with us or you're with the terrorists," the Bush Administration has declared the so-called "war on terrorism". It seeks consensus abroad and at home for a war in which the enemy is not defined, the targets are not clearly located and the duration is without end in sight. But this is not about ensuring international security and protecting freedom and democracy€rather it is imperialist globalization and fascist repression at home and abroad.

The Bush Administration is pressuring many countries to cooperate and actively participate in war. Japan is a key component in the US global strategy with Okinawa serving as the cornerstone of US military presence in the Pacific. Both the US and Japanese governments, in the name of "national security", are ballooning their military budgets with hundreds of billions of dollars taken away from education and health programs and social services. Legislation and policies, like the US Patriot Act and the Yujihou in Japan, are being put into place to gut our Constitutions, to strip us of our civil liberties and human rights, to further militarize our societies and undermine our democratic processes. We are experiencing racial and ethnic profiling, discriminatory registration, raids on homes and places of work, disappearances. We are seeing incarceration without charges, secret hearings and deportations, and government surveillance of everyday people who are peacefully protesting government actions. We are experiencing the rise of racial and ethnic violence, especially against Arabs, Muslims, South Asians, Koreans, Chinese as well as anyone who can be scapegoated as "the enemy", reminiscent of the treatment of our Nikkei community and others labeled as "enemy aliens" during WWII. We are living with increased sexual violence against women and children, degradation of our environment, and worsening living and working conditions for millions of families. Maintaining world order under the US global strategy rests on the blood, sweat and tears of the majority of people in the world who are being marginalized and silenced.

But through efforts like the Peace Boat and other initiatives organized people-to-people, community-with-community, within and beyond national borders, we are empowering ourselves to build a peaceful and just world. Let us support the Peace Boat as it brings the people of different nations together. And let each one of us build peace boats in our own backyards and launch them to bring together communities inside Japan and inside the United States.