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Uyoku dantai

Uyoku dantai (右翼団体, lit. 'right-wing groups') refers to Japanese ultranationalist far-right activists, provocateurs, and internet trolls (as netto-uyoku) often organized in groups. In 1996 and 2013, the National Police Agency estimated that there were over 1,000 right-wing groups in Japan with about 100,000 members in total.[1][2][3]

Philosophies and activities

Uyoku dantai are well known for their highly visible propaganda vehicles, known as gaisensha (街宣車, converted vans, trucks and buses fitted with loudspeakers and prominently marked with the name of the group and propaganda slogans). The vehicles are usually black, khaki or olive drab, and are decorated with the Imperial Seal, the flag of Japan and the Japanese military flag.[4] They are primarily used to stage protests outside organizations such as the Chinese, Korean or Russian embassies, Chongryon facilities and media organizations, where propaganda (both taped and live) is broadcast through their loudspeakers. They can sometimes be seen driving around cities or parked in busy shopping areas, broadcasting propaganda, military music or Kimigayo, the national anthem. The Greater Japan Patriotic Party, supportive of the US–Japan–South Korea alliance against China and North Korea and against communism as a whole, would always have the US national flag flying side by side with the Japanese flag in the vehicles and US military marches played alongside their Japanese counterparts.[when?]

While political beliefs differ among the groups, they are often said to hold in common three philosophies: the advocation of kokutai-Goji (retaining the fundamental character of the nation), hostility towards communism and Marxism, and hostility against the Japan Teachers Union. Traditionally, they view Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), China, and North Korea with hostility over issues such as communism, the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and the Kuril Islands, and the kidnappings of Japanese citizens by North Korea.[5][6]

Most, but not all, seek to justify Japan's role in the Second World War to varying degrees, deny the war crimes committed by the military during the pre-1945 Shōwa period and are critical of what they see as a "masochistic" bias in post-war historical education. Thus, they do not recognize the legality of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East or other allied tribunals and consider the war-criminals enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine as "Martyrs of Shōwa" (昭和殉難者, Shōwa junnansha). They support the censorship of history textbooks, or historical negationism.[7]

Categories of uyoku dantai

Uyoku dantai are broadly classed into currents based on ideological perspective and foundation period. They are divided into traditional (pre-war), street activist (originating in the post-war era), New Right or Minzoku-ha, and Kōdō-suru Hoshu (Action Conservative Movement) groups.

Groups

Historical groups

Traditional groups

Groups affiliated with yakuza syndicates

Other groups

Gallery

Gaishenshas

Demonstrations

See also

References

  1. ^ "More than 1,000 rally against discrimination, hate speech in Tokyo - AJW by the Asahi Shimbun". Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-10-13.
  2. ^ "National Police Agency expresses concerns about xenophobic groups - AJW by the Asahi Shimbun". Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-10-13.
  3. ^ "INTERVIEW: Foreigners' rights activist says new secrecy law may encourage xenophobia - AJW by the Asahi Shimbun". Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-10-13.
  4. ^ Andrews, William (2016). "The New God". Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture from 1945 to Fukushima. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781849049191.
  5. ^ Onishi, Norimitsu (2006-12-17). "Japan Rightists Fan Fury Over North Korea Abductions (Published 2006)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
  6. ^ DiFilippo, Anthony (2013). "Still at Odds: The Japanese Abduction Issue and North Korea's Circumvention". Revista UNISCI (32): 137–170. ISSN 2386-9453.
  7. ^ "Forgiving the culprits: Japanese historical revisionism in a post-cold war context Archived 2009-08-05 at the Wayback Machine published in the International Journal of Peace Studies
  8. ^ "Japanese nationalists visit disputed Tiaoyutai island - Taipei Times". taipeitimes.com. 26 August 2003. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  9. ^ "Kakuei Tanaka - a political biography of modern Japan". rcrinc.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  10. ^ "People's Daily Online -- China indignant at Japanese right-wing attack on Consulate General in Osaka". english.people.com.cn. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  11. ^ a b Bacchi, Umberto (September 8, 2014). "Japanese Minister Sanae Takaichi in Neo-Nazi Photo Controversy". International Business Times. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  12. ^ Right side up, 6 June 2015, The Economist
  13. ^ "日本会議がめざすもの « 日本会議". nipponkaigi.org. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
  14. ^ "The Dangerous Impact of the Far-Right in Japan". Washington Square News. 15 April 2019. Another sign of the rise of the uyoku dantai's ideas is the growing power of the Nippon Kaigi. The organization is the largest far-right group in Japan and has heavy lobbying clout with the conservative LDP; 18 of the 20 members of Shinzo Abe's cabinet were once members of the group.
  15. ^ a b McCurry, Justin (4 December 2014). "Police in Japan place anti-Zainichi Korean extremist group Zaitokukai on watchlist". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2017-09-02. Retrieved 3 June 2017.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Far-right politics in Japan.