Post date: May 4, 2014 1:46:29 AM
This week I researched about the attitude toward the indigenous people and Ainu people of Japanese government. As I researched last semester, Japanese diet recognized Ainu people as indigenous people in Hokkaido in 2008. But only the year ago, in 2007, Japanese government replied for the question about the U.N. Declaration of the human rights for indigenous people. Japanese government said that there are no definition of Indigenous people in U.N. declaration, so it is unclear that which nation should be called as Indigenous people who can be applied the human rights what U.N. declaration said. And government also said that there are no data that Meiji government recognized Ainu people as Indigenous people, so it is not sure that Ainu people is defined as indigenous people in U.N. declaration. That is very funny thing for me. In Japanese, there are no differences between the word ‘indigenous’ and ‘people who lived before / earlier’, so it is easy to call indigenous. But I think because of the reason Japanese government wouldn’t recognized Ainu people as indigenous people. If the meaning of indigenous and aboriginal and people who live before or any word in English or in other languages, we, who uses Japanese, cannot understand or find the slight difference of the term. Of course, that is a sophism. Looking all over the world, we can find that most of countries use same definition of indigenous. That is a standard of world understands. Japanese government ignored the view. But it is interesting point for me.
(254 word)
北海道新聞・毎日新聞
Amnesty International
参議院質問主意書（第168回臨時会第53号）