Scott Reynolds <sar@gol.com> wrote in message news:<begk6d$48r$1@newsflood.tokyo.att.ne.jp>...
> On 7/9/2003 5:56 AM, masayuki yoshida wrote:
> 
> > Scott Reynolds <sar@gol.com> wrote in message news:<beedv6$sn4$1@newsflood.tokyo.att.ne.jp>...
>  
> >>So are you saying that these suicides are not related to the Kimigayo 
> >>issue and are in fact the fault of the Buraku Liberation League? That 
> >>really is a shock. I had no idea that such things were going on.
> > 
> > See http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~nippon/jogbd_h11_2/jog114.html (in
> > Japanese) available.
> 
> Well, I read the article. The Buraku connection was something not
> mentioned in the press reports about Principal Ishikawa's suicide I
> remember reading, but I may just have forgotten that aspect. Do you
> remember if the mainstream press reported it at the time?

No.  But even if the mainstream press had got something about the
connection, they would have refrained from reporting it.  In a sense
writing articles on the criticism of the policical positions related
with the institution may be under sort of taboo in main newspaper
companies.

> I was curious about something in the article, though. The account makes
> it very clear that the local BLL group was adamantly opposed to singing
> Kimigayo and displaying the Hinomaru flag, and it also strongly suggests
> that this is the reason (or one major reason) why the teachers union was
> so unyielding in its opposition to the education ministry's directive.
> But what specific beef does the BLL have against Kimigayo? Once sentence
> in particular intrigued me:

(deleted Japanese fonts for the mojibake)

> The BLL local insisted that Principal Ishikawa write the above in a
> formal request (that Kimigayo and the Hinomaru be left out of the
> school's graduation ceremony) to the prefectural BOE. But it is not
> stated how singing Kimigayo would conflict with the school's &#21516;&#21644;&#25945;&#32946;
> program. I am curious to learn specifics, if you know of any.

The BBL seems to regard the Tenno system as a social fanction which
can cause the discrimination against Buraku people.  And at the same
time they would consider the Hinomaru and Kimigayo as symbols of the
tenno or his system.  I personally don't mind singing the Kimigayo and
respecting the Hinomaru in a ceremory or somewhere.

Masayuki