[제7차 한중일YMCA 평화포럼 Youth National Report : Japan]
2017. 12. 16-20. 광주 프라도호텔
National report by Japan YMCA youth
0. Japan youth action plan of the 6th peace form and our practice in two years.
Keywords: Make more friends. Keep and Change
29 participants including 11 youth joined the 6th YMCA peace forum in Nanjing, China in 2015. We learnt the history of the strategic wars there, and also think about how precious peace is by visiting Yangzhou where the symbol of friendship between our three countries is. At that time we youth participants made an action plan; ”Make more friends. Keep and Change” for this 7th forum.
Make more friends: We youth strongly believe that making friends is the first step of making peaceful society. We think so because in the last forum we youth participants experienced: getting to know with each other, finding differences and common things between us, being aware of the difficulties between our nations, trying to overcome such barriers, fostering true friendship, and we come to respect with each other from the bottom of our hearts. Such experiences make us to be aware of what and how to make our mind to be peacemakers.
Keep and Change: What kind of things do we have to keep and change in this forum? We think: we should KEEP our eyes to the history of East-Asia and KEEP trying to make peace of East-Asia as our forum’s top priority. And for this we youth should be CHANGED to be more active and take more roles in this forum. To make peaceful world in future, we have to speak out what are non-peace situations/minds of people we think in our contemporary society to senior.
Therefore, we Japan youth organized “youth committee” for this forum. And we committee members take a main role for Japanese participants’ study and preparation meetings with senior and also we tried planning the forum programme contents with other countries’ youth committees. In this forum we do want to share our situations/opinions/thoughts and vision with the seniors. Then together we want to think about how to make peaceful world and how youth empowerment is implemented.
1.What makes youth not peace, Why youth are not peace(based on your country situation)
*non-peace situations in Japan.
New law legislations that enable Japan to make use of “the right of collectible defense”. Now Japan is proceeding to a country that can take actions of war. Behind it there is a growing tension of the East Asian countries.
Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets; (Secret Information Protection Act) on 2013
Japanese military legislation on 2015
Historical revisionism: Some powerful politicians who belong the ruling party(LDP) have opinion that Japan should revise its history
Nuclear power plant accident since 2011: Still there’re many people who cannot return to their hometown due to the nuclear power plant accident since 2011. Even though Japanese government has not given enough compensation to victims and is ignoring voice of victims. They lost their hope. After the great east Japan earthquake in 2011, every 62 nuclear power plants stopped once but now 5 plants are now on operation since 2015. It makes citizens feel anxiety.
US military base in Okinawa: In Okinawa residents/citizens are fighting against US military bases’ establishment and deployment of ospreys but the national government keep ignoring it. Okinawa is highly and solely bearing the burden of the Japan-U.S military agreement. It is to be called “structural violence”.
Suffering/depressed people are invisible: people lost their hope and are powerless to raise voice.
*Consciousness of people far away from peace; what’s the background?
Lowest voting rate: The voting rate of the latest national election in in October 2017 was 53.6%. This is the second lowest number after the WWII. Youth’s(age 20-24) rate was lowest in the history; it was 29.72％.
Hopeless youth: For young people, it seems that there is a hopeless feeling that society does not change with the power of one person.
Criticism from anonymous to people who stand up: from On the other hand, there’re some people who raise social movements like demonstrations but such people are exposed to criticism by conservative people or anonymous people on the Internet. (e.g. scary, idiot, dangerous). Such anonymous voices are affecting many people, especially young people who often see information on the Net. Such anonymous people are getting self-affirmation by attacking/discriminating people who have different backgrounds or people with disabilities.
Intolerant and uninterested to minority: Japanese society is not tolerant to minorities. we regard people with disabilities or sexual minority or ethnical minority as “abnormal” and hesitate to having connection with them.
Many of us are not interested in at all or have given up to understand what is different from ourselves.
Effects from one-sided biased knowledge/behavior/education from adults: People are influenced by social structures such as education and politics. By education of one-sided biased knowledge or adults’ bad behavior, youth and children are greatly influenced to their thought and mindset. These are seeds of discrimination and indifference.
Higher education (e.g. at university) rarely handles Japanese contemporary history in liberal arts education. There are cases that teachers/professors are condemned when they express their own views on politics and history recognition.
In addition, the Japanese government promoted right turning. Constitution, laws and institutions are intentionally used wrongly; it leads discrimination to minorities and usage of arm force。
Discrimination to “Korean residents in Japan”: By ignoring historical truth, we continue to discriminate against “Korean residents in Japan” (i.e. the descendants of Korean people who emigrated [some are forcibly] to Japan from mainly on 1910 to 1945. For many reasons they couldn’t back to their hometown after WWII). Despite their suffering, our society has rarely tried to face their pain.
Youth are too busy to think about social injustice: Japanese youth are too busy everyday to have time to pay attention to such structure of society with injustice and inequality. Youth cannot find the relationship between social problems and themselves.
2.What society youth want to make. What is Peaceful Society to youth?
Society with more active international exchange of people that enable citizen to make friends in other countries easily.
If one person has true friends in other country, he/she never think of having war with that country.
Therefore “International exchange in grassroots level” is the most familiar and easiest way of peace-making.
Society with people who can understand how the persons who stand to other position are feeling and be sensitive to the pain of others.
Society with people who pay attention to marginalized people and who have mercy.
Society which people have "connection" in a true sense.
Society with “*the Positive Net"
*thePositiveNetisanewconceptthatJapanYMCApresentedasournewvisionforsocietysince2016inaseriesofthere-brandingofJapanYMCA
Communities in which people will respect and enhance one another
Network of good-willed proactive people where theyrespect the individuality and bring out the best to one another
Society in which diverse ways of life are recognized and respected.
Society that respects diversity; no one think of which to be superior or inferior due to race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability etc.
Society which has understanding/respecting for one’s free choice of various ways of the careers, not only working for until retirement in one company just after graduation. (i.e. gap year or working holiday etc.) And society with appreciation/needs for the various experience/knowledge/seeing/background out of work.
Society that everyone can accept themselves as it is.
3. For making peaceful future/peace society what kind of support youth want to get from seniors. How seniors can respond to youth?
We youth want senior to….
To increase youth’s opportunities to meet and learn from people from other countries like this forum.
NOT to deny present youth even if you(senior) come to think youth are powerless compared to when you were young. (Most of youth of now might be shy, silent, passive compared to you seniors…) Since there ARE reasons and situations why youth are DISEMPOWERED. Youth do want senior to be aware of why and also seniors directly or indirectly influence the current situation of youth’s disempowerment.
It is senior generation to be responsible for the past national elections and keep choosing the LDP(Liberal Democratic Party; the conservative and right-winged party) as the results and it has expanded the thought of war and exclusion in Japan rather than peace and coexistence.
It is senior generation to be responsible for having given young people excessive competition and impatience of job-hunting by seeking how one has practical and immediate ability rather than their potential and also by highly expecting that one has very concrete vision/belief of “what to do in job” to express when they take job interviews even though they don’t have any experience of job. Many youth tend to trying to express “molded but acceptable” words even though it’s not real their feeling.
The social situation, i.e. economic growth, of now (present youth) and past (when senior was youth) are different; In Japan when present senior was youth, the economy had kept highly growing so as some sociologists says: present senior has lived in “society with full of hope and expectations” when they were youth because of very high birthrate in Japan. On the contrary, preset youth generation have lived in “the society of hopeless” since Japanese economy has being recessed since early 1990s as well as low birthrate. We youth regards our society as very difficult to grow more due to very aging society with high burden of social welfare tax. We have to work hard to support the society but cannot get enough payment. It’s common for both parents have to work hard to earn sufficient money to live but childcare centres in communities are not enough so not a few woman had to giving up to work. We’re hopeless actually due to social situation. Then is it really legitimate for the senior generation to see contemporary youth generation as lacking of efforts or without ambition? We wonder how much senior are understanding such social difference that is not responsible for us youth.
To let youth be released from pressures of "must grow up", "must work hard" and "must win"; make youth to admit themselves as they are.
To be released from the competitive and comparative evaluation with others like “the law of the jungle”
If we are freed from such pressures (i.e. competition and comparison with others) we may be able to properly accept others from different countries/cultures.
the peaceful world is connected with such consciousness in a daily life.
We youth think that families are busy with their work due to collapse of local communities, the depression and labor shortage. Even though communication devices such as smartphones have developed a lot, but we are actually DISCONNECTED and ISOLATED. we would like to think about a society in which we can restore the connection with people in a true sense and can be relieved among them. We youth are so-called “the digital native generation” and there are a certain of us who do not know the importance of connection with person in this sense. We youth want senior to realize such OUR REALITY.
We youth are not only complaining about the seniors who have made today’s society, but rather we want ourselves to be empowered and hopeful to be more responsible for making the peaceful society by ourselves. In order to be responsible for our future, firstly we want to think about what the peaceful society is like and we should aim for. Then social responsibility is accompanied with our voice to speak out what we have to change.
As a conclusion, we hope seniors to listen our voice carefully first; the voice of our reality.
[Youth National Report : Japan]
ナショナルレポート（日本）
■第6回日中韓YMCA平和フォーラムのアクションプランとその履行について
「キーワード：Make More Friends・Keep・Change」
2015年、中国・南京で行われたフォーラムには、日本から29名（うち11名ユース）が参加しました。南京にて悲惨な戦争の歴史を学び、また日中・中韓の友好の跡地である揚州を訪問し、平和の尊さについて考えました。日本のユースは今回（第７回）のフォーラムへのアクションプランとして「Make More Friends」を掲げました。それは、韓国、中国のユースと草の根の交流を一層深め、お互いの共通点を発見するにとどまらず、お互いの違いを理解し乗り越えて、互いを認め合い受け入れられる人を増やすことが、平和な社会を実現するための第一歩になると確信したからです。また、もう一つKeep・Changeを掲げました。これは、今後もフォーラムでは、「過去の歴史に思いを馳せ、東アジアにおける平和構築」をもっとも重要な課題として捉え続け（Keep）、また一方で、これからはシニアだけでなくユースが更に自発的に現代社会の「非平和」について考え取り組んでいく（Change）ことを宣言したものです。
この結果、日本側では今回のフォーラムのために「ユース実行委員会」を組織し、事前学習会等の準備の大半をユースによって行いました。今回のフォーラムにはユースが声をあげ、ユースを取り巻く社会の現状やユースが考える平和・非平和な社会のビジョンを全体で共有したいと思います。そこから今後YMCAのそれぞれの世代が平和な社会とユースエンパワーメントのために何をすべきか考えたいと思います。
１．今あなたの国の若者（あなた）にとって、何が「非平和」な状態だと感じますか。また何故そうなっていると思いますか。
□非平和な現状・社会情勢
激動する国際情勢のなかで、現在の日本では、特定秘密保護法の制定や、安全保障関連法案の可決によって集団的自衛権の行使が可能になるなど、戦争のできる国家へと突き進んでいます。
また、国レベルでの歴史修正主義に基づき、日本を取り巻く近隣諸国との対立が深化しています。
国内においては、福島では東日本大震災によって起きた原発事故によって多くの住民が故郷を離れて暮らしています。被災者は十分な補償をされず先行きがいまだに不透明で不安な状態にあります。そして、震災後は一度全て稼働停止した日本の原発は順次再稼働され、人々を不安にさせています。
また、沖縄では米軍基地の移設やオスプレイの配備に反対して地域住民は反対運動を起こしていますが、政府はその声を無視し続けています。沖縄は日米協定の負担を一方的に局地的に押し付けられており、それはノルウェーの平和学者ヨハン・ガルトゥングの言葉を借りれば「構造的暴力」ではないでしょうか。
社会の中で疎外されたり差別に苦しんだりしている人たちの存在は隠されています。
□平和に遠い人々の意識、背景にあるもの
多くの国民は平和への意識が低い状態にあります。2017年10月に行われた衆議院選挙では投票率が戦後二番目に低く53.6%でした。
若者には、一人の力では社会は何も変わらないという諦観の念があるように感じられます。その一方で、連帯ししデモのような社会運動を起こす人々や声を挙げる人々に対し、ネット上では多くの人が匿名で「怖い」「意識髙い系」「サヨクであり危険」と批判をし、それは多くの人々、特に若者に影響を与えています。そのような匿名の人々は、自らと異なる背景を持つ人々や障がいを持つ人々を虐げ排除し差別することで、自己肯定感を得ています。
日本社会は、マイノリティーに関して不寛容であり、障がいを持つ人々や、男女という枠組みの中にあてはまらない人々を異常な存在とみなしてしまいます。
私たちの多くは、自分とは異なるものに対して、全く関心を寄せなかったり、理解することを諦めてしまったりしています。
その背景には、教育や政治など社会的構造による影響があります。人々の思想形成に大きな影響を与える教育によって、一面的な偏った知識や大人の振る舞いは、子どもたちの心に差別や無関心の種を植え付けています。
高等教育では現代史にはほとんど触れず、教師が政治や歴史認識に関して自分自身の見解を述べると非難されるケースもあります。
また日本政府は右傾化を助長し、法律や制度は誤って使われ差別を容認してしまっています。
歴史性を無視することによって在日韓国・朝鮮人を差別し続けています。彼/彼女らが苦しみを抱いているにも関わらず、私たちの社会はその痛みに向き合おうとしていません。
多忙な毎日を送る日本の若者は社会の構造に目を向ける時間が限られ、社会の問題と自分自身との関連性を見いだせない傾向にあります。
２．若者として、（あなたは）今後どのような社会を創造したいと思いますか。特に、若者（あなた）が考える平和な社会とはどのようなイメージですか。
国を超えた交流が草の根の更に盛んになり、人々が他国に友達をつくる社会
どこかの国に心から繋がる友達がいれば、その国と戦争をすることなんて考えられなくなるのでないか。
草の根の交流こそ、一番身近であり確実な平和構築でないか。
相手の立場に立ち、相手の痛みを分かち合うことのできる人々が増える社会
疎外されている人に目を向け、憐みを持ち、歩み寄る人が増える社会。
本当の意味で人々が「つながり」をもてる社会。
「ポジティブネット」のある社会
＊日本のYMCAが2017年よりビジョンとして掲げた新しい概念
互いの存在や個性を認め合い、高め合うことのできる社会。
善意や前向きな気持ちによって人々がつながる社会。
多様なあり方・生き方が認められる社会
人種・国籍・民族・ジェンダー/セクシャリティ・障がいの有無などにより、優劣がつかない、多様性を尊重する社会。
新卒就職で定年まで勤め上げるキャリア以外の選択（ギャップイヤー・ワーキングホリデーなど）への理解ある社会。仕事以外に見聞を広めることが評価され、多様な経験や背景を持つ人が必要とされる社会。
誰もがありのままの自分のことを受け入れられ、大切に思える社会
３．上記の社会の実現のために、若者からシニアにどのようなサポートを求めますか。
このフォーラムのように、他国の人と出会い、学べる機会を増やしたい。
今のユース世代は今のシニア世代に比べて、消極的であったり思っていることを言えなかったりする人が多いかもしれない。しかしそんな今のユースを、自分たちの世代がユースだった頃と比べて頭ごなしに否定せず、まずユースがDisempowerされてしまっている現状とその原因を受け止めてほしい。またシニア世代もユースの現状に直接的・間接的に影響を与えていることを知ってほしい。
これまでの政府を長年選挙で選び続け、結果、平和や共生よりも戦争や排除の思想を日本で広げてしまったシニア世代にも責任があるのではないか
社会に出る若者に即戦力を求め、採用活動で「やりたいこと」を表明することを求めることで、若者に過度な競争と焦りを与えているシニア世代の責任はあるのでないか
若年人口が多かったため社会が大きく成長していた高度成長期を生きていたシニア世代に対し、今のユース世代は少子高齢化により経済成長が見込めない時代を生きている。その中で過度な競争にさらされ希望を見出すことが困難である。シニア世代が現代の若者を「努力が足りない」「覇気が足りない」と見てしまうことは正当なのだろうか
「成長せねばならない」「努力しなければならない」「勝たなければならない」プレッシャーからユースを開放してほしい。一人一人がありのままでいることを是としてほしい
弱肉強食の競争ありき、他者との比較評価ありきの意識からの解放してほしい
他者との競争や比較からのプレッシャーから解放されれば、自分と異なる他者や他の国の人のことをちゃんと受け止めるようになれるのではないか
世界の「平和」はそんな日常的な暮らしの中の意識と繋がっているのではないか
地域共同体が崩れ、また不況や労働力不足により家族も仕事に忙しく散り散りになっている。スマホ等の通信機器は発達したが、私たち一人一人は実はDisconnected（分断）され、孤立しているのでないか。私たちが本当の意味で人との繋がりを回復し、その中で安心できる社会を共に考えたい。デジタルネイティブな若者世代はそもそもそのような人とのつながりの大切さを知らない者も一定数いることを、まず知ってもらいたい。
私たちユースは、今の社会を作ったシニアに不平を言うだけでなく、むしろエンパワーされて希望をもって、平和な社会を今度は自分たちが責任を持って作りたいと思っている。自分たちの未来に責任を持つためにも、私たちはこれから目指すべき平和な社会について考え、現状のおかしいところ・変えるべきところにしっかりと声をあげられるようになりたい。シニアの方々はそのようなユースの声を聞いたら、まずは耳を傾けてほしい。
