STARTING WITH QUESTIONING SOCIETY

FOLLOWING THE OPENING of the country, the Tokugawa regime encountered its own destruction. In 1867 there was the formal restoration of political power to the emperor. The following year the Meiji charter oath was promulgated and with this the new Meiji government was established. At the same time, Japan was adopted by an international society based on notions of ‘International Law’. However, the western countries which had created this system insisted that before Japan was accepted into their embrace it must give priority to the destruction of the feudal system and demonstrate its understanding of the concepts of freedom and equality.

The revolution of Japan's Meiji restoration proceeded at one level on the basis of the gradual introduction of these modern concepts and the Liberation Declaration of 1871 was passed within this context. This decree abolished the titles of eta and hinin and declared that these people were to be treated the same as other citizens both in status and occupations. In other words, it completely abolished the boundaries on which their status had been based and, if it had been put into effect as proclaimed, the ‘Buraku Problem’ of today would not exist. So why is it that discrimination which is attributable to the eta status that had existed up to that time has continued right up until the present day in spite of the abolition of the status system and the elimination of the boundaries that cut eta and hinin off from mainstream society? We must ask ourselves this question before we can begin to think about the ‘Buraku Problem’ as it exists today.

It is not sufficient simply to reply that the problem is a remnant of the feudal status system. More than 140 years have now passed since the promulgation of the Liberation Declaration during which time modernization has occurred and society has changed massively. Despite this the reasons for the continued existence of the Buraku problem – even though the way it manifests itself has also greatly changed – cannot be found only in the fact that it is a feudal remnant. It must be seen as the result of something that continues to exist in modern society that has not only reinforced the previous weakened parts of the status boundary but actually restored it.