Ultranationalist 'citizens groups' on the march

"Get out of Japan!"

"Cockroach."

"Kimchi."

Those were just some of the insults hurled at a demonstration on Feb. 21 in Tokyo's Minato Ward.

More than 100 protesters belonging to several groups describing themselves as "active conservatives" gathered in front of a building that houses both the consular affairs department of the South Korean Embassy and the offices of the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan).

The group waved the Hinomaru, Japan's national flag, and seemed to target their anger at anything they considered "anti-Japanese."

The demonstration, which was closely monitored and restricted in its movements by the police, came a day before the date set by the Shimane prefectural government to commemorate and raise public awareness about the Takeshima islets, known in South Korea as Dokdo, which are the subject of a territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea.

A banner held up by demonstrators said, "Take back Takeshima using any means possible, including military force."

Other flags and signs carried angry messages, such as "Expel foreigners," and slogans equating Korean nationals living in Japan to criminals. Some of the words used could not be printed in a newspaper.

The protesters' anger seemed to be targeted at a wide range of institutions including the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, China and North Korea. Reporters covering the demonstration were also yelled at.

The group eventually moved on to the Australian Embassy, where they yelled, "We will start a war with white people who insult Japan (over the whaling issue)."

A new wave of citizens groups that publicly call for removing foreigners and other ultranationalist policies are growing increasingly assertive. The images they cultivate are very different from the sort of Japanese right-wing groups that ride around in black vans blaring out deafening slogans, often dressed like World War II kamikaze pilots.

Instead, the members of the new groups appear to be ordinary citizens, dressed in suits and jeans and the groups themselves seem to be relatively loosely organized with the Internet used to coordinate activities and propagate viewpoints. The Feb. 21 protest was arranged through an announcement on the Internet which pulled in several of the nationalist groupings.

Inside the building housing Mindan's offices, a meeting of the Korean Youth Association in Japan was being held as the demonstrators shouted their slogans.

Kim Jong-soo, a former president of the association, said he was puzzled.

"While there were cases of quiet discrimination in the past, there were never any citizens demonstrations in which hatred was directed at the target," Kim, 33, said. "It feels like excited soccer fans making a ruckus. It frightens me to think that they are ordinary people who may live in my neighborhood."

The demonstrators seemed to come from a wide range of backgrounds.

A 19-year-old college student from Tokyo's Nakano Ward said she had bought a Hinomaru flag for the demonstration.

A 49-year-old manager of a restaurant chain living in Yokohama's Aoba Ward said, "Media reporting is biased."

A 36-year-old employee of a chemical company living in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, said he belonged to a group supporting people who had been abducted from Japan by North Korea.

Many of them agreed on one point: that Japan was being taken too lightly by its neighbors. They also said they had finally found a movement in which ordinary citizens could participate, stating that in the past any "patriotic movement" had usually been associated with avowedly "right-wing groups."

The largest group present at the demonstration was the Zainichi Tokken Wo Yurusanai Shimin no Kai (The citizens group that will not permit special benefits for Korean nationals in Japan), or Zaitokukai.

An officer of the group said, "We are not a right-wing group, but a citizens group."

Zaitokukai was formed toward the end of 2006. Over the past year, the number of people who have registered as members on the Internet has almost doubled to about 8,000. The group has 23 local chapters.

At the same time as the Minato Ward protest, demonstrations were held in Nagoya and Fukuoka protesting plans to give foreign permanent residents the right to vote in local elections.

Zaitokukai brings along a camera crew to its public activities and broadcasts them live over the Internet. Recordings are also posted on video sharing websites such as YouTube and Niko Niko Doga (Smiley videos) so they can be viewed later.

About 1,000 people from around Japan viewed a live Internet broadcast of another demonstration in late February.

A rearranged version of a video taken at a demonstration at a pro-Pyongyang school for Korean nationals in Kyoto was particularly popular. The video, originally recorded in December, was speeded up and given a high tempo musical backing. Within three months, it had been viewed about 90,000 times.

Makoto Sakurai, 38, who heads Zaitokukai, said, "The mass media ignores us. Our weapon is the videos."

Videos that depict physical confrontations with the police or the targets of protests are especially popular. The group has found that they are an effective recruiting tool for future demonstrations.

Zaitokukai uses an Internet term to describe its public activities. "Matsuri" normally means a festival, but in Internet terminology it refers to a sharp spike in interest on a single topic.

At the Nagoya demonstration, five junior high school students who learned of the event over the Internet came with handmade signs saying "Traitor."

Some of the group's protests have been described by right-wing insiders as being more extreme than those of traditional rightist groups.

When the group became incensed that the Korean elementary school in Kyoto was using a neighboring park as a makeshift school yard, it staged repeated, threatening demonstrations.

A stand and speakers used by the school for morning assemblies were removed from the park by protesters. As a result, the group and the school filed criminal complaints against each other.

The Kyoto bar association issued a statement criticizing the group's actions as "going beyond criticism of the use of the park to being a hate campaign to encourage discrimination." On March 24, the Kyoto District Court issued a temporary order banning further demonstrations.

Kunio Suzuki, an adviser to Issuikai, a right-wing organization, published a book in February which discussed the new groups: "They are more radical than right-wing groups. They have exceeded the right-wing groups."

Because of the increasing intensity of the protests, there is now usually a large police presence at the groups' public demonstrations. A February issue of a magazine sold among police officers carried an article warning that the new groups were becoming more radical.

Among the factors behind the movement's rise are frustration and disillusionment with existing conservative forces, the rise of China and Japan's own perceived stagnation.

Members of Zaitokukai say they represent a clean break with previous rightist movements, saying the old-guard offered no realistic hope of change. However, their viewpoints are typically ultranationalist.

For instance, some members said they are not discriminating against foreigners just because they are not Japanese but because their hostile views toward Japan cannot be permitted.

Some participants expressed dissatisfaction that Shinzo Abe, who was considered hawkish on nationalistic issues, did not visit Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15 when he was prime minister.

Kensuke Suzuki, an associate professor of sociology at Kwansei Gakuin University, said the ordinary citizens' protest groups were partly a product of the momentum given to nationalist opinion by revelations about the North Korean abductions and by the publication of revisionist history textbooks.

"While the actions of the participants may be radical, they are serious in the sense they have high interest in social issues," Suzuki said.

"Until now, citizens movements were typically left-wing and there was no outlet for those with right-wing leanings. While it is sad that those seeking to promote conservative stances are forced to move toward radical groups, it could become more frightful if people who are even more extreme should emerge."