Fingerprinting letters
Letters to editors from 1983 to 2999
By William Wetherall
First posted 31 January 2006
Last updated 15 January 2008
Fingerprinting in Alien Registration Law (1955-2000)
Wishy-washy editorial on fingerprinting (MDN 12 August 1983)
Some puzzling statements and misinformation (MDN 18 November 1983)
Socratic question about fingerprinting (MDN 20 July 1984)
Why not make fingerprinting mandatory for Japanese? (MDN 25 August 1984)
Democracy and law: My own experiences and beliefs (MDN 24 September 1984)
Treatment of Koreans (JT 22 October 1984)
Conscientious civil disobedience (DY 7 June 1986)
Japan laws not immune to change (DY 2 July 1986)
Fingerprinting issue (JT 15 November 1986)
Illegal entrants (JT 23 November 1986)
A civil rights champion (JT 6 January 1987)
Fingerprinting and discrimination (MDN 26 February 1987)
Applications of the law (JT 20 October 1987)
The logic of invisible ink (NP 30 January 1988)
A curious visa refusal (JT 30 March 1988)
Biometrics in Immigration Control Law (2007-2999)
No "ethnic Koreans" in law (NP 8 March 2006)
Advantages of fingerprinting (JT 18 June 2006)
More control for immigration (JT 6 December 2006)
Fingerprinting not so stupid (JT 6 November 2007)
Exemptions not based on nationality (JT 15 November 2007)
Rocking the fingerprint boat (JT 22 November 2007)
Stakes in fingerprint registration (JT 13 January 2008)
Fingerprinting in Alien Registration Law (1955-2000)
Here are the letters I wrote -- all but a couple of them published -- which had some bearing on fingerprinting under the Alien Registration Law between 1955 when fingerprinting of registered aliens began, to 2000 when all fingerprinting as a matter of alien registration ended.
In the early phase (1983-1984), the fingerprinting debate in the English press in Japan raged mostly in the Readers' Forum of the Daily Mainichi, which published most letters, with practically no editing, regardless of length. A couple of my letters ran several times the word limits acceptable in most newspapers today.
The debate shifted to the Readers in Council column of The Japan Times in the later phase (1986-1988), after I myself had become a refuser. The Japan Times limited its letters to 500 words and generally ran my letters exactly as I had written them.
Mainichi Daily News
Sent 28 July 1983
Published 12 August 1982
Readers' Forum (page 2)
Wishy-washy editorial on fingerprinting
Your editorial "Fingerprinting of Aliens" (July 27) raises my critical goose pimples. The more accurate Japanese version (Mainichi Shimbun, morning edition, July 25) left the same impression.
You wrote that "an increasing number of Koreans have acquired Japanese nationality through naturalization or marriage" (essentially the same as the Japanese version). But under the postwar Nationality Law it is impossible to acquire Japanese citizenship through marriage.
Of the 670,000 Koreans that you claim are "holders of alien registration certificates" you wrote that "These Koreans were treated as Japanese nationals during World War II." The Japanese version more correctly states "Many of these Koreans", but both versions are incorrect in two much more significant ways.
First, you linked the former Japanese nationality of these Koreans with the war, where in fact Koreans under Japanese rule became Japanese nationals shortly after Korea was colonized in 1910.
Second, you implied that in being treated "as Japanese nationals" these Koreans were not treated as Koreans, where in fact all gaichijin or "colonial subjects" were distinguished from naichijin or "non-colonial subjects" by what was termed minseki or "(ethnic) regionality" as opposed to kokuseki or "nationality". Like kokuseki under the prewar Nationality Law, minseki was governed by marriage and birth. Hence a naichijin woman who married a gaichijin man usually became a gaichijin woman, while the children born even to gaichijin residing in naichi (non-colonial) Japan became gaichijin. While gaichijin men in naichi Japan could not "naturalize" as naichijin, they could become naichijin if they married a naichijin woman and was adopted as her husband into her koseki or "family register". Similarly, a foreigner could become Japanese through marriage and adoption to a Japanese -- a naichijin if married to a naichijin, but a gaichijin if married to a gaichijin. After the war, all gaichijin [sic = Chosenese and Taiwanese became "third nationals" and then, as a result of the peace treaty, Koreans or Chinese [sic = Chosenese and Taiwanese] (regardless of their ethnicity; hence thousands of Yamato women who had married colonials and become gaichijin also lost their Japanese nationality).
If you real feel that fingerprinting serves no purpose, then why your concern about whether maintaining the present system would "impair Japan's international image" (the wording of the Japanese version)? Why base your values on how others feel about them? If Japan's treatment of foreigners was humane by world standards, and if the rest of the world criticized Japan for treating its foreigners so decently, would you editorialize that "the current system is (not) worth maintaining at the sacrifice of Japan's image in the world"?
And why is gradualism necessary? I mean, how many fingerprint experts, how many ink makers, how many Justice Ministry officials would be out of work, and how many foreigners would rebel, if the Minister of Justice were to pick up the phone and order that all fingerprinting stop as of now? You might as well recommend that the ink be diluted by half every decade until it becomes invisible, and the act of being fingerprinted like your editorial -- pure ritual.
I am puzzled by the statement at the end (I hope it isn't your conclusion) that acquiring Japanese nationality on the part of Koreans "may be one way to eventually solve (the fingerprinting) problem" (the Japanese version says "This, too, may be being considered as one way to solve the problem"). But isn't this like saying "We'll start treating you as whites when you stop being blacks"?
Your emphasis on Koreans seems to overlook the fact that there are other kinds of foreigners in Japan, and that two of the three or four foreigners who have been prosecuted for fingerprint violations, and who are being denied their constitutional right to leave and re-enter Japan during their litigation, are not Koreans. It appears from this that non-Koreans are proportionally more upset by the practice, while many Koreans view fingerprinting much like I did -- I had been fingerprinted so often in the United States, and for so many reasons, that I simply took the Japanese practice for granted. Which only shows how easy it is to go through life without ever knowing that you're a victim, much less what of.
It would be nice if Mainichi would get its moral act together. Either you believe or you don't believe that (1) fingerprinting aliens constitutes treating them as criminals, (2) aliens don't warrant such treatment, and so (3) the treatment should cease immediately. Your wishy-washy editorial leaves me wondering which.
William Wetherall
Mainichi Daily News
Sent 13 November 1983
Published 18 November 1983
Readers' Forum (page 2)
Some puzzling statements and misinformation
G. Robin's light but reflective approach to the fingerprinting problem (Nov. 2) was fun. Interjecting levity into an otherwise serious debate helps knock off those ideological edges that prevent many reasonable people from supporting those who are committed to abolishing the fingerprinting system for foreigners in Japan.
But I found very puzzling the statement "fingerprinting is a concrete symbol of a system of socioeconomic control sanctioning discrimination against foreign residents and non-Yamato ethnic Japanese (many young Korean-Japanese are only Korean in the sense that an Afro-American is African)."
While fingerprinting is undoubtedly a way of socially controlling foreign residents, and though they are clearly discriminated against in the sense that fingerprinting them is tantamount to treating them like criminals or suspects, I see no "economic" implications in fingerprinting. Moreover, I know of no socioeconomic "controls" in Japan which sanction discrimination against Japanese of Korean ancestry, although Ainu Japanese and Okinawan Japanese continue to be regulated by formal policies that are explicitly or implicitly intended by the Yamato-oriented government to assimilate them.
Korean Japanese who became Japanese through naturalization certainly experienced many discrimination-sanctioning controls when Koreans, particularly the pressure to Yamatoize their names as an "administrative prerequisite" when becoming Japanese (legally they do not have to adopt Yamato names). But if naturalized Korean Japanese continue to deface or deny the emblems of their Korean ancestry after becoming Japanese, and if native-born Korean Japanese are taught by their parents to pass as ethnic majorities when convenient if not always, it is not because of socioeconomic controls against them, but because they have at some time in their lives chosen not to risk the informal manifestations of ethnic discrimination that pervade Japanese society.
The term "non-Yamato ethnic Japanese" also begs for definition. "Non-Yamato" should refer to any person, regardless of nationality, who is not ethnically Yamato. "Japanese" should refer to any person who is a national of Japan, regardless of ethnicity. Hence "ethnic" would seem superfluous if not incorrect.
While on the subject of fingerprinting, I see that your "Japanese Newspaper Terms" columnist has done it again (Nov. 3). If the purpose of this column is to teach the most acceptable and/or accurate English equivalents of Japanese expressions, I suggest that "foreign registration certificate" is an incorrect rendition of gaikokujin toroku sho, better known as gaikokujin toroku shomeisho. This problematical little "booklet" is officially called either a "certificate of alien registration" or an "alien registration certificate". In this example, "foreign" is unacceptable as a translation of gaikokujin for obvious reasons, and "foreigner" is clumsy as an adjective, whereas "alien" is both semantically and grammatically equivalent to gaikokujin as one noun modifying another. The column also fails to qualify its sweeping generalizations about fingerprinting and alien certificates. Minors under l6 are not required to give fingerprints, and do not have to carry certificates.
Speaking of misinformation, one would think that competent editors would correct wire-service articles and avoid misleading headlines. "Japanese Man Says Internment Illegal" (Nov. 3) should have been "Japanese American Man Says Internment Illegal" if not simply "American Man Says Internment Illegal". Fred Korematsu, born in the U.S. 64 years ago to Japanese immigrant parents, is not a Japanese but an American, and perhaps not such an "elderly" one. Nor were "Asian-Americans" (hyphen unnecessary) in the U.S. interned during World War II, illegally or otherwise: the relocation camp issue involves specifically Japanese Americans, not other Asian Americans.
William Wetherall
Mainichi Daily News
Sent 12 July 1984
Published 20 July 1984
Readers' Forum (page 2)
Socratic question about fingerprinting
The recent Japan vs. Morikawa fingerprint decision has had at least one fortunate result: it has drawn out of the woodwork readers like Milton A. Sanders (July 12), who support the specious contention of the Ministry of Justice that it is necessary to fingerprint all registered alien residents but not unregistered aliens or Japanese, and the fallacious argument that foreigners in Japan must obey Japanese laws or leave. And their letters have provoked the rebuttals they deserve, and have therefore served to educate the public of the need for humanistic reform in Japanese laws affecting foreign residents.
If fingerprinting is the ultimate means of identification that Mr. Sanders claims it to be, then why doesn't the Japanese government fingerprint all people in Japan as a matter of routine? It would be easy enough to do so if officials thought it were necessary, but obviously they don't, or they would long since have implemented such a system.
The origins of the fingerprinting system for resident aliens is clearly related to attempts at socially controlling unwanted minority groups, especially the Koreans, that were thought to be giving the Japanese government trouble during the postwar occupation. But the association of fingerprinting with criminality and crime control in Japan predate the postwar period.
So strongly is fingerprinting related to criminal investigation that my wife, in order to get a police clearance in Japan for an immigrant visa to the U.S., had to submit full sets of finger and palm prints for both hands to the police headquarters in Chiba prefecture where she officially resides as a Japanese citizen. She did not even need a photograph to get a similar clearance through the mail from the Berkeley Police Department in California. The U.S. Embassy required only one print of one finger of one hand, ostensibly for FBI files.
Like Mr. Sanders, I too have been fingerprinted for a multitude of sins in the U.S. And I too never gave it much thought at the time, because everyone in the government office where I worked had to be fingerprinted for security clearances, which involved an FBI investigation in the course of which our prints were required for screening purposes. We were, in effect, guilty of constituting a security risk until proven innocent.
If anyone had chosen to steal a classified guided-missile fire-control radar manual that had been assigned to me and had my fingerprints on it, and then abandoned the manual in a manner that allowed it to be recovered by a security officer who then found only my prints on it, would the fact that my prints were on file be a blessing in disguise? I think not. Nor in other respects do I share Mr. Sanders' illusion that fingerprinting in the U.S., or anywhere, is a benevolent social measure intended to protect individuals.
But even if fingerprinting were such a godsend, how is the Japanese government justified in taking only the prints of alien residents and suspect citizens? Most crimes in Japan are committed by Japanese. So assuming that Japanese criminals are as likely as their alien counterparts to leave detectable fingerprints, wouldn't the police be better off having the prints of other aliens and Japanese as well?
If a cadaver of unknown identity is found in Kanda river before the flesh on its fingers has deteriorated beyond the point of being able to recover recognizable prints, how does having only the prints of alien residents and Japanese criminals and suspects on file help identify the body if it is that of a foreign tourist or a Japanese national who has never been arrested in Japan? Presumably the latter are as capable of carrying no (or false) identification as the former, so why limit the fingerprint files to those of alien minorities and non-alien criminals and suspects?
As for whether it is easier to break laws in the U.S., it seems that in fact it may be. U.S. courts seem much more willing to recognize that a law may be unconstitutional and hence illegal, and is therefore not to be upheld simply because a legislative body has passed it. There are numerous cases where a violator of a law has been found innocent because the law is ruled in to be in violation of the violator's human rights, or for other reasons null and void. Even Japanese courts have admitted that a Korean atom bomb survivor, who was "repatriated" to Korea after the war, has the right to remain in Japan and receive treatment as a bona fide hibakusha, even though the Korean may have entered Japan illegally.
In fact there are many laws which must be broken in order to challenge their constitutionality, hence legality. Civil disobedience is sometimes the only effective avenue of redress for people who feel that a civil law discriminates against them. The fingerprinting law is a case in point.
One must ask the Socratic question: should a law be obeyed because it is good, or is it good because it is obeyed? Consciously (and conscientiously) breaking a civil law, particularly one that is thought to have been politically contrived to control social minorities, should be seen as a valid expression of disagreement with a government that is dominated by unregenerate majorities who are opposed to new legislation.
If I object to a certain war, am I supposed to submit to the draft, and go to the battlefield and kill, before I protest? If I truly believe that I should in no way support the war, then I certainly have the right to refuse to take up arms. Of course I must be willing to take my chances in court, if there is a court, even if that means being found guilty of an offense which carries a death sentence. The member of any society -- and I include aliens as members, not guests, of the societies in which they live -- pays their money and takes their choice with respect to matters of conscience about social policies that affect them or others.
If this were not so, then there would be no point in having a redress system. Unfortunately, the Japanese courts tend to defer to the Ministry of Justice concerning its self-proclaimed right to do what it wants regarding aliens and other social minorities.
The letter and spirit of the Constitution is very clear on the rights of women under the law, for example. Yet my wife has lost all her suits contesting the constitutionality of the Nationality Law, simply because the courts are not willing to defend the Constitution as the highest law of the land when it comes to laws passed by Diet, but maintain instead that the Diet can ignore the provisions of the Constitution when it is "rational" to do so.
Mr. Sanders concludes that "If the situation of Koreans who were brought to Japan before World War II is different, then it's their problem to battle. This doesn't give an American wife of a Japanese citizen the right to complain."
Most Koreans in Japan were not "brought" to Japan but came of their own free will. But this be as it may, whatever an American wife of a Japanese citizen feels is wrong about the society she lives in -- whether wrong for herself or wrong for others -- she certainly has the right if not the duty to do what she wants and can to correct the wrong.
Even if Ms. Morikawa did not feel that she herself was as much a victim of the fingerprint law as a Korean or Chinese former colonial or descendant thereof, she is as free to honor, as Mr. Sanders is free to insult, the words of Pastor Niemoeller, a victim of the Nazis:
"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out -- for I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me."
William Wetherall
Mainichi Daily News
Sent 7 August 1984
Published 25 August 1984
Readers' Forum (page 2)
Why not make fingerprinting mandatory for Japanese?
Mr. Sanders (July 31) reiterates the obvious fact that foreigners who come to Japan are under Japanese laws. Whether in all cases such foreigners agree to obey these laws is another question, as not all incoming foreigners go through formal visa procedures. But the point is moot, for the great majority of foreigners in Japan did not come here but were born here.
In this sense, one of my objections to Mr. Sanders' first letter requires modification. He had written that most Koreans were "brought" to Japan, and I countered that most came of their own free will. But this is true only in the context of the colonial period. Today most Koreans (and Chinese) in Japan did not come here, but were born here, and arguably not of their own volition, but no need to blame the Japanese government for this.
I am happy to hear that Mr. Sanders does not support the contentions of the Ministry of Justice. And I fully share his ability to recognize the ministry as the agency legally constituted to enforce Japan's laws -- another trivial fact that you could look up in case you forgot, on a par with being reminded that the post office is responsible for handling mail.
That Mr. Sanders does not feel free to break the laws of Japan and take the attending risks is, of course, his choice. He is also free to believe that "democracy is a form of government in which the majority rules." He must, however, be willing to accept the consequences of tyranny by an unenlightened majority, and may the gods that be help him if he happens to be a member of a despised minority group that is subjected to "democratically" legalized discrimination.
One way to convince the majority to "rule" benignly is to educate them. But perhaps they are uneducable, or are painfully slow to realize how oppressive their we win, you lose "democracy" can be. Laws, however, are no different from products in a store. You can boycott legal authority as effectively as you can boycott the baker if you don't like bread.
And you can afford to boycott the baker if there are alternative foods, or if you are so strongly opposed to bread that you prefer death by starvation to eating any. You can likewise afford to break a fingerprinting law if you are not intimidated by the courts and the possible punishments, and if you believe that the effort would advance the personal or social cause to which your action is committed.
The government, which is ultimately an administrator of physical force as a means of upholding its laws, must contend with both incidental and willful lawbreakers in terms of its own rules of judicial procedure. But it must also cope with the political, economic, and social forces which the judicial process inspires or nurtures. Hence civil disobedience, which brings vital issues public attention through the media and the courts, can be an effective means of engineering social reform in a truly democratic society where individuals and groups are constantly elbowing one another for win-win solutions to their territorial conflicts.
Mr. Sanders wrote that the Japanese government has "good reason" to believe that many Asians will resort to crime in Japan because Japan has become so affluent, and of "the fact" that many non-Asians have gone the same route. In the context of the fingerprinting debate, both statements are examples of the kind of reductionist prejudicial logic that condemns minority individuals to unequal treatment as members of a group. Majorities are prone to judge the whole barrel by the apples that most offend them, and to treat all other apples alike.
But regardless of the ostensibly higher crime rates among foreigners, the great majority of crimes in Japan are committed by Japanese. So if fingerprinting is thought necessary for police purposes, then why not make it mandatory for Japanese too? And why not require it of all (rather than only some) foreigners?
Mr. Sanders is correct to suspect that I was a conscientious objector. But I became one empirically, as it were -- after enlisting in the U.S. Army, and completing infantry training, and becoming a medical corpsman. I strongly recommend the experience to anyone who entertains Mr. Sanders' illusions about wars not being started by sane people. I invite him to cite chapter and verse from the world history primer which gives him the impression that sanity has anything to do with starting wars.
War is certainly no less sane than eating bread or obeying laws. If necessary obey laws, if necessary eat, if necessary fight. If the law says it is necessary for you (but not someone else) to submit your fingerprints, submit them. It is not for the good alien non-citizen to ask whether it is just or unjust. Just do as you are told by your democratically appointed authorities (when was the last time you voted in a Japanese election, Mr. Sanders?) and trust their judgment to know what is right for you. Sounds more and more like a Greyhound ad -- just pay your taxes, and leave the moral judgments to us.
Mr. Sanders does not have to remind me that Korea was at one time under Japanese rule. But the points he attempts to make of this fact betray the ludicrousness of his position against Ms. Morikawa.
He writes: "What has resulted with Korean citizens being independent of Japan is a problem which I believe no American housewife should stick her nose in. We have enough problems between the U.S. and Japan in trade alone; let's not try to generate more."
And he continues: "If Mrs. Morikawa wishes to find a cause to fight for, let her go to bat for the cause of the child of a mixed marriage. The Japanese do not recognize the child of a Japanese mother married to a foreign father as a citizen of Japan."
In fact most Korean citizens in Japan are in no sense of the word "independent of Japan". They are an integral (though not fully integrated) part of Japan: born here, raised here, socially and culturally rooted here. As for those who are nominally ROK citizens, they are legally differentiated in both Japanese and ROK laws from ROK subjects who may truly "come from Korea" as opposed to being the descendants of former colonials in Japan (who after the war were as a group deprived of their Japanese nationality, rather being given individual choices). Nor are other foreigners "independent of Japan" -- not so long as they live and pay taxes here, and write letters to editors about social problems here.
Then who does Mr. Sanders include among his "we" and "us"? Why should American citizens in Japan restrict their concerns to the U.S.-Japan trade problem? If I am residing in Grass Valley, am I not supposed to join a movement to save a historical site in Nevada City four miles away where I happen to work?
So what does Mr. Sanders think Ms. Morikawa should do with her life in Japan? Why, go to bat for the rights of the children born to Japanese women married to foreign men!
But why should she do that? Just as she's not a Korean in Japan, neither is she a Japanese woman. So if fingerprinting Koreans is not her concern, then the rights of the children of internationally married Japanese women could not possibly be any business of her long, pointy, gaijinesque nose (any resemblance to the real Ms. Morikawa is purely coincidental). Clarification, Mr. Sanders: the Ms. Morikawa I know is not concerned about fingerprinting Koreans; she's concerned with fingerprinting other foreigners as well, including herself.
But for Ms. Morikawa to get involved in the nationality problem? Not over my wife's dead body. It simply ain't her turf. After all, she's safe. Her kids will be both Japanese and Americans, thanks to the patrilineality of Japan's Nationality Law, and the bilineality of the U.S. law. So no sweat off her human rights. Besides, her involvement might disturb the delicate balance of trade between the my wife and I.
In short, we simply don't relish interference from anyone who doesn't have the proper ethnic and social emblems. But if some outsiders insisted on the right to trespass on our territory, we just might overcome our embarrassment and unconditionally welcome their support as human beings who, for all we know, have as much to gain from taking the discrimination out of Japan's democracy as we do.
William Wetherall
Mainichi Daily News
Sent 13 September 1984
Published 24 September 1984
Readers' Forum (page 2)
Democracy and law: My own experiences and beliefs
Mr. Sanders has written another "fed up" letter (Sept. 13) which deserves a second helping of the points I thought were clearly made, but which he still appears to miss.
If there is such a thing as an enlightened majority which can impose its will on an unenlightened minority, then there is also such a thing as an unenlightened majority which at times needs to be reminded by an enlightened minority that its collective will is not necessarily appreciated. Breaking "democratic" laws is one way for minorities to demonstrate against an unwanted majority will -- at times the only way.
Were the majority to will that Mr. Sanders should join the line of minority sheep waiting to be slaughtered, would he submit simply because it was the "democratic" law of the land? If I follow his logic, he would -- and become someones mutton.
I do not for a minute believe that I have any "special qualifications" that make me "enlightened" and give me a "special privilege" of not obeying the laws of Japan, or of any other country. In thinking that I hold such a view, Mr. Sanders seems to be projecting his own paranoid political prejudices on my philosophy of civil disobedience. My point of view might have been more evident to him had Mainichi editors not cut some lines from my second letter (Aug. 25). I repeat them in the following four paragraphs.
One way to convince the majority to "rule" benignly is to educate them. But perhaps they are uneducable, or are painfully slow to realize how oppressive their we win, you lose "democracy" can be.
Laws, however, are no different from products in a store. You can boycott legal authority as effectively as you can boycott the baker if you don't like bread.
And you can afford to boycott the baker if there are alternative foods, or if you are so strongly opposed to bread that you prefer death by starvation to eating any. You can likewise afford to break a fingerprinting law if you are not intimidated by the courts and the possible punishments, and if you believe that the effort would advance the personal or social cause to which your action is committed.
The government, which is ultimately an administrator of physical and other forms of force as a means of upholding its laws, must contend with both incidental and willful lawbreakers in terms of its own rules of judicial procedure. But it must also cope with the political, economic, and social forces which the judicial process inspires or nurtures. Hence civil disobedience, which brings vital issues public attention through the media and the courts, can be an effective means of engineering social reform in a truly democratic society where individuals and groups are constantly elbowing one another for win-win solutions to their territorial conflicts.
If Mr. Sanders follows this reasoning, he should understand that I have yet to refuse to be fingerprinted because I choose, at present, not to give up the freedom to leave and reenter Japan. This decision is based on my own personal circumstances. Ms. Morikawa perceives herself to be in a different situation. The fact that I support her through words only, and not direct action, in no way diminishes my conviction that she is doing what is right for her, and what would also be right for me in other circumstances.
It may please Mr. Sanders to know that I am, in fact, a convicted felon in Japan. But this has had no bearing on my receiving a permanent visa. I was found guilty and fined 5,000 yen by the Matsudo Summary Court for [each of two counts of] refusing to register my children as aliens when they were born in Japan.
I was never informed that the City of Nagareyama had charged me with the offense, much less that the case had been sent to court. Nor was I ever given an opportunity to defend my action. The first I ever knew of the one-sided litigation was when I received a formal notice that I had been found guilty and must pay the fine with a few days to be arrested for another offense.
The Ministry of Justice was on the point of prosecuting us for multiple violations of various laws. We were advised by certain people with immigration service contacts that my wife would probably be arrested at the airport if she tried to take our children out of the country as she was planning to do. She had prepared herself with a valid Japanese passport with a valid U.S. visa. And the children had valid U.S. passports, but they had no Japanese visa because they had never acquired status and been registered as aliens.
Since we refused to recognize our children as aliens, we attempted to register their birth certificates as though they were Japanese. The registrar refused to accept the birth certificates, and the unaccepted certificates became court documents, which they continue to be to this day. My wife's attorneys, however, advised her to register the children to avoid further conflict. She did, and the children became bona fide gaijin. Only then was action taken against me. Curiously, my wife -- who was equally culpable -- was not prosecuted.
The Ministry of Justice maintained that we must comply with the law the very constitutionality of which my wife and children were contesting in ongoing litigation. This is tantamount to treating us like death-row condemnees who are expected to submit to execution while our sentence is still under appeal.
But as we wanted our children to spend their summers with their grandparents (my parents) in Grass Valley, California, we submitted to the government's will and duly registered them -- thus getting my wife off the Ministry's hook but hauling me in for registration violations. The City of Nagareyama has formally ordered us to rewrite the names and other information on the birth certificates, but we are still refusing to do so. We obeyed municipal rules just enough to get immigration off our backs, but we have not met all the requirements of the local authorities.
I hope Mr. Sanders is no longer under the illusion that disobeying Japanese laws would reduce my visa to "just a scrap of waste paper". My first application for permanent residence was denied for reasons that the Ministry of Justice refused to disclose. We realized that the immigration service regarded our children as illegal aliens. We also learned of a division of opinion within the immigration service regarding how it should deal with us. When it was all over, I filed exactly the same application for permanent residence and was given it -- and a reentry permit -- despite the court case, despite my conviction, and despite the continuing problem with the birth certificate.
I also hope that Mr. Sanders realizes that I am not nearly as anti-authoritarian as he seems to think. I can accept risks that don't jeopardize my permanent residence status, or my freedom to travel. Other risks I find myself unwilling to take. Thus I am as human as he is in the sense that my actions are ultimately limited by my perceptions of "practical" considerations.
Mr. Sanders seems to have an unusual visa. Mine does not state that I am not allowed to engage in political activities. Even if it did, I am afraid that I would attempt to impose a definition on "political activities" that would accommodate the kinds of activities that I might wish to engage in. It would then be the establishment's prerogative to take me to court should it feel that my activities were beyond the scope of what it regarded as permissible. I am not about to take such restrictions at face value. I do not regard Japan's (or any country's) laws as something I am obliged to obey simply because Mr. Sanders feels that they are difficult "even for legal experts" to understand.
Mr. Sanders seems to believe that I don't think that Ms. Morikawa should become in any way involved in the nationality problem. Those are the words as I wrote them, but he has totally misinterpreted them. Not everything I write is to be taken at face value, and if Mr. Sanders will read my letter again, he will see that I welcome not only Ms. Morikawa's support, but even his.
I trust that my being from Grass Valley, California will not disqualify me as a good American in the esteemed eyes of self-styled super-patriots like Mr. Sanders. I used to feel "fed up" with his kind of compatriot, but I long ago learned to tolerate them as just another marvel of the American scene. Mr. Sanders is free to believe that his brand of patriotism is holier than mine. That Mr. Sanders is "fed up" with me, because I dare to break certain laws, is evidence to me that he has not fully digested the spirit of democracy in his own country, which was born through civil disobedience, and continues to mature through civil disobedience. We're not talking about minorities breaking into majority houses, Mr. Sanders: only about majorities violating minority civil rights.
William Wetherall
The Japan Times
Sent 11 October 1984
Published 22 October 1984
Readers in Council (page 14)
Treatment of Koreans
Sakon Maki's letter on the treatment of Koreans in Japan (Oct. 1) is long on spirit but short on facts.
It is not true that "Only Korean-Japanese (sic) citizens are fingerprinted"--even if we limit the discussion to people who were born in Japan. Aliens 16 years old and older are fingerprinted regardless of where they were born.
The term "Korean Japanese" is totally unfounded if we are talking about Korean nationals in Japan. They are not Japanese. Some were at one time. The others never have been. Most could be if they wanted to be. Whether all or more should be Japanese is a difficult problem that has no single solution. But if they were Japanese they would not be aliens, and therefore they would not be fingerprinted. The issues must be separated before they can be understood and dealt with.
Of course Koreans in Japan must carry alien registration cards, and they are not allowed to be registered as members of Japanese family registers or to vote. Such restrictions apply to other aliens in Japan: why should only Koreans be exempt? I can't think of a single reason--recent history not withstanding.
It is simply not true that "Korean Japanese (sic) are subtly denied all but the most menial employment opportunities." There is discrimination--no doubt about it. The term "menial" begs definition, but if it means "subservient" or "degrading" or "low status" etc., then the evidence shows that many Koreans hold just the opposite kinds of jobs.
In any case, Koreans are not the only aliens--not even the only ethnic minorities--to be subtly discriminated against in the Yamato-dominated job market. But the general problem will not be solved until it is recognized as one which affects all minorities in Japan--not just Koreans.
William Wetherall
The Daily Yomiuri
Sent 1 June 1986
Published 7 June 1986
Letters to the Editor (page 3)
Conscientious civil disobedience
Your title to Kevin J. Dustow's letter on fingerprinting (May 27) is misleading. The writer does not clearly conclude that "Foreigners Must Obey Japan Law". Rather he states that certain foreigners may have a case for not complying with the fingerprint requirement.
Dustow maintains that one should "Obey those that rule over you". If so, then even "Koreans whose parents and grandparents were born in Japan" and even "foreigners who are married to Japanese" should allow themselves to be fingerprinted "for the privilege of living in this land (or) go somewhere else."
But even if a foreign resident in Japan has no ancestral roots or marital ties in Japan, what makes such a person different from other foreign residents? The United Nations covenants on human rights do not distinguish between "connected" and "unconnected" foreigners. "Visitor" or "non-visitor", an alien is an alien, and all aliens in a country are supposed to be treated on a par with nationals in matters concerning their human rights.
If the Bible says "Obey those that rule over you", it also says "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). What Caesar gets seems to be based on what one believes that God should get.
But the Bible fails to advise what should be done when more than one Caesar (if not more than one god) contends for a person's obedience. Do the UN covenants have priority over the immigration laws of the party states that agree to abide by their letter and spirit?
Dustow worries that his "image" as a law-abiding visitor is being "tarnished" by those whose consciences have moved them to "start making a big song and dance" about fingerprinting. But aren't the fingerprint refusers just worshipping the gods of human rights instead of the gods of law and order for its own sake?
Couldn't the atrocities of Nazi Germany have been prevented with a little disrespect for the laws that compel one to yield to civil authority? Couldn't the same be said today for South Africa, and even for the United States and Japan? How far would human rights have progressed through history, and how far will they continue to progress in the future, without the push of conscientious civil disobedience?
William Wetherall
The Daily Yomiuri
Sent 15 June 1986
Published 2 July 1986
Letters to the Editor (page 3)
Japan laws not immune to change
Before Kevin J. Dustow wonders if I'm not "a little hypocritical" (June 14) for advocating the breaking of civil laws which discriminate against people (June 7), perhaps he should look at himself in the mirror and re-examine the moral implications of his argument that all laws should be obeyed because they are laws.
Of course the "Render unto Caesar" line is found in the context of paying taxes. Everyone knows this, especially Jehovah's Witnesses and others who cite Matthew 22:21 as justification for paying the state its due but not fighting its wars.
Dustow can pay his taxes. And he can defend killing on behalf of the state if the law says to kill. And he can insist that the killer (who may not wish to kill) and the victim (who may not wish to be killed) not question the law until after it has been obeyed.
If Dustow wishes to consider himself a "visitor" and abide by the rules of the "house of Japan" in which he considers himself an obedient guest, he is welcome to do so. I am sure that the Justice Ministry will be proud of him.
But I am not a visitor. Japan is my home. I am a permanent resident of this country, and I own 45 tsubo of its land.
I also pay taxes. Yet I am not allowed to vote either for or against the racist arrogance which has decided that Koreans and other foreign nationals should not teach in Japanese schools, and should commit ethnic suicide if they want to be citizens of the country in which they were born and raised or have settled as immigrants.
My wife is Japanese, and our children would have been Japanese had Japan's laws not discriminated against them because their mother had married a foreigner. I do not want them to become "good citizens" if to be so means that they regard discriminatory civil laws on the same par as laws against murder and theft.
Perhaps Dustow is aware that racial discrimination is "legal" in South Africa. Some would argue that the white minorities who "rule" South Africa are really the "visitors". While this is so historically, the question today is how blacks are to deal with unregenerate whites whose discriminatory laws are "good" only because they are backed the "power" of bigotry.
Japanese Americans in the United States faced a similar problem. Those who disobeyed presidential orders and laws which discriminated against them in 1942 were then found guilty. Today those decisions are being reversed. Why? Because, in hindsight, the orders and the laws are being ruled unconstitutional.
Japanese laws are not immune to similar revision through conscientious disobedience as a means of civil protest.
We are not talking about aliens busting into citizen homes and raping the women. Only about a political bureaucracy which robs Japan's indigenous and immigrant foreign minorities of their dignity as human beings.
William Wetherall
The Japan Times
Sent 25 October 1986
Published 15 November 1986
Readers in Council (page 14)
Fingerprinting issue
Japan Time's staff writer Laurel Miller's report (Oct. 25) on Immigration Bureau general director Shunji Kobayashi's defense of Japan's fingerprinting of resident aliens was very accurate. Not only did she correctly cite the statistics that Kobayashi presented, but she faithfully quoted his comments on fingerprinting as a problem for especially Korean national ethnic minorities in Japan.
A longer article might have revealed that much of what Kobayashi said at the Foreign Correspondents Club working luncheon on Oct. 14 was ideological doubletalk.
Fingerprinting does discriminate between Japanese and foreigners, he said, but there are "adequately rational grounds" for the discrimination which is justified by "the need arising from such grounds".
Kobayashi explained that fingerprinting was introduced mainly to prevent the fraudulent use of alien registration certificates by illegal Korean entrants in Japan (there are no true immigrants in Japan, he said, though the bureau he heads implies that there are).
Japanese are not required to give their fingerprints as a means of preventing them from fraudulently using driver licenses (and other forms of identification) because such offenses are not as serious as illegally entering Japan, Kobayashi reasoned.
Law-abiding objections to the fingerprinting system are welcomed because Japan is a democratic society, Kobayashi said. But the government will continue to take a "stern posture" toward refusers, as "what is unacceptable is refusal to comply as a willful violation of law for their own political objectives."
Kobayashi did not explain what he thought these "political objectives" might be. He simply said that "the legal order is to be maintained" for purposes he did not specify.
"Why is fingerprinting a problem in Japan?" Kobayashi rhetorically wondered. Fingerprinting, he said, is not regarded as a serious human rights problem in the United States, perhaps because people there have bigger problems to worry about.
Kobayashi then cited the case of a Korean refuser who had "reluctantly" given her print in Japan (so she could get a reentry permit) before leaving for the US, where she said she would willingly give her prints.
According to Kobayashi, fingerprinting has become a problem in Japan because of the "negative reaction on the part of some Koreans" for whom it is "essentially a sociological problem". He predicted that the problem would not go away even if fingerprinting were abolished, but will disappear "only when circumstances prevail in which Koreans feel no psychological burden to comply with the (fingerprinting) requirement."
Kobayashi did not say what he thought the negative psychological burden might be. Nor did he speculate on the circumstances that might neutralize the feelings of those who object to being fingerprinted.
In conclusion Kobayashi hoped for the day that fingerprinting "will be remembered, if remembered at all" as something that was justified in its time.
Kobayashi did not explain how such a day could come unless the government abolishes the fingerprinting system, which apparently it has no intention of doing. Perhaps it plans to abolish all Koreans instead, and other foreigners (and Japanese) who agree that fingerprinting is discriminatory.
In observing that more than 60% of Koreans in Japan are marrying Japanese nationals, Kobayashi may have been suggesting that the Koreans will eventually be absorbed into the Yamato population.
This would allow the government to abolish fingerprinting.
Why?
Kobayashi admitted that fingerprints are not needed to identify other foreigners. Passports and visa documents are enough.
Other foreigners have to be fingerprinted simply because the government feels that it would be wrong to discriminate between them and Koreans.
In this (and in much else that he said) Kobayashi's facts were wrong. In many of its immigration and alien registration laws and practices, the Japanese government discriminates between different kinds of foreigners.
A number of treaties and reciprocity agreements provide criteria for different treatment of aliens on the basis of their nationality.
But just as the Japanese government officially denies that there are any ethnic (racial) minorities among the Japanese population (or at least none that are discriminated against), and just as the ideal slave is one who who positively accepts their lot in life, how can the truth be important to officials who believe that the fingerprinting problem is nothing more than a delusion in the minds of uncooperative Koreans?
As Tom Paxton's "Mr. Blue" puts it:
You've got a slot to fill
and fill that slot you will;
you'll learn to love it
or we'll break you.
William Wetherall
The Japan Times
Sent 11 November 1986
Published 23 November 1986
Readers in Council (page 12)
Illegal entrants
Your Oct. 31 article on the "illegal Korean family" that won't have to leave Japan yet should inspire hope in other undocumented residents who face similar problems (Oct. 31). Officially, there are from 30,000 to 70,000 "illegal entrants" in Japan (as opposed to "visa overstayers"), according to Immigration Bureau Director General Shunji Kobayashi, who cited these and other statistics in his defense of the Justice Ministry's fingerprinting policies at a working luncheon of the Foreign Correspondents Club on Oct. 24. He also said that all of the illegal entrants are Koreans, and that about 500 of them are discovered each year.
Kobayashi did not say how the government could be sure that all illegal immigrants are Koreans if practically all are unknown. Nor did he allude to the rumor that in certain municipalities the police know the identities of thousands of such people but look the other way because they are good sources of cheap labor for local businesses.
At present rates, it will take the Immigration Bureau from 60 to 140 years to catch up with the entire official estimate of illegal entrants. Though many of the underground aliens will die before they can be deported, their natural population will increase even if the Immigration Bureau succeeds in hermetically sealing Japan's borders, if they marry and have three children like Mr. Han, the Cheju Island farmer who smuggled himself into Japan in 1974, and his wife who came the following year.
Han surfaced in 1983 and reported himself to Osaka immigration officials, in order to secure a residence permit so that his sons could go to school. In August this year, the Immigration Bureau destroyed the expectations that he seems to have for its compassion by ordering the detention and deportation of his entire family.
Han and his sons were incarcerated in the Omura Immigration Center in Nagasaki in September (his wife was reportedly in a hospital). But the Osaka District Court decided to allow the Han family to leave the center, at least while it considers the other half of Han's lawsuit, which also seeks cancellation of the deportation order.
No country may be willing to open its doors to free, unregulated immigration. But how many countries have been as unwilling as Japan to assume moral responsibility for the continuing consequences of past colonial policies? And how many ex-imperialist states have been as inconsiderate as Japan in the treatment of former colonial subjects and their descendants?
Japan would gain much-needed stature as a humanistic nation were the Justice Ministry to establish a quota system which positively recognized immigration, and issue residence permits to crypto aliens already here so that they can come out of their closets and get due credit for the contributions to Japanese society which now they must make while hiding.
Instead of punishing the visa overstayers and other illegal aliens who, after all, just want to make a living and honor Japan by coming here to do so, the Justice Ministry might dispense more of what its name stands for by removing the controls which allow the sex and construction industries to profit from the labor of such aliens through exploiting their vulnerability.
William Wetherall
The Japan Times
Sent 22 December 1986
Published 6 January 1987
Readers in Council (page 14)
A civil rights champion
"On that night he was arrested, he was over at my house. He was about to leave when I noticed that it was past curfew time. I told him that I would drop him off at his house. He told me, 'No, just dump me off downtown at the police station. I want to challenge this law. Why should they pick on me? Your dad's German.' The immediate personal result was that he was one of the longest solitary prisoners in Multnomah County jail history."
These are the words of Bernard Kliks, a lifetime friend of Min (Minoru) Yasui, an American champion of civil rights.
Born Oct. 19, 1916, in Hood River, Oregon, Yasui was 70 when he died of cancer in a Denver Hospital on Nov. 12, 1986.
Americans who knew Yasui or of him, especially Americans of Japanese ancestry, eulogize his stand against his own United States government in 1942, to test the constitutionality of the curfew, evacuation, and other discriminatory actions it took against Americans of Japanese ancestry in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
Yasui's personal experiences with injustice never seem to have daunted his own fighting spirit. A lawyer since 1946, he remained an impassioned supporter of civil rights until his death.
Much of the content of the Nov. 21, 1986 issue of Pacific Citizen, the weekly newspaper of the Japanese American Citizens League, is devoted to recaps of his "lifetime of fighting for justice".
In the words of one PC columnist: "Min Yasui stood up, came forward and challenged what he believed to be unconstitutional law, while others faltered or acquiesced. He placed his career, his reputation and his freedom on the line."
Reading in Japan about Yasui's peaceful defiance of unjust laws in America, one cannot help but think of the anti-fingerprinting movement and its purpose: to end the discrimination in the Alien Registration Law and other government policies toward foreign minorities.
Yasui, of course, was not a foreigner. But that is only because America's Nationality Law confers citizenship on anyone born in the United States.
Most Koreans and Chinese in Japan were born here, the children or grandchildren of former colonial subjects. Yet they cannot be citizens without naturalizing.
In the meantime, they are treated by the Alien Registration Law as though they do not belong here. They are fingerprinted and required to carry registration certificates as identification at all times, as though being born an alien in Japan is a crime.
Jesse Jackson recently urged minorities in Japan to take their issues to the courts and the streets, because it appears that Japanese society is not affected by moral appeals.
Min Yasui, if faced with a Japanese-style Alien Registration Law, would probably have said: "Don't bother taking me down to City Hall. Just drop me off at the police station."
William Wetherall
Mainichi Daily News
Sent 13 February 1987
Published 26 February 1987
Readers' Forum (page 2)
Fingerprinting and discrimination
I would like to welcome Herbert Godolphin into the fold of readers of all nationalities who recognize that Japan has serious human rights problems (Feb. 2). In admitting that he has been raked over the coals for his criticism of Kathleen Morikawa's stand against fingerprinting, he is courageously sharing his spiritual growth pains with others.
Godolphin's conversion is not complete. But perfection takes at least one incarnation, and so he need not rush to refuse to carry his new alien registration card.
Godolphin wonders why some foreigners here have not pressured their own governments to eliminate fingerprinting "back home". Such questions have many answers.
Some foreigners may feel that fingerprinting is not discriminatory where they came from. Others discovered the problem of discrimination only after coming to Japan and settled here. The great majority of foreigners in Japan, though, were born here and have never stepped foot in the country the Ministry of Justice erroneously regards as their "true" home.
I am hardly surprised to find that Milton A. Sanders still has nothing better to do than to worry about the bad "image" which he feels that Morikawa has given Americans in Japan like himself who advocate apathy about the their own human rights if not those of other resident foreigners (Feb. 3).
If Sanders feels so ashamed about having to breathe the same alien air with compatriot fingerprint refusers, he should not forget that he is free to take his smug sense of patriotism back home. Or he could stay to see how the Ministry of Justice copes with the growing opposition, among Japanese as well as foreigners, to its recalcitrant policies.
William Wetherall
Immigration Bureau Director-General's parting shotShunji Kobayashi on "the exceedingly high level of law and order" in Japan |
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Here, in addition to my own letter, I am reproducing -- exceptionally -- the text of the letter I was addressing. I am doing so without permission from either the writer or the newspaper, because the letter was written, signed, and submitted in an official capacity. Kobayashi's letter drew a number of other responses, including a reply by Kathleen Morikawa. |
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The Japan Times Fingerprinting issueI have recently received a letter from Kathleen Morikawa, known for her refusal to be fingerprinted, stating that she was still waiting for an answer from me to her "open letter" published in The Japan Times earlier this year. It appears that she was referring to her letter to the editor in this column of July 15, which has now been brought to my notice. Although the time available before my imminent departure from my present post is extremely limited, I decided to write this letter clarifying our position to avoid leaving the impression that I had any difficulty in responding to her request for an explanation. Her July letter questions the validity of the apparent discrepancy in our treatment of the case of Kim Myong Shik, whose application for an extension of stay was rejected, and that of herself, since both of them refused to comply with the fingerprinting requirement of the Alien Registration Law and both are married to Japanese nationals. The seeming discrepancy derives primarily from our judgment as to where the life of each of the two families could be considered to be based. Consideration was given in the process to the fact that Kim met his Japanese wife in Korea, where they were subsequently married and lived for several years before he came to Japan as a student. It was also noted that his declared intention was to return to Korea eventually to live with his family. While he has since left for home of his own volition, the primary purpose of his return is understood to have been to find a job before receiving his family. Incidentally, his spontaneous departure for home effectively proves how groundless was the allegation made by many of his supporters that if deported to his country he would be subjected to persecution and even threats to his life because of his earlier anti-governmental posture and activities there. That being so, the essential question in this matter is whether a wilful violation of laws in force committed to demonstrate one's objection to them may be justified in a society in which freedom of speech, expression and the press is fully guaranteed by law and observed in practice. Under such freedoms there are indeed numerous lawful ways and means to demonstrate whatever views or objections one may have against existing laws and systems, and in fact, in the case of the fingerprinting issue, critics of the system have been enjoying highly sympathetic coverage in the Japanese press. We are firmly convinced that under these circumstances there exist hardly any ground on which to justify the violation of laws for such purposes. It is basically for this reason that the immigration authorities are taking as a matter of principle a stern posture vis-a-vis fingerprint refusers in dealing with matters falling within their responsibility. I trust that Kathleen Morikawa is fully aware of the exceedingly high level of law and order that his country has attained and maintains, while ensuring at the same time an equally high level of political and social freedom. These are indeed two of the most significant aspects of life in Japan. I hope she realizes that through her continued refusal to comply with legal provisions in open defiance she is doing a disservice to the basic framework of the society from which she and her family are daily benefiting.
SHUNJI KOBAYASHI |
The Japan Times Applications of the lawShunji Kobayashi, out-going Director-General of the Immigration Bureau, in his reply (Oct. 4) to Kathleen Morikawa (July 15), trusts that she "is fully aware of the exceedingly high level of law and order that this country has attained and maintains." But his own rationale for the different treatment of Kim Myong Shik is evidence of how "law and order" utterly fails to work in Japan when administered by public officials who do what they please on a case by case basis. The Alien Registration Law does not give public officials the right to apply the law differently depending on the sex, family situation, or visa category of the fingerprint refuser. Nor does it authorize punishment by denial of reentry permits or visa renewals. In fact, the Ministry of Justice has been treating refusers in a thoroughly extralegal manner which exemplifies the primitive nature of law in Japan. Much of the "order" that Kobayashi speaks of is less a result of "law" and more a product of the "discretionary powers" which semi-autonomous bureaucracies like the Ministry of Justice reserve from themselves, beyond the framework of due process and democracy. Kobayashi also unwittingly rationalizes civil disobedience as a means of accelerating the evolution of law. He claims that "freedom of speech, expression and the press is fully guaranteed by law and observed in practice." As an example of such freedoms he points out that "critics of the [fingerprinting] system have been enjoying highly sympathetic coverage in the Japanese press." But Kobayashi fails to observe that his supposedly democratic government (tellingly, perhaps, he does not call Japan a democracy) has not heeded the message behind the alleged press sympathy, to wit: Japanese themselves associate fingerprinting with criminality, and they do not want to treat their alien neighbors as criminals. He also fails to acknowledge that the few cosmetic changes which the government has made in the Alien Registration Law, have been made in direct response to domestic and international publicity generated by civil disobedience on the part of fingerprint refusers like Morikawa. So how can he say that "she is doing a disservice to the basic framework of the society from which she and her family are daily benefiting"? Who benefits from laws which discriminate against minorities? Where is the "political and social freedom" for the aliens who are born and raised in Japan through no will of their own, who must submit to fingerprinting and carry identification from the age of 16 in order for the government to differentiate them from Japanese classmates who do not have to give fingerprints or carry identification? Where are these "most significant aspects of life in Japan" when these duly identified aliens finish school and get jobs (but not those which the government and many corporations deny them)? And when they start paying taxes but cannot vote, how are they to elect politicians who sympathize with their burden of "law and order" discrimination? If Kobayashi is not too busy emptying his desk for his successor, perhaps he would answer these questions, too.
WILLIAM WETHERALL |
The Japan Times
Sent 30 January 1988
Not published
The logic of invisible ink
Though I am a native speaker of English, I have learned to speak Japanese. And so the spongy logic inherent in the linguistics of my second tongue has affected my innate English habits of clear thought.
From this it follows that I am either coming or going home. But since neither the English nor the Japanese halves of my brain knows which, I could just as well say that I am both coming and going.
Thus logic would uncertainly resolve all clarity in my mind if not dissolve yours. Let me warn you, however, that I may be tough to spot in a crowd. Look for some unconnected dots among the mass of people who seem to know where they are going. The one oscillating a couple of meters off the pavement will be my head.
But so long as we harmonize, you don't need to see me to love me.
It may take a while for me to get through immigration. They're on to my dot trick. They will surely conclude that, since my carrying a Japanese passport is either logical or not, because it is not, it is.
There's a new song called "Didn't we almost hear it all". The lyrics appeared in two recent issues of this paper, on 24 and 25 January to be perfectly linear about it.
Becoming a Japanese intellectual is easy. One has only to stop trying to be consistent and clear; forget all that one has learned about bloodshed and conflict in Japan past and present; disregard the ancient and recent power struggles between Shintoists and Buddhists, between Yamato and non-Yamato, between the state and the individual, man and woman, parent and child.
You name it, you forget it.
Just follow the example of Shigehiko Toyama, who claims that keeping Shinto and Buddhist altars in the same room, and offering prayers to both, is an example of polytheism and pluralism. A closer look will show that this is really an instance of complementary functionalism, in which two sets of values coexist because they work together in different or compatible territories.
But let us not look at things humanistically, for that would make it impossible to entertain a general theory of cultural relativism.
Let us condemn the kind of logic which holds that, if Toyama is correct both in his premise that language influences thought more than ideas mold language, and in his corollary that the Japanese language compels its users toward pluralism and harmony, then his conclusion -- that translationese and otherwise imported culture must be rejected in order for the real Japanese language to re-emerge and show its true and natural colors -- must be false.
And let us, by all means, restore the maidenhead of Japanese law, though it seems to me that, if it was ever virginal, it was violated long before the writers of the Kojiki and Man'yoshu got around to setting down everything they knew in what, for the most part, is perfectly straight-forward idiom, give or take the obscure kanji or two that my computer can't find in its dictionary, and some subtle combinations and linkages of ambiguity that baffle my translation software.
One way to Yamatoize legal terms would be to replace English "naturalization" (and Chinese kika) with Japanese "stipplization". Such a "haikuish" legal term would stress that, to be(come) a good citizen of Japan, one needs a spotty identity.
I must thank Toyama for persuading me that fingerprints are really a kind of stippled ode to the harmony and pluralism that reside in the soul of the Japanese language.
Invisible ink!
A left index finger smears
the whorls of logic.
William Wetherall
The Japan Times
Sent 2 March 1988
Published 30 March 1988
Readers in Council (page 20)
A curious visa refusal
I am an American citizen who believes that the often Eurocentric U.S. government has been outgrowing its anti-Asian traditions. Hence my regret to read in your paper (Feb. 27) that the U.S. Consulate in Osaka has refused to give Kim Kangja, a 25-year-old Korean woman from Yamatotakada in Nara prefecture, a visa to study photo-journalism for one year at Friends World College in Huntington, New York. Ms. Kim has been a student at Friends World School in Kyoto, where she is enrolled in a program that includes one year of study at the parent institution.
Ms. Kim is a fingerprint refuser, and so the Japanese government has refused to give her a reentry permit. But Ms. Kim had no reason to expect that the U.S. Consulate would deny her request for a student visa, since other Korean refusers, like Choe Son'ai from Kitakyushu, have been granted visas without reentry permits. And so anticipating no problems, she quit her job and moved out of her apartment.
The Osaka Consulate asked Ms. Kim to provide evidence that she would be allowed back into Japan. She gave the consulate letters written by DSP and LDP Diet members confirming verbal assurances of the Justice Ministry that she would be allowed to reenter Japan. As though to doubt these official assurances, the consulate still refused to give Ms. Kim a visa, and it took the position that the assurances would be good only if Ms. Kim had permanent residence status in Japan. The consulate has chosen to ignore the several cases of non-resident aliens, including U.S. and British subjects, who have been given new visas to return to Japan after leaving as fingerprint refusers.
Why this U.S. reluctance to allow a minority member of Japanese society to experience life the United States and help bridge the gap between the two countries? Why the taking of a stance that is even more rigid than that of the Japanese government? Why the change of heart, why the moral regression?
At the time Ms. Kim was refused a visa, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Mike Mansfield, was undergoing a by-bass operation in the U.S. Mansfield was posted to Japan by former president Carter, a champion of moral diplomacy, after a long and distinguished civil rights record in congress. Were he here, I cannot imagine that he would have advised the Osaka Consulate to refuse Ms. Kim's request on the grounds that "She will have to comply with the [Japanese] law. People who engage in civil disobedience must be prepared to pay the price."
It seems to me that the only price to be paid in the mishandling of Ms. Kim's visa request is the reputation of the U.S. as a country that is capable of setting moral examples for countries which have little official regard for the human rights of their minorities.
I have heard that Mike Mansfield is back in Japan. It would be nice if he could prove to Ms. Kim that his operation was successful, that his heart is still in the right place, that he will not by-pass his obligation to be fair to Ms. Kim, that he will restore her faith in the possibility of a life in Japan without discrimination.
William Wetherall
Biometrics in Immigration Control Law (2007-2999)
Here are the letters I have written thus far on fingerprinting under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law, which began in 2007, supposedly to prevent terrorism.
By the start of the 21st century, the Asahi Evening News and the Mainichi Daily News had folded. The Daily Yomiuri survived, but its Letters to the Editor space remained limited and highly controlled.
Today, The Japan Times is the premier stage for reader opinion. Letters are limited to 300 words and acceptance is more competitive. The editing is generally competent and conscientious, but at times it can be heavy to the point of corrupting. But experience teaches how to frame opinions in ready-to-print form.
The Japan Times
Sent 8 March 2006
Not published
No "ethnic Koreans" in law
Your article on "Bill to fingerprint, photograph foreigners advances" (March 8) states that "The measure excludes ethnic Koreans and other permanent residents with special status," but this is not true. There is no reference in the bill to ethnicity, and many Koreans (a nationality, not an ethnicity) would not be exempted.
The measure would exempt "special permanent residents" (tokubetsu eijusha). This status is provided by the Special Law on Immigration Control Concerning Those Who Have Lost Japanese Nationality on the Basis of a Treaty of Peace with Japan, which was promulgated in 1991.
As of the end of 2004, some 607,419 Koreans were registered in Japan. 102,999 had non-permanent residence visas, and 31,955 had general permanent residence visas, provided under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law.
Only 461,460 Koreans (down from 507,429 in 2000) were special permanent residents. These Koreans include both ROK (Kankoku) nationals and people classified only as former subjects of the Chosen territory of the Empire of Japan.
About three thousand Chinese (most ROC nationals), two hundred Americans, and some Filipinos, Brazilians, Peruvians and other resident aliens also have the peace-treaty related status. Ethnicity has no bearing on this legal status. In fact, some special permanent resident Koreans began life in prefectural Japanese family registers.
William Wetherall
The Japan Times
Sent 7 June 2006
Published 18 June 2006
Readers in Council
Advantages of fingerprinting
By William Wetherall
Regarding recent reaction to the law enacted May 17 requiring the fingerprinting and photographing of all foreigners entering Japan: I was one of many who refused to give a fingerprint during the 1980s, when the pad of an index finger was printed on a card by a clerk for purposes of alien registration. Local (village, town, city, ward) polities, not the Immigration Bureau, had custody of alien registration records and fingerprints.
All this changed when the law was revised to give the Immigration Bureau jurisdiction over alien registration. Local polities no longer have autonomy with regard to the registration of alien residents. Fingerprint refusers won the battle but lost the war.
Still, taking prints for ID purposes is hardly criminal treatment. A print from the pad of a single finger, taken for ID purposes, is useless for criminal investigation, which calls for rolled prints of all five fingers on both hands. The new law, too, calls only for prints to facilitate the confirmation of the identity of a person at the gate of entry, where the person's print will be compared with prints in a database.
Registered aliens who provide their prints before they leave and re-enter Japan will be able to re-enter through an automatic gate by swiping a smart Alien Registration Card and touching a fingerprint pad. In other words, their entry will be expedited.
Ideally there should be no discrimination in standards of registration and identification between different kinds of aliens, or between aliens and Japanese. It would be both more efficient and fairer to merge Japanese and alien registration in a common system, with a box for nationality and another for a fingerprint.
Original letter
Fingerprinting advantages
I was one of many who refused to give a fingerprint during the 1980s, when the pad of an index finger was printed on a card by a clerk for purposes of alien registration. Local (village, town, city, ward) polities, not the Immigration Bureau, had custody of alien registration records and fingerprints.
All this changed when the law was revised to give the Immigration Bureau jurisdiction over alien registration. Local polities no longer have autonomy with regards to the registration of alien residents. Anti-fingerprint refusers won the battle but lost the war.
Taking prints for ID purposes is hardly criminal treatment. A print from the pad of a single finger, taken for ID purposes, is useless in criminal investigation, which calls for rolled prints of all five fingers on both hands. The new law, too, calls only for prints to facilitate the confirmation of the identity of a person at the gate of entry, where the person's print will be compared with prints in a database.
Registered aliens who provide their prints before they leave and reenter Japan will be able to renter through an automatic gate by swiping a smart Alien Registration Card and touching a fingerprint pad. In other words, their entry will be expedited.
Ideally there should be no discrimination in standards of registration and identification between different kinds of aliens, or between aliens and Japanese. It would be both more efficient and fairer to merge Japanese and alien registration in a common system, with a box for nationality and another for a fingerprint.
The Japan Times
Sent 22 November 2006
Published 6 December 2006
Readers in Council
More control for immigration
By William Wetherall
In his Nov. 21 "Lifelines" article, Ken Joseph Jr."wonders if the new fingerprint law will force him to stand in a long line at immigration with his half-Japanese children and Japanese wife." An impossible situation. No one can be "half" Japanese. If you present a valid Japanese passport, you are Japanese. If not, you are non-Japanese. It's that simple.
Regarding the history of fingerprinting, Joseph states that a former requirement "was done away with a few years ago after extensive lobbying by the foreign population." Again, not so. In the 1980s more than 700 municipalities in Japan did choose not to report local fingerprint refusers. The Ministry of Justice could do nothing because, at the time, municipalities had jurisdiction over alien registration.
The government's political response was to push through legal reforms that gave the ministry full control over alien registration. The law did away with fingerprinting, but immigration authorities lost nothing. They knew the system introduced in the 1950s was useless. They got all they wanted: more control.
Original letter
"Lifelines" misinformation
Ken Joseph Jr. writes in "Lifelines" (Nov. 21) about a man who "wonders if the new fingerprint law will force him to stand in a long line at immigration with his half-Japanese children and Japanese wife." An impossible situation. No one can be "half" Japanese. If you present a valid Japanese passport, you are Japanese. If not, you are non-Japanese. It's that simple.
Regarding the history of fingerprinting, Joseph states that a former requirement "was done away with a few years ago after extensive lobbying by the foreign population." Again, not so. A relatively small number of foreigners in Japan, of various nationalities, were arrested and prosecuted for refusing to give their prints. All essentially lost their court battles.
The main political force was the stance in the 1980s by over 700 municipalities, of the over 3,000 then in Japan, not to report local fingerprint refusers. The Ministry of Justice could do nothing because, at the time, municipalities had jurisdiction over alien registration.
The national government's political response was to push through legal reforms that gave the justice ministry full control over alien registration. The law did away with fingerprinting but immigration authorities lost nothing. They knew the system introduced in the 1950s was useless. They got all they wanted: more control.
The Japan Times
Sent 1 November 2007
Published 6 November 2007
Readers in Council
Fingerprinting not so stupid
By William Wetherall
In his Nov. 1 article, "Not so welcome to Japan any longer", Kevin Rafferty dwells on the fingerprinting and photographing of most aliens when entering or returning to Japan, to begin later this month, as "tedious" and "discriminatory." He wonders if Immigration Bureau officials are "so shallow and stupid, as well as xenophobic," to believe that such measures will protect Japan against terrorism. But perhaps those who take this official pretext at face value are the ones who need a reality check.
One of the unspoken, and truer, aims of the system is to prevent the re-entry to Japan of deported and other aliens banned from entry. The fingerprints and photographs of deported aliens will be in the bureau's database. The new system will deter such aliens from attempting to re-enter, as many have been, on the strength of only passports reflecting new identities.
Deployment of imaging devices -- high-tech toys, yes, but toys with a future -- at ports of entry ultimately has little to do with immigration. Over the next several years, the Justice Ministry (the true perpetrator) as well as allied agencies in Japan and other countries will learn a great deal about the use of biometric systems as tools for identification. New hardware and software will encourage greater use of biometric data in everyday life -- not only in Japan, but worldwide.
All this experience will be applicable to tomorrow's social control and security measures. Aliens are merely the guinea pigs in a massive image discrimination and data processing study that someday will benefit everyone, including those now spared the honor. The Japanese government is definitely not stupid.
Original letter
Fingerprinting not so stupid
In "Fingerprinting Foreigners" (Nov. 1), Kevin Rafferty dwells on the fingerprinting and photographing of most aliens when entering or returning to Japan, to begin later this month, as "tedious" and "discriminatory". He wonders if Immigration Bureau officials are "so shallow and stupid, as well as xenophobic" to believe that such measures will protect Japan against terrorism. But perhaps those who take this official pretext at face value are the ones who need a reality check.
One of the unspoken, and truer, aims of the system is to prevent the re-entry to Japan of deported and other aliens banned from entry. The fingerprints and photographs of deported aliens will be in the bureau's database. The new system will deter such aliens from attempting to re-enter, as many have been, on the strength of only passports reflecting new identities.
Imaging devices -- high-tech toys, yes, but toys with a future -- whose deployment at ports of entry ultimately has little to do with immigration. Over the next several years, the Justice Ministry (the true perpetrator), and allied agencies in Japan and other countries, will learn a great deal about the use of biometric systems as tools for identification. New hardware and software will inspire more confidence in, and encourage greater use of, biometric data in everyday life -- not only in Japan, but worldwide.
All this experience will be applicable to tomorrow's social control and security measures. Aliens are merely the guinea pigs in a massive image discrimination and data processing study that someday will benefit everyone, including those now spared the honor. The Japanese government (plural) are definitely not stupid.
The Japan Times
Sent 11 November 2007
Published 15 November 2007
Readers in Council
Exemptions not based on nationality
By William Wetherall
In his Nov 11 letter, Donald Seekins wonders "Why exempt Korean residents (from biometric screening at ports of entry)?" The short answer is that "Korean residents" are not exempt. There is no such category in Japanese law, and Special Permanent Residents (SPRs) are not defined by nationality.
SPRs, which are rapidly decreasing, include about 50 nationalities spanning Asia, Europe, Africa, North and South America, Oceania, and Stateless. The vast majority are either nationals of the Republic of Korea (ROK) or "Chosenese."
The latter is a residual legal status based on affiliation with a register in the defunct "Chosen" territory of the Empire of Japan. It has nothing to do with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) or with 38th-parallel politics. A few settled Chosenese are not qualified as SPRs, and an increasing number of resident ROK nationals are not SPRs. They will be fingerprinted and photographed, as will the very few DPRK nationals that Japan exceptionally admits.
The SPR status, which began in 1991, consolidated earlier treaty-based statuses and perpetuated the right of residence for the future generations of qualified aliens regardless of their present nationality. As such it recognized SPRs as all but Japanese. Hence their special treatment.
Original letter
Exemptions not based on nationality
Donald Seekins wonders "Why exempt Korean residents?" (Nov. 11). The short answer is that "Korean residents" are not exempt from biometric screening at ports of entry. There is no such category in Japanese law. And Special Permanent Residents (SPRs) are not defined by nationality.
SPRs, which are rapidly decreasing, include about fifty nationalities spanning Asia, Europe, Africa, North and South America, Oceania, and Stateless. The vast majority are either nationals of the Republic of Korea (ROK) (Kankokujin) or Chosenese (Chosenjin). The latter is a residual legal status based on affiliation with a register in the defunct "Chosen" territory of the Empire of Japan. It has nothing to do with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) or with 38th parallel politics.
A few settled Chosenese are not qualified as SPRs, and an increasing number of resident ROK nationals are not SPRs. They will be fingerprinted and photographed, as will the very few DPRK nationals that Japan exceptionally admits.
Fingerprinting aliens in Japan, as a matter of registration, did not begin until 1955. Fingerprinting ended for all registered aliens in 2000. In 1993, however, all permanent residents, general and special, were exempted from fingerprinting because of a 1991 memorandum between Japan and ROK about the treatment of ROK nationals whose status in Japan was tied to a 1965 Japan-ROK agreement. The 1965 agreement obliged Japan to enter into consultations with ROK if requested to do so within 25 years of its 1966 enforcement.
The SPR status, which also began in 1991, consolidated earlier treaty-based statuses and perpetuated the right of residence for the future generations of qualified aliens regardless of their present nationality. As such it recognized SPRs as all but Japanese. Hence their special treatment.
The Japan Times
Sent 18 November 2007
Published 22 November 2007
Readers in Council
Rocking the fingerprint boat
By William Wetherall
Grant Mahood is entirely right in his Nov. 18 letter, "Magic feeling of being exempt," to want "no more exemptions, no more discrimination, no more unequal application of the law -- just (the) repeal" (of the Justice Ministry's biometric data collection program for foreign arrivals at Japanese ports of entry).
But he appears to be unaware of my stance against the law. And while he feels "It's hard to blame those among the exempted for being afraid to rock the boat," how does he intend to "rock the boat"? A number of aliens, some now among the exempted, rocked the boat very hard in the 1980s, when they and other aliens were fingerprinted at municipal halls as then required by the Alien Registration Law. Among refusers reported to the Immigration Bureau, some were denied re-entry permits. Some found their status of residence in jeopardy or downgraded. A few were arrested and jailed. Several braved litigation that dragged on into the 1990s.
I was a fingerprint refuser, and my refusal was publicized, but I was never arrested. This time, though, I stand with Susan Menadue-Chun ("SPRs have suffered enough," Nov. 15 letter). I will reluctantly submit my biometrics. Civil disobedience at a port of entry would be totally self-destructive.
In the meantime, I will condemn the law as one that Henry David Thoreau would have called a paragon of governmental "inexpedience." The Ministry of Justice will reap what it has sewn. But I will also criticize objections to the law that are not based on legal and historical fact.
Original letter
Rocking the fingerprint boat
Grant Mahood is entirely right in his letter, "Magic feeling of being exempt" (Nov. 18), to "want no more exemptions, no more discrimination, no more unequal application of the law -- just its repeal." But he appears to be unaware of my stance against the law. And while he feels "It's hard to blame those among the exempted for being afraid to rock the boat" -- how does he intend to "rock the boat"?
A number of aliens, some now among the exempted, rocked the boat very hard in the 1980s, when they and other aliens were fingerprinted at municipal halls as then required by the Alien Registration Law. Among refusers reported to the Immigration Bureau, some were denied re-entry permits. Some found their status of residence in jeopardy or downgraded. A few were arrested and jailed. Several braved litigation that dragged on into the 1990s.
I was a fingerprint refuser, and my refusal was publicized, but I was never arrested. This time, though, I stand with Ms. Menadue-Chun ("SPRs have suffered enough", Nov. 15). I will reluctantly submit my biometrics. Civil disobedience at a port of entry would be totally self-destructive.
In the meantime, I will condemn the law as one which Henry David Thoreau would have called a paragon of governmental "inexpedience". The Ministry of Justice will reap what it has sewn. But I will also criticize objections to the law that are not based on legal and historical fact.
The Japan Times
Sent 10 January 2008
Published 13 January 2008
Readers in Council
Stakes in fingerprint registration
By William Wetherall
Kathleen Morikawa's Jan. 8 Zeit Gist article, "Following in our fingerprints," is one of the best summaries of the movement against fingerprinting in alien registration from 1955 to 2000. Contrary to her claim, though, the government never gave in.
The Ministry of Justice won every battle it set out to win. The national government began to abandon its interest in alien fingerprinting long before the refusal movement began. It turned the movement into an opportunity to phase out fingerprinting as a vestige of an outdated law, simplify and computerize alien registration, and centralize MOJ's control of registration by giving it powers originally delegated to local governments.
Many local governments which supported reform, including the city where I refused (to be fingerprinted), did so partly because the system was inefficient, but mostly because they wanted to divest themselves of the delegated obligation to enforce the law by reporting refusers -- a responsibility that allowed local civil servant unions to hold local governments hostage to their radical agendas.
In 1983, while Morikawa was in court, the National Police Agency deployed the world's first successful Automated Fingerprint Identification System. NEC, its codeveloper, began installing AFIS systems around the world. Today the company boasts that its share of the global "biometrics solutions market" exceeds 60 percent. Guess whose logo emblazons the machines at Narita.
Original letter
Fingerprinting stakes
Kathleen Morikawa's Jan. 8 Zeit Gist report, "Following in our fingerprints", is one of the best summaries of the movement against fingerprinting in alien registration from 1955 to 2000. Contrary to her claim, though, the government never gave in.
The Ministry of Justice won every battle it set out to win. The national government began to abandon its interest in alien fingerprinting long before the refusal movement began. It turned the movement into an opportunity to phase out fingerprinting as a vestige of an outdated law, simplify and computerize alien registration, and centralize MOJ's control of registration by giving it powers originally delegated to local governments.
Many local governments which supported reform, including the city where I refused, did so partly because the system was inefficient, but mostly because they wanted to divest themselves of the delegated obligation to enforce the law by reporting refusers -- a responsibility which allowed local civil servant unions to hold local governments hostage to their radical agendas.
Morikawa finds it ironic that her "own" US government gave Japan a pretext to "reintroduce" fingerprinting, at ports of entry in 2007. The Alien Registration Law she protested was inspired by the US 1940 Alien Registration Act, which GHQ/SCAP had in mind when it encouraged the fingerprinting of Japanese "aliens" in Occupied Japan after World War II. There was even a push for a law to fingerprint all nationals -- a prewar dream still alive today.
In 1983, while Morikawa was in court, the National Police Agency deployed the world's first successful Automated Fingerprint Identification System. NEC, its co-developer, began installing AFIS systems around the world. Today the company boasts that its share of the global "biometrics solutions market" exceeds sixty percent. Guess whose logo emblazons the machines at Narita.