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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
1 Sasaki Masao “Henshū Kōki” in Anutari Ainu Kankōkai eds., Anutari Ainu - Warera Ningen, Inaugural Edition, 1st June 1973, p. 8. (Note: all translations from Japanese are my own unless otherwise stated. All Japanese names have been rendered first name-surname for ease of reading).
2 Born in Bibai City, Hokkaido, Sasaki Masao started writing poetry in his twenties, and then went on to study the intellectual history of the Emperor-system of ancient Japan at Tōhoku University in Sendai. His first, and only, poetry collection, which is evocative of Ainu-related themes, ‘Poetic Draft of Eight Verses for a Cursed Soul: One Verse Attached’ (Jukon no tame no happen yori naru shikō tsuki ippen, Shinyasōshosha) was published in 1968. While continuing to write poetry, Sasaki went on to write a number of highly idiosyncratic articles and essays, in a period lasting from 1971 to 1975, using current events involving the Ainu as a way to elaborate on his own personal philosophy and thought about what it means to be ‘Ainu’ in contemporary Japan. He is perhaps best known among people involved in Ainu affairs as the first editor of the Anutari Ainu newspaper during the year 1973-1974. Until recently Sasaki's output during this period has only been known about by a select few with access to the original publications, however, in 2008, a collection of his articles and poetry was published by Japanese publisher, Sōfūkan (Sasaki Masao, Genshi suru Ainu, Sōfūkan, 2008). While this collection serves as a good introduction to his work it contains a number of typographical errors and omissions, and provides no biographical information about its author. I have written a more detailed account as my PhD thesis which attempts to tease out the implications that Sasaki's work as a whole might have for Ainu history, politics and thought today.
3 The Anutari Ainu newspaper was printed and distributed on a monthly and bimonthly basis by a close-knit editorial board of young Ainu, predominantly women, and produced out of an apartment building in Sapporo from June 1973 to March 1976. A thousand copies were printed each issue, with around six hundred of these sent to subscribers around the country. Containing a wide variety of poetry and prose, it also dealt with a variety of issues important to Ainu affairs at the time. It folded in 1976 due to lack of funds and the other commitments of the editors.
4 While I do not wish to get into a discussion on the subject of just “what” or “when” constitutes modernity in Japan, suffice it to say that the key element of that modernity involved the organization of human life around an unchanging, static, fixed quantity of time, objectified in the time of the clock, and which is commodified into an abstract exchange value that enables translation and comparison between fundamentally different qualities of the environment and cultural life (See, for example, Karl Marx Grundrisse, Penguin, 1973[1857], pp. 140-143; Walter Benjamin, “Thesis on the Philosophy of History” in Illuminations, translated by Harry Zohn, Fontana/Collins, p.263; E. P. Thompson, “Time, Work-discipline, and Industrial Capitalism”, in Past and Present, No. 38, pp.52-97; David Harvey The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, 1989; and for an overview of Japan: Narita Ryūichi, “Kindai nihon no “toki” ishiki”, in Toki no chihō-shi, Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1999, pp. 352-385). This time of modernity is also, of course, intrinsically linked with the establishment of the structure of global historicist time as the “more developed” shows the “less developed” an image of its own future. As elsewhere, Japanese modernity was legitimized along these historicist grounds. The creation of colonial space in territories such as Hokkaido enabled a “synchronicity of the non-synchronous” as Ainu were perceived to be pre-modern or underdeveloped. Thus modernity's abstract and empty time provided its own catalyst for application in reality. It is for this reason too that Japanese colonialism should be at the heart of any discussion of modernity in Japan, and indeed East Asia as a whole, and not because of any particular “postcolonial” academic fad or perceived need to supply it with lip-service.
5 Sasaki used the word “carcass” (keigai) to describe Ainu culture in an article which reviewed some of the media reaction to a short documentary film, “An Ainu Wedding” (Ainu no kekkonshiki), by director, Tadayoshi Himeda, made in 1971. In that article, Sasaki laid out his historical understanding of the “dismantling of Ainu communality” in the early modern and modern eras of Japanese history. Most important here, however, is Sasaki's sense of a decisive historical break that modernity brought to the Ainu. In his words, “exactly where is ‘Ainu culture’ now without its former sense of community, belief and language? All there is now is an empty carcass. To “pass on” something non-existent, even if one wishes to - this is the “Ainu” today” (Sasaki Masao, “Eiga ‘Ainu no kekkonshiki’ ni fureta Asahi Shinbun to Ōta Ryū no bunshō ni tsuite”, in Aen, Aenhenshūshitsu, 1971, pp. 16-30, p. 22). Again, what is crucial to note here is not an argument about whether or not “Ainu culture” exists today as versions of it certainly do. What is vital to grasp in what Sasaki says is the fact that however one may wish to “revive”, “promote”, or “regain” that culture, it will remain exactly that - a revival and nothing more because of the historical break that modernity represents.
6 It is significant to note that those politicians who have been historically most involved in Ainu politics have belonged to the old Tanaka and Takeshita factions of the LDP who came to prominence during the 1993 political crisis and who are now once again in the limelight under the DPJ's Hatoyama administration.
7 The full text of the Declaration can be found on the UN website. (accessed 13/08/09).
8 See, for instance, Patrick Thornberry Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights, Manchester University Press, 2002, p. 428.
9 Uemura Hideaki, “’Senjūminzoku no kenri ni kansuru kokurensengen’ kakutoku no nagai michinori”, in PRIME, No. 27, pp. 53-68, p. 54; Uemura Hideaki, “Nihon seifu to nihon shakai ga oubeki gimu: Ainu minzoku to senjūminzoku no kenri”, in Impaction, No. 167, Imapact Publishers, 2009, pp. 62-73, p. 62. Uemura has also produced a report on how the Declaration can be applied in the Ainu's case, Uemura Hideaki, Ainu minzoku no shiten kara mita ‘Senjūminzoku ni kansuru kokusai rengō sengen’ no kaisetsu to riyōhō, Shimin Gaikō Center Booklet No. 3, October 2008.
10 Uemura, ibid.
11 UN Declaration, ibid, Article 46.
12 The drafting of this law marked a shift in the stance of the Kyōkai which had until then held the position that the presence of the Hokkaido Former Natives Protection Act on the legislative books would provide more of a point of leverage than nothing at all for a more comprehensive Ainu policy. For an English translation of the law, see Appendix 2 in Richard Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, Routledge, 1996, pp. 196-200.
13 In many ways, the postwar stance of the Kyōkai has reflected the continuation of its status as a semi-governmental organization, originally created as a largely agricultural cooperative movement on 18th July 1930. Having always received an annual subsidy from the Hokkaido government, it has had to depend on the state for its power, and thus also for its membership numbers to which it distributes government policy funds. As such, with a politically conservative base membership engaged predominantly in the agricultural, forestry, fishing and manufacturing sectors, the Kyōkai has always focused on educational and employment issues. It has been difficult to translate these concerns into the language of international indigenous rights. See Siddle, as above, pp. 133-140, 147-153, 180-184, and David Howell, “Making ‘Useful Citizens’ of Ainu Subjects in Early Twentieth Century Japan”, in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 63 No. 1 (Feb 2004), pp. 5-29.
14 Report of the Council of Experts on Implementation of Countermeasures for the Ainu People, p. 5. Reproduced in, Hokkaido Utari Kyōkai ed., Kokusai kaigi shiryō shū, Shadan Hōjin Hokkaido Utari Kyōkai, 2001, pp. 229-262, p. 243 (hereafter “1996 Report”).
15 Ainu were included in the cultural exchange program organized for the spouses of the G8 leaders in which they were lined up and photographed (on the suggestion of Hokkaido Mayor, Takahashi Harumi) wearing embroidered ruunpe Ainu robes. For the impact of the summit and indigenous peoples events organized to coincide with it, see ann-elise lewallen, “Indigenous at Last! Ainu Grassroots Organizing and the Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 48-06-08, 30th November 2008. (accessed 13/08/09). It was also cited as being potentially significant to have the Ainu recognized as indigenous in a year in which the G8 summit was being held in Hokkaido, the “indigenous land of the Ainu people who make coexistence with nature a fundamental feature” of their lives. See, Diet Resolution Calling for the Recognition of the Ainu People as an Indigenous People, Resolution No. 1, 169th Diet, (in Japanese). (accessed 13/08/09).
16 Despite his praise of Japan as “one state, one language, one nation” made at a meeting of the Tokyo Foreign Press Club in 2001, and statement to the effect that the Ainu are completely “assimilated”; Suzuki has been heavily involved in Ainu politics throughout his political career. His political influence and the shadow he has cast on Ainu politics are perhaps best illustrated by his role in the appointment of a key supporter of his, Sasamura Jirō, as President of the Utari Kyōkai in the lead up to passing the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act, and also his appointment of Tahara Kaori as a New Party Daichi candidate in the 2005 general election. See, Richard Siddle, “An Epoch-Making Event? The 1997 Ainu Cultural Promotion Act and its Impact”, Japan Forum, Vol. 14 No. 3, 2002, pp. 405-423, pp. 417-418, and the Japan Times article, “Ainu Candidates Political Hopes Hinge on Controversial Figure.” (accessed 13/08/09).
17 Diet Resolution Calling for the Recognition of the Ainu People as an Indigenous People, ibid.
18 Diet Resolution Calling for the Recognition of the Ainu People as an Indigenous People, ibid.
19 For some it was somewhat ironic that the Chief Cabinet Secretary at this moment was the son of former Hokkaido Mayor, Machimura Kingo, who, in a meeting in 1969 with the then Utari Kyōkai President, Nomura Giichi, had advised against the Ainu being included in the Dōwa Special Measures Law which aimed at raising the living standards and encouraging assimilation among the Burakumin - a nationwide government act. This action, in turn, led to the only regionally based Hokkaido Utari Welfare Measures, under which during a fourteen year period beginning in 1974 over 34 billion yen was funneled into Ainu communities. This was predominantly infrastructure investment and had very little effect on socioeconomic conditions. By the 1990s, rates of interest on loans and low-cost housing which were also covered by the Countermeasures became little different from the commercial sector. See Takeuchi Wataru, Nomura Giichi to Hokkaido Utari Kyōkai, Sōfūkan, 2004, pp. 114-118, and Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, as above, pp. 168170.
20 The members of the Council were: Hokkaido Ainu Kyōkai President, Katō Tadashi; National Institute for the Humanities and National Museum of Ethnology Professor and historian, Sasaki Toshikazu; Head of Hokkaido University's School of Law and its Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies, Tsunemoto Teruki; Hokkaido Mayor, Takahashi Harumi; President of the New National Theatre, Tōyama Kazuko; Tokyo University Professor and historian, Masanori Yamauchi (the only member of the Council who was also on the 1995-6 Council); Andō Nisuke, Head of the Kyōto Human Rights Research Institute; and Professor Emeritus of Kyōto University and constitutional law specialist, Satō Kōji - who sat as the Council's Chair. Whereas this time emphasis was placed on allowing Ainu and Ainu specialists to participate in the process, there was no major symbolic gesture towards placing Ainu policy within the narrative of Japanese national identity as there had been with the nomination of novelist Shiba Ryōtarō to take part last time. However, the result still reflects Shiba's significant influence on the last panel. See the article, “‘Shiba-shikan’ iro koku hanei” in Hokkaido Shinbun (evening edition), 2 April 1996, p. 10.
21 This point was made by former activist and Ainu historian, Kōno Motomichi, in his article, “Seisō no gu ni sareru senjūminronsō”, Hoppō Jãnaru, Vol. 7 No. 1, 2008, pp. 42-43.
22 The author, Russia specialist and former foreign affairs bureaucrat, Satō Masaru, who was arrested alongside Suzuki Muneo on corruption charges in 2002, has consistently made a point of linking Ainu indigenous rights with the Northern Territories issue. See, for instance, Satō Masaru, “Sanshūzenkai icchi de saitaku sareta ‘Ainu senjūminzoku ketsugi’ ga tai-ro ryōdo kōshō no ‘kirifuda’ to naru”, SAPIO, 23/07/08.
23 It is notable that during a meeting with Hatoyama a week before he took office as Prime Minister, Ainu Kyōkai leader Katō Tadashi specifically asked him to mention the Ainu to Obama during their first scheduled meeting. Link (accessed 28/9/09).
24 For a detailed outline and assessment of the impact of that Act, see Siddle “An Epoch Making Event?” ibid.
25 This point is well made by Michiba Chikanobu in his, “‘Sengo’ to ‘senchū’ no aida: jikoshiteki 90-nendai-ron”, Gendai Shisō, Vol. 33 No. 13, 2005, pp. 134-152, p. 143.
26 To this extent FRPAC publishes an annual run down of its finances and how they have been put to use, both online and in print form. This could be argued to have had a detrimental effect and created a source of infighting, even among Ainu engaged in cultural activities, as one can read clearly who is getting what money and what they have done with it each year. There have also been a number of reports concerning the financial embezzlement of FRPAC funds. For FRPAC's financial reports see their website (in Japanese) here. For reports on the supposed embezzlement of FRPAC funds, albeit fairly hyped, see the January special edition of Hoppō Jānaru, 2004.
27 It is disinterested, of course, from the point of view of the national government. As to FRPAC's committees, they tend to be made up of Ainu Kyōkai directors, former Council of Expert members, and other interested parties. In this sense, a good deal of nepotism has arisen in deciding who gets what funding for which projects.
28 Act for the Promotion of Ainu Culture, the Dissemination of Knowledge of Ainu Traditions, and an Educational Campaign (Ainu Cultural Promotion Act), Law No. 52, 1997, Article 2.
29 Concern over the opinions of the Asahikawa Ainu Council in making this decision are cited in then Chief Cabinet Secretary, Igarashi Kōzō's memoir, Kantei no rasen kaidan: shimin-ha kanbōchōkan funtōki, Kyōsei, 1998, p. 187, and Council of Experts member, Masanori Yamauchi's Sekai article written soon after the presentation of the 1996 report, “Ainu shinpō wo dō kangaeru ka? Minzoku to bunka to kyōzoku ishiki”, Sekai, June 1996, pp. 153-168.
30 1996 report, ibid, p. 8.
31 Siddle, “An Epoch-Making Event?”, ibid, p. 415.
32 Yamauchi Masanori, “Ainu minzoku no songen no tame ni”, Sankei News, 10/08/09. (accessed 13/08/09).
33 “Ainu minzoku no kakusa kaishō… Seifu, gutaiteki kentō he”, Yomiuri Online, 29/07/09. (accessed 13/08/09).
34 This promise was also swiftly met as a ‘Comprehensive Ainu Policy Office’ was set up within the Cabinet Secretariat on 12th August 2009 headed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's Hokkaido Office Councilor, Akiyama Kazumi. Link (accessed 17/08/09). A number of developments have also begun concerning the financing of any new policies. For example, on 28th August 2009, the Ministry of Justice announced its budget for 2010 which included ten million yen for “Human Rights educational activities concerning the Ainu problem”, to be spent on printed and internet promotional materials (Hokkaido Shinbun, 29th August 2009). The Hokkaido branch of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism also announced 21 million yen for surveying the promotion and dissemination of the “traditional culture of the Ainu people” in its 2010 budget on 31st August (Mainichi Shinbun, 1st September 2009). The Hokkaido government has also decided to allocate 200 million yen to its Ioru Saisei programs being carried out in Shiraoi and Biratori (Hokkaido Shinbun, 9th September 2009) (See note 38).
35 This was the explanation given by Cabinet Deputy Vice-Minister, Watanabe Yoshiki, when asked about Ainu inclusion in 1996. See Hokkaido Shinbun 2 April 1996.
36 Both born in Hokkaido, Sasaki is a historian of early-modern Ainu material culture and Tsunemoto is a constitutional law specialist whose involvement in Ainu affairs includes the Nibutani Dam Case of the 1990s.
37 The full text of the report (in Japanese) can be downloaded online from the Prime Minister and Cabinet's website. (accessed 13/08/09). The reference to the Ainu language as the “core” of their identity appears on p. 35. It is also labeled as the genten, or “source” of their identity on the previous page.
38 For a simple explanation of the Ioru saisei jigyō, including PDF diagrams of how Hokkaido conceives the finished project (in Japanese), see the Hokkaido government website here (accessed 13/08/09).
39 Report of the Council of Experts on the Implementation of Ainu Policy (hereafter “2009 report”), pp. 33-34.
40 The question of comparison, particularly in indigenous studies, remains a complicated one. In many ways the category of the “indigenous” has enabled an easy universalism through which comparative studies on indigenous peoples can be carried out around the world and compared in a similar manner to what Naoki Sakai has called the logic of “cofiguration”. Under the logic of “co-figuration” the “Ainu” are construed simply as a particular Japanese example of the “indigenous” whole. In other words, “co-figuration” is a process through which the often incommensurable is rendered as fixed and unchanging difference according to an overarching logic of symmetry and temporal equivalence (See Naoki Sakai Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism, Minnesota University Press, 1997, p. 52). It is quite clear that the category of the “indigenous” has enabled what are ultimately colonial strategies of comparison and much of the discussion in groups like the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples has revolved around how to deal with these issues. A more thoughtful line of comparison might consider something like Sasaki Masao's logic of the “situation” as laid out here. After all, what might it mean to consider the “American Indian as a situation”, or the “Aborigine as a situation” - i.e. as remnants of the aporia that created the modern world?
41 2009 report, pp. 31-32.
42 See Siddle, Appendix 2, pp. 198-199.
43 2009 report, ibid, pp. 37-38.
44 2009 report, pp. 38-39.
45 2009 report, pp. 27-28. The argument here in the report is derivative of that put forward by liberal political theorists such as Will Kymlicka. Council member Tsunemoto has often quoted Kymlicka in order to highlight the potential compatibility between indigenous rights and the Japanese constitution (See, for instance, his “Constitutional Protection of Indigenous Minorities”, in Hōdai hōgaku ronshū, Vol 51 No 3, 2000. (accessed 28/9/09)). Kymlicka's argument is that indigenous people are owed self-government because without such rights they are in danger of losing access to a secure societal culture which provides the context in which their rights as individuals are rendered meaningful. It need not be repeated that Kymlicka is predominantly interested in finding a consensus between indigenous rights and the liberal legal frameworks of modern nation states This would be opposed those who highlight the potential of indigenous rights to fundamentally alter such frameworks (For instance, Paul Patton, “Nomads, Capture and Colonization” in Deleuze and the Political, Routledge, 2000, p. 129).
46 2009 report, ibid, pp. 30.
47 2009 report, pp. 39.
48 2009 report, pp. 38-39.
49 Having enjoyed a peak after the introduction of the Utari Welfare Countermeasures in 1974, the membership of the Hokkaido Ainu Kyokai has been undergoing a steady decline. This is due, in some part, to disillusion with its organizational structure, but also because of the more general economic prosperity achieved during the following decades. With a current membership of less than 4000 - representing less than 15% of the official Ainu population of 23,767 in 1999 - the ability of the Kyōkai to remain a representative body for the “Ainu People” is now under question (for Kyōkai membership numbers see this link). As Kyōkai Vice-President, Akibe Tokuhei put it in a recent article, perhaps the most serious implication of the new report for the Kyōkai now is “in what ways we can organize, or, for instance, in what ways can we link an understanding of Ainu as individuals with the perspective of being a Hokkaido Utari [sic] Kyōkai member?” Akibe Tokuhei, “Ima Ainu minzoku wa nani wo subeki ka: jiko ninshiki to kōdō”, Impaction, No. 167, 2009, pp. 12-16, p. 14. There is also talk within the Kyōkai of using the separate population registers, or ninbetsuchō, that were taken when Ainu were entered into the Japanese family register system from 1875-1876, as a method for identifying Ainu today, as well as whether they are qualified to be the beneficiaries of any new policy. This would potentially contradict the Council of Experts report which sees Ainu “identity” as fundamentally self-determined. See Abe Yupo, “Ima sugu ni demo dekiru koto wa aru: Ainu minzoku no yōkyū to senjūken”, Impaction, No. 167, 2009, pp. 17-21.
50 This is particularly noticeable in the opinions expressed by legal specialists and non-Ainu Japanese advocates of indigenous rights when they offer to support Ainu political efforts, but then expect Ainu to get their house in order and come up with a collective set of demands as their part of the bargain. No matter how this is explained away as their not wanting to infringe on the Ainu's right to self-determination, to ignore a situation in which there is no real consensus - partly due to the legacy of colonialism (from which urban, working class Ainu of mixed-decent are probably now the most deeply affected) - and partly to regional factors such as the fact that various Ainu groups lived spread out across the vast region of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kurils in the first place - resulting in still noticeable regional differences today. Why should it be up to Ainu to deal with this when it is these advocates that want to support them? There are of course grassroots forums with agendas quite different from that of the Ainu Kyōkai, however, this tension between autonomy and the seeking of state and societal resources to underline it still defines the parameters of their actions. As long as being “Ainu” is an interpellation, a “situation” in Masao Sasaki's sense, then there can be no real autonomy as “Ainu”. That sense of autonomy must be found elsewhere.
51 Wendy Brown, “Neoliberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy”, in Edgework, Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 37-59, p. 42.
52 The initial re-categorization of the Ainu as “former natives” happened in the last decade of the 19th century as Hokkaido's immigrant population was growing almost annually by the hundred-thousands. See chapter 2 of Siddle Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, ibid.
53 In this sense, and this sense only, the otherwise self-serving and contradictory claims currently being made against Ainu indigeneity by the political manga artist Kobayashi Yoshinori under the heading “the Ainu as Japanese nationals” (Nihon kokumin toshite no Ainu) are in fact correct. However, Kobayashi has not noticed the aporia through which, after modernity, in order to create a sense of practical national belonging, “the Ainu” had to be construed as forever not quite there yet by their very nature. Instead, he hopes to finally accept the Ainu into the bosom of the national community as equal Japanese nationals free of discrimination and with no need for separate and special indigenous rights. In doing so, however, he manages to illustrate perfectly the fact that it is he who is in possession of a sense of practical national belonging enabling him to accept the Ainu into his community. Despite his reputation as a right-winger, in many ways, Kobayashi is little more than a modern liberal democrat. See, Kobayashi Yoshinori ed., Washizumu: tokushū nihon kokumin toshite no Ainu, Vol. 28, Shōgakkan, 2008.
54 This is also why, for instance, Katsuya Hirano's notion of “colonial translation”, or the consistent movement of deterritorialisation and reterritorialization, is so important for modern Ainu history. In many ways, Ainu history has been a repetition of these twin movements, from the initial incorporation of Ezochi and the dismantling of the basho tributary fishery system leading Ainu to be thrown into the developing colonial Hokkaido economy (deterritorialization), to state attempts to re-connect and subordinate them to the land in the form of the Hokkaido Former Natives Protection Act (reterritorialization), to that act's failings forcing Ainu to once again flow into the developing economy as seasonal migrant workers, or dekasegi (deterritorialization), to all attempts since to deal with their perceived, and thus materialized lack of development since. See Katsuya Hirano, “The Politics of Colonial Translation: On the Narrative of the Ainu as a ‘Vanishing Ethnicity’”, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 4-3-09, January 2009. (accessed 5/10/09).
55 As long as human rights are understood as in the pseudo-Kymlickian sense outlined in the Council of Experts report, and indeed to some extent in the UN Declaration itself, they cannot but remain individualistic and property based; they remain more about reparations and ownership - especially with regards to intellectual property rights - than about establishing a sense of the “commons” to which it could be said that much indigenous thought might actually belong.
56 Sasaki Masao, “Eiga ‘Ainu no kekkonshiki’ ni fureta Asahi Shinbun to Ōta Ryū no bunshō ni tsuite”, ibid, pp. 24-25.
57 Sasaki Masao, “Eiga ‘Ainu no kekkonshiki’ ni fureta Asahi Shinbun to Ota Ryū no bunshō ni tsuite”, ibid.
58 In this respect, we can say that contemporary Ainu policy has worked to sustain something similar in Japan to what Ghassan Hage has called the fantasy of white supremacy imbued in some forms of Australian multiculturalism. Hage identifies a situation in which White multiculturalists share a sense of practical national belonging with “racists” in that they see their nation as a narrative constructed around a national culture which they have the right to control. Within this kind of situation, any act of acceptance or “respect” can work as an exclusionary force on the accepted. See Ghassan Hage White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society, Routledge, 2000.
59 Sasaki was particularly critical of Honda's claims at the time that only a socialist society would bring Ainu happiness. See Sasaki Masao, “Honda Katsuichi no sekkyō ni tsuite”, in Anutari Ainu Kankōkai eds., Anutari Ainu - Warera Ningen, Inaugural Edition, 1st June 1973, p. 4. The cartoon is taken from Honda Katsuichi, Senjūminzoku Ainu no Genzai, Asahi Bunko, 1993, p. 156.
60 My thinking on this point is guided by Giorgio Agamben's The Time that Remains, Stanford University Press, 2005, pp. 44-58.
61 Sasaki Masao, “Kono “nihon” ni “izoku” toshite”, in Hoppō Bungei, Vol 5 No 2, 1972, pp. 60-69.
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