Kimiko Nezu sit in

Yesterday Tetsuro took us to visit the sit in of Kimiko Nezu. Her long struggle is often mention in the press and a google search on her name finds dozens of articles. The struggle is against the compulsion introduced into Tokyo schools that students and teachers are forced to stand for the flag and sing for the national anthem.

A few brave teachers have protested and are continually harased and punished by the authorites. One of the reasons they will not sing the anthem is because it is the World War 2 hymn "Kimigayo" that was used to glorify the Japanese Imperial Army as it invaded other Asian nations killing 19 million people. "Hinomaru" is the Japanese national flag and "Kimigayo" the Japanese national anthem. The stance of people on the Hinomaru-Kimigayo issue has become a touchstone question of democracy itself in Japan.

Kimiko Nezu has recently been supended without pay for three months so she sits outside the school in protest.

below is part of a recent New York Times article which mentions the teachers struggle in the context of the rise of Japanese nationlism and denial of the crimes of the past:

U.S. Needs Japan's Diplomacy, but Tokyo Isn't Talking

By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: June 25, 2006

"Mr. Koizumi has cemented good relations with Mr. Bush by doing the previously unthinkable: deploying troops to Iraq, deepening military ties and moving Japan toward a revision of the Constitution. The new military assertiveness, though, has given voice to conservatives who have long wanted to restore prewar symbols. Teachers are now being punished for refusing to sing the national anthem. Government-endorsed textbooks play down Japan's past militarism. If Asia has been troubled by the rise of Japanese nationalism, it has also been perplexed by America's silence. Yasukuni, after all, enshrines leaders who waged war against the United States, too, and its museum propagates the rightist view that the United States forced Japan into war."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/weekinreview/25onishi.html