Generally speaking, disability rights movements have not been so active in the modern Japan.   However,  Aoi-shiba-no-kai or “Society of Green Lawn,” an association for cerebral palsy marked a radical appeal mainly in the 1970’s, is a noteworthy exception.

The four basic principles of the association illustrate how radical their critical insistence is.  The first one is:

•  We are aware that we are “persons with cerebral palsy.”  We recognize our socially imposed position as “an existence not to be by right.”  We are convinced that the recognition should be the starting point for the whole of our movement.

The Japanese phrase “we are persons with cerebral palsy” has a complicated connotation.  In my simple interpretation, it means “we are socially stigmatized as persons with cerebral palsy, and at the same time we actually are persons with cerebral palsy.”  That is, they aim to criticize the social prejudice without denying their palsy.

The second principle is:

• We intensively assert ourselves.  If we are aware that we are “persons with cerebral palsy,”  the will to protect ourselves would rise.  We are convinced that intensive self-assertion is the only way to achieve it.

The third one is:

• We deny love and justice.  We acutely accuse egoism love and justice involve.  Such denial leads to observation of human.   We are convinced that genuine welfare is mutual understanding archived in the process.

The proclamation of denying love and justice is the most famous slogan of the association.  You maybe can compare it with Nietzsche’s criticism of moral.  One of the insights the phrase implies is that love and justice are utilized in order to disguise the reality of society.  Aoi-shiba-no-kai united such radical declaration with practical liberation movements; the point makes them different from Nietzsche as a thinker.

The last one is:

• We never choose an easy way to resolve the problems.   We have leaned through our own experience that preference for an easy solution led to a disastrous compromise.  We are convinced that the only movement we can make is to raise questions in succession.

As the members explained in several occasions, they were inspired by the Buddhist teaching of akunin-shoki made by Shinran.  Akunin-shoki is a teaching which requires a profound awareness of one’s sinfulness.

In the specialized study of Shinran, it is a fashionable trend to criticize the central significance of akunin-shoki just as a product of modernist reinterpretation of Shinran.  However, as Yamazaki Makoto (2017) indicates, such reinterpretation as a modern product virtually produces an innovative movement like one of aoi-shiba-no-kai.  As far as missing such possibilities of reinterpretation, recent deconstructing critics are captured by essentialist bias,  contrary to their own manifesto.

Reference [Japanese; the English titles are attached only for the blog entry]:

YOKOTSUKA Koichi, Don’t Kill, Mam! （横塚晃一『母よ！殺すな』生活書院、2007年）

YAMAZAKI Makoto, “A Source of the Thoughts on Autonomy of Disabilities in Japan : Religious Thought of the Association of Celebral Palsy, Green Grass.”  (山﨑亮「障害者自立思想の一源流」『島根大学法文学部紀要 社会文化学科編 社会文化論集』13号、2017年)

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