EDITORIAL
Not 'Art for art's sake'

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

POEMS
Invisible Things
For King and Country
On the Way Home
We 21st CenturyYouths

ESSAY
Identities on the move: society, borders and me
- a ramble in the calm before the storm Megumi Kanie

(continued from the previous page)

Then, however, I was shaken by another passage in the book I mentioned before. The argument is that (external) migration comes into existence by crossing national borders which modern international society has drawn rudely and that is nothing but meaningless. Such identities and patriotism are mere intentional creation of governments by compulsion, the history taught in school is none but the one in favour of rulers, etc...umm...I get stuck at that point.

New Zealand is an artificial nation with British migrants, transferring fully the atmosphere of Britain to the South Pacific. On the other hand, Japan is one composed of citizens who have existed from the beginning, like European nations. I can roughly distinguish like that. I could say Japan was originally there and was not created artificially. The origin of its exclusivity or closed shop might come from that point, unlike the former British Commonwealth countries.

Hang on a minute. What about the Ainu people who are indigenous of Ezo or Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, or Ryukyu monarchy among the islands of Okinawa, southernmost Japan then? I have read an article in a British magazine named New Internationalist which (indirectly) criticises that Japan does not teach the Ainu language, and I remember eagerly objecting to it in an assignment for Robbie, interviewee of our multilingual page in the last issue. It is wrong somehow; it might look so from the eyes of foreigners, but it sounds unnatural - the recent Maori revival movement is fine because the people are indigenous of this country, but the Ainu people don't represent the whole nation since they are located only in Ezo. Hence apart from the people in the region, it doesn't make sense, nor is there a need to teach the Ainu language nationwide.

Yet, as referred to before, Maori people also used to be immigrants to this country Aotearoa, and they did not settle nationwide evenly either...they have moved to urban areas in the process of industrialisation during the post-war period - that is 'internal' migration.

Back to the case of Japan, I can also understand that. Foreigners, outsiders are rejected, but domestic movement exists. Everyone converges to Tokyo or goes up to town as a (domestic) migrant worker, or in turn there's a movement entitled 'I turn' in which urban people move out to rural areas. It is strange to claim that Japanese are acceptable but foreigners are not, in consideration of the irrationality of nation-states argued in that book.

That account could apply to my personal case. The story I found for my last essay, that many second-generation migrants regard themselves as New Zealanders but are proud of their blood, can be used in my situation: I sometimes call myself a quarter Osaka; both of my parents were born and grew up in Nagoya City but I actually feel myself more a citizen of Nisshin, a suburb of Nagoya City, than that of Nagoya...the scale is far smaller, but that's the point, isn't it?

Such differentiation exists even within the same nation, and it is undoubtedly the central government located in far distant Tokyo which united that and regulated Japanese language - and is my willingness to work for Japan, despite such a fact, something like I'm playing into the hands of the government or authorities?

Honestly speaking, I wish to go back to Japan, especially around Nagoya. I wanna keep a link with an NGO named Asian Health Institute which I have been familiar with especially during my late teens, and hope to live within Nagoya City and finally become its citizen. It is still my first preference, but the concept of 'society'has turned out to be fragile and fuzzy, and I'm losing the meaning of myself working hard for such a society...that is the thought looming in me these days. While I've been carried away with writing it, it seems dawn is breaking now.


Megumi Kanie, Melange editor from Nisshin, Aichi, Japan, is a social science student struggling with interdisciplinary studies at International Pacific College in Palmerston North, New Zealand. She usually contributes articles under an alias. This piece was picked up from her scribbling paper that she writes on constantly.

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