Tokyo music teacher reprimanded, given pay cut for not playing anthem on piano

What this music teacher did- refuse to play the anthem- goes against the teaching patriotism to kids law(?) that Herr Abe instated, doesn't it? I'm not surprised then. Another win for the right-wing lunatics.

 

Wrong. The words of the Kimi ga Yo are as follows:

May your Imperial reign
Continue for a thousand years,
And last for eight thousand generations,
Until pebbles
Turn into boulders
Covered in moss.

There is nothing about the Emperor being a God or anything militaristic there at all.

The British national anthem is certainly militaristic. This is verse two:

O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.

And verse six includes the line "Rebellious Scots to crush," though this isn't sung much these days for obvious reasons.

And the U.S. anthem suggests that America is a divine land, describing it as "heaven rescued land."

And as for the French anthem, well, it's a unrelenting cascade of xenophobic comments and calls to arms.

 

"But, in this country, kids have nothing solid to cling to. Parents show no strong moral foundations, the country shows no inclination towards any religions (that would teach morality) and the teachers show active resistance to government authority or national pride."

Don't try to pawn off the state of current youth to not singing an out of date, militaristic national anthem. The past 3 years of kids have been forced, in many schools, to stand and even sing (in some) the national anthem, and that age group is amongst last years extremely high teen suicide/murder rate. And what religion are you talking about? CHRISTIANITY?? hahaha.... if so you surely aren't talking about the morals of the pedophiles that led to the church practically declaring bankruptcy to settle lawsuits, are you? True, religion is not a part of the education system here, and rightly so. Society in general is pretty apathetic when it comes to religion as well, granted, but it beats being forced to observe Shintoism as was seen leading up to Japan's role in previous wars.

You don't need to stand up and sing with your hand over your chest to achieve morality -- in fact, being forced to do so is only counterproductive and will cause more angst in the future.

Kudos to Ms. Ikeda for standing up for what she believes, and as one poster put it, showing a high moral position by not bowing down to forced regulations. Ishihara will no doubt through a hissy fit and try to step in, but hey.

 

There is a proper time and place to voice your own opinions about the government. A teacher employed by the government (public school) refusing instructions from a superior in front of the students is not appropriate action, IMO.

In a private sector, this teacher would have been given her notice out the door immediately. She's lucky that's she's still employed.

 

good woman! stick to your guns and tell them to shove it!

 

Nice post. Thanks for bringing some grounding material to the discussion.

 

Just some background on why some teachers make a stand against the anthem, Kimigayo:

Although Kimigayo dates back to at least the 8th century, and in its current form since the 12th or so, it was adopted by the Meiji government as an anthem to hail the emperor in cermonies. It was first put to music in 1880 and adopted in 1893 into public school curriculum and required to be sung at public school ceremonies. As the song deals with the imperial reign of the emperor, it was strongly linked with imperial Japan's "re-education" of its citizens, along with such things as teaching state Shintoism in history classes, that eventually lead Japan to Worlds War 2 and to its defeat.

The Allied forces banned both the song and the flag as symbols of imperialist Japan, rather than of Japan as a whole. Japan became a democracy, with the emperor become "a symbol of Japan", but having no actual official political or social position with Japan's new democratic framework.

So here's the point of contention. Kimigayo is seen as an imperialist song. The first lines as quoted in the previous entry by Maff, "may your imperial reign continue for a thousand years" are clearly imperialistic. The emperor no longer reigns at all in Japan. To claim so is to harken back to imperialist Japan of the pre-WW2 era. Those who make a stand against the song believe that the song goes against the constitution and that they are trying to defend the democracy of their country. Their country is not a constitutional monarcy (where countries like the U.K. are). It is also seen as a shadow of events of 1893 and the start of the road that leads to returning the education system into one big ultra-nationalist brain washing machine. It can be argued by some also that the textbook issue is more proof of this.

On the other hand, in June 1999, when a bill was passed through the Diet to legalise the song (yes, technically speaking it was still illegal in 1999), then Chief Cabinet Secretary Nonaka argued that "kimi" in "kimi ga yo" refered to the emperor as the Symbol of Japan, and therefore to Japan iteslf, and therefore the song was not imperialistic, but could be interpreted as "may Japan's reign continue for a thousand years". Opposition parties objected, pointing out that there is little or no historical precedent for the interpretation, but the LDP passed the bill and the song was legalised. Because of the difficulty of passing the bill, the government were forced to leave out a means of enforcing the use of the flag or song. This means that there isn't actually a law that can be enacted to force someone to sing the song or stand for the flag. This has been done by the Tokyo government as a directive to teachers, and many believe that the Tokyo government actually have no legal standing to force teachers to stand or sing, hence the regular trips to the courts, where the area is grey enough that they can usually rule in any way they want.

Sorry for the long post, but from what I understand, that's the background. The issue runs a bit deeper than just "they should do what they're told". They believe the government is being unconstitutional, erroding democracy and trying to impose a pseudo-imperialist state.

 

somebody will give the 10% that was reduced from the teacher`s pay to her . This teacher and other`s like her are the only ones really doing their jobs to teach children on critical thinking and freedom of speech.

I think it goes without saying that the education ministry is not really doing it`s job on supporting teachers. They are only making people that are yes-men and women.

 

I agree with you in principle, but think there's a fine line between requiring a teacher to teach a subject and requiring a teacher to teach what amounts to nationalism. Which then leads to the question of whether or not the public classroom is the appropriate venue for teaching nationalism or patriotism in the first place, or if there even is an appropriate place for such lessons, questions which a believe teachers like this one are demanding be addressed through their protests.

IMO, I don't think classrooms are the proper place for teaching these things, or at least not in the way the government seeks to teach them. Forcing the citizenry to repeat a mantra they may not necessarily believe in goes against the fundamental principles of a state that espouses the ideals of free speech and thought. What's more, how singing "Kimigayo" in front of the Hinomaru fits in with learning reading, writing, and arithmetic escapes me. If the government wants to instill a sense of national pride in its citizens, then a flag and an anthem aren't the way to do it. Giving the citizens a reason to be proud, and highlighting those reasons, perhaps in the classroom even, would go a whole lot further than simply, "Sing this and be proud, or you won't graduate/get a promotion/get a paid this month." That's not instilling patriotism. That's instilling fear.

I don't believe patriotism in and of itself is bad. Pride in one's country or society and what that country stands for and has achieved, and what may yet achieve, is only a natural expression of human affinity to familiar and preferred group relationships, i.e., belonging to the clan. But this ham-fisted approach by the Tokyo Board of Education is just begging for resistance, and it won't stop with one woman having her pay docked for believing, rightly so, that her job is to teach the students music and help facilitate the teaching of other academic subjects, not instill national pride.

 

The emperor may not rule, but he certainly "reigns." That was the case the last time I looked, anyway.

 

The real question is, can this poor woman actually play the piano?

 

That's actually a pretty darned good question. Maybe all of this is just an elaborate ploy to hide the fact that she can't play the piano. Sheer genius!

 

So if the principal ordered her to dress up as "Little Black Sambo" for work, would that be a lawful duty?

This woman and many other Japanese seem to have a problem with the anthem. That is a fact. I think she has a greater duty to teach kids some facts like that than play some song for the benefit of the principal and politicians stuck in the past. If they want it played so GD bad, they can stick to the CD and stop giving people orders they find morally repugnant.

Incedently I have known a lot of Ikeda`s. Many have been valiant free thinkers and rebels like this woman. Now there is another Ikeda I admire.

 

I really don`t know what to think here..first of all, I believe that if you take a government paid position (such as a public school teacher, police officer), you need to respect and obey what the government and national curriuculum tells you to teach. On the other hand, special exceptions can be made (as not to discriminate agaist) those who object to certain ceremonial customs due to religious or moral convictions.

In the States for example, the school may mandate that prayer is not allowed in the classroom and that children are to stand and place their right hand over their heart when the pledge of allience is said...however children and teachers who have other relgious convictions are exempt from this as long as they do so silently and don`t lead other children to do the same.

If this teacher told the principal ahead of time that she would not play the anthem, they should have made other arrangements..who cares if it had to be played by a CD rather than by piano?

 

"who cares if it had to be played by a CD rather than by piano?"

Tokyo Board of Education cares. Why? Because this woman is demonstrating very visibly that she won't just tow the line. If the Tokyo BOE can't get its teachers to spew this nationalistic nonsense, then how can they get the kids to absorb the brainwashing with any seriousness?