In the Good Weekend magazine (Sydney Morning Herald July 1993)
Ben Hill writes about the dispute between Japan and Russia for
ownership of the Kirile Islands. In his article "Last Outpost
of the Cold War" he lavishes attention on the story of some
Japanese people who return to the country they were expelled
from by the Russians. The land of their ancestors, sort of
thing. But their ancestors had only been there three
generations, and the Japanese claim to the Islands is as
superficial as is that of Russia.
Hill (the Japan correspondent for the Age and SMH) touches on,
but dismisses, the people with the in-depth ancestral links.
"The only neutral historian to have studied both cases is the
British scholar John Stephen. In 'The Kurile Islands' (Oxford
University Press), Stephen concludes that by the middle of the
17th century three countries had some sort of claim to the
islands: the Dutch, who came looking for gold and first mapped
the Kuriles; the Russian Cossacks who came in kayaks looking
for "living gold" (the fur of the sable and sea otter) and who
first explored them; and the Japanese, who had been writing
about and trading with the islands for centuries."
Trading with whom? Hill continues:
"This ignores the people who had the best historical claim of
all to sovereignty: the original Ainu inhabitants, of whom
(after the ravages of syphilis, smallpox and sake) nothing now
remains bar a collection of stone axes and a few faded
photographs in the museum in Kurilsk. The last full-blooded
Kurile aborigine, a middle-aged woman, lives out her life in
exile on Sakhalin, the great frozen island to the north."
This kind of talk has a familiar ring to it to anyone familiar
with the wishful thinking descriptions of Anglo-Australian
vested interests vis-a-vis surviving First People. Could the
disappearance of Ainu - allowing for the still visible woman
for those minds who see the world in terms of racial purity -
be part of a conspiracy of silence between warring imperialist
powers (Japan and Russia in this case).
The picture provide by the Encyclopaedia Britannica is not
quite so bleak. It says of Ainu langauge, for example:
"Spoken by several thousand Ainu tribesmen living in Hokkaido
and Sakhalm and the Kurile Islands (Soviet Union); it is not
know to be related to any other language." (In other words - a
planetary treasure worth vastly more than the flatulent noises
of MITI or Moscow inspired progress.)
The Japanese authorities are presently destroying the Ainu Way
on Hokkaido, in the name of progress and dealing with
'backward' people (who foolishly retain respect for their
eternal soul/living country) of course. But what is the real
situation of Ainu people with claims to these islands? Does
anyone have more information apart from the official dogma.
While the professional Russian and Japanese negotiators are
pausing between the vodka and sake, the world could press for
a compromise solution which provides a buffer and acknowledges
the Kurile Islands (and surrounding waters/fishing rights) as
the place of Ainu - first and foremost - and as an act of
recompense for the Wrongheaded treatment of Ainu by recent and
disrespectful blow-ins.
An AINU land claim for the Kurile Islands? (Have they heard of
of Mabo up that way yet?) Can anyone provide advice and
assistance for the task of restoring these life-priests to
their proper place in life?
In solidarity.
Bruce Reyburn
5 July 1993