＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
１．The Aichi Triennale 2019 Issue
The Aichi Triennale is being held at four venues from August 1 to October 14. This “Aichi Triennale” is a festival showcasing cutting-edge contemporary art and has been held every three years since 2010. This year’s theme is “The Age of Emotion” (which means “an age of information overflow and emotions, an age in which compassion conquers all”), and journalist Daisuke Tsuda is serving as “artistic director” of the event. The budget is 800 million yen from Aichi Prefecture and 200 million yen from Nagoya City, and the project is also eligible for government subsidies（＊）.
（＊）2019/10/4 Postscript.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs has decided not to grant the full 78.2 million yen subsidy to Aichi Triennale 2019.
The exhibition, “Nonfree Expression: Afterwards,” included inappropriate exhibits such as a statue of a young girl that closely resembles a comfort woman, a video work titled “A Picture to be Burned” that includes a scene of burning a picture of the Showa Emperor, and a work called “Tomb of Dumb Japanese,” using Hinomaru, the Japanese flag written by Kamikaze pilots, and Nagoya City Mayor Takashi Kawamura Mayor Takashi Kawamura of Nagoya City strongly demanded that the exhibition be stopped. Subsequently, Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura decided to cancel the exhibition because of the “blackmailing incident.
I see the following issues with this.
(1) Freedom of expression is limited by public welfare.
I think this exhibition is not “cutting edge contemporary art” or anything, but is highly suspected of being “political anti-Japanese propaganda in the name of art”.
Since freedom of expression is guaranteed, I believe that such an exhibition can be done freely without any problem if it is a private exhibition.
However, allowing an exhibition that offends the majority of Japanese people at a publicly funded exhibition is problematic from the standpoint of public welfare.
Article 12 of the Constitution of Japan states the following.
The freedoms and rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be maintained through the constant efforts of the people. They shall not be abused, and the people shall always bear the responsibility of using them for the public welfare.
(2) The reason for canceling the exhibition was not “because of the threats,” but “because of problems with the content of the exhibition.
Governor Hideaki Omura of Aichi Prefecture explained that the exhibition was cancelled “because of the blackmail incident,” but he should have explained correctly that the exhibition was cancelled “because of problems with the content.
(3) Scrutiny of exhibition content is not censorship, but a natural responsibility of the organizer
It is normal for the organizer of a general exhibition to check whether the contents of the exhibition are appropriate in light of the purpose of the exhibition. Even in public exhibitions, scrutiny of the contents of exhibits is a matter of course. Calling this censorship or an infringement of freedom of expression is, in my opinion, completely off the mark.
As a side note, the “Girl Statue Similar to Comfort Woman Statue” exhibited in the “Freedom of Expression and Beyond” exhibition was originally exhibited in the “18th JAALA International Exchange Exhibition 2012” held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in August 2012, but the organizers of the exhibition voluntarily restricted it due to a possible violation of the “Guidelines for Publicly Invited Group Exhibitions at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum,” which states, “Those that support or oppose a specific political party or religion, or engage in other political or religious activities.
I think the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum’s response is very fair.
２．What is a “ban on sale”?
The term “ban on sale” reminds me of the “Chatterley case,” in which the relationship between obscenity and freedom of expression was questioned, a topic that always appears in criminal law textbooks.
In this case, the president of the publishing company and the translator were indicted on the grounds that “Mrs. Chatterley’s Lover,” written by D. H. Lawrence and translated by Sei Ito and published in 1950, was an obscene document under Article 175 of the Penal Code. The trial resulted in the conviction of both men when the Supreme Court rejected their appeal in 1957.
A “ban” is a disposition by public authority to prohibit the publication, sale, or distribution of a publication, music, film, or other work of expression. A book that has been banned is called a “banned book.
Although there were bans on the sale and distribution of publications in the Edo period (1603-1868), these bans became stricter after the Publication Law was enacted in 1893 during the Meiji period (1868-1912) to crack down on publications. Censorship was carried out in advance, and banned books included not only political works that were considered ideologically dangerous, but also literary and artistic works for reasons of public disorder.
In 1949, after the defeat of the war, the Press Code of GHQ revoked the Publication Law, and Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution guaranteed “freedom of publication,” but restrictions such as Article 175 of the Penal Code remain in place.
Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was banned in Germany immediately after the end of World War II as “the book that paved the way for the Holocaust. However, it was “republished” with “critical annotations” in 2016, 70 years after Hitler’s death, when the copyright held by the German state of Bavaria expired.
３．Speech Control” and ”Censorship
The term “speech control” refers to “the restriction by the state, through censorship or other means, of mass media coverage and the expressive activities of the general public.” For the current political power, it is to suppress undesirable expressions that inhibit or may inhibit it.
Usually, speech control involves “censorship” by the security police mechanism as well as propaganda (political propaganda) on the part of the power.
４．Issues of “speech control” and “information blocking” in China, North Korea, and other countries
China is famous for the suppression of ideological speech called “burning books and Confucianism” conducted by Qin Shi Huangdi in 213 BC.
The “Tiananmen Square Incident” in China in 1989 was an incident in which the “People’s Liberation Army” used force to suppress a rally and demonstration of “students and ordinary citizens opposing the corrupt one-party Communist Party dictatorship and demanding democracy and freedom of speech,” resulting in many casualties.
Since this incident, censorship and speech control in China seem to have become even stricter. Television broadcasts are stopped when reports are unfavorable to the Chinese government, and the Internet is also being censored on a large scale.
Information on North Korea from foreign countries via the Internet is also blocked.
Such “speech control” and “information blocking” may be evidence that the communist one-party dictatorship in China and the Kim dynasty in North Korea are potentially vulnerable to severe criticism by the general public.