Tokyo — When the national anthem started playing during a ceremony this year at Tachikawa Daini Junior High School, Kimiko Nezu, a soft-spoken but resolute home economics teacher, refused to stand and kept her mouth shut while others sang around her.
Nezu, a self-described pacifist, said she has done the same thing ever since the parliament designated the World War II hymn "Kimigayo" as the national anthem in 1999. She said she opposes the song because it was the same one sung as the Imperial Army set forth from Japan calling for an "eternal reign" of the emperor.
Previously, her protest brought nothing more than harsh stares from some students and parents. But the Tokyo school board issued an order in October 2003 that the anthem must be respected. Since then, Nezu, 54, has been punished by frequent transfers from one school to another and with temporary salary cuts. And in May, shortly after the incident at Tachikawa, she was suspended for a month. Officials warned that another offense could lead to her dismissal after 34 years of teaching.
The school board reaction was part of an effort by Tokyo and other school districts to enforce a new sense of pride in being Japanese. The measures were strongly backed by Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo and an outspoken nationalist, as a way to strengthen classroom patriotism.
The school board's mandatory rule has had a visible effect. At graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand. After a series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers were the only protesters this year.
"They are trying to weed us out of society," Nezu said. "The pacifists, the people who oppose nationalism in Japan. We are gradually being silenced."
The school board action is at the center of criticism throughout East Asia about rising Japanese nationalism. But it is also part of an ideological battle over the role of patriotism in Japan, where people are especially concerned about how the young will view their country.
Displays of overt patriotism were controversial in Japan in the decades after World War II. But public discourse has been changing. When the parliament adopted the "Kimigayo" hymn, it also declared the traditional Japanese sun flag, a red disk in a field of white, as the official flag. Until then, the country did not have a legally recognized national flag or anthem.
Updated textbooks approved by the Education Ministry this year sparked outrage in China and South Korea for glossing over Japanese war crimes. The books dedicate 24 pages to the war period but whitewash the Japanese role and call for a "reconsideration" of the Tokyo trials. Sharp criticism from abroad has seemed to have had no effect. Before anti-Japanese street riots erupted in Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul in April, only 14 Japanese schools had adopted the revisionist books. Since then, at least 30 more have approved their use for the coming school year.
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