THE FORMATION OF THE BURAKU NATIONAL LIBERATION COMMITTEE [BNLC]

MANY OF THE social movements that had been destroyed and fallen into obscurity during the war years were revived following defeat. And among them the one which re-established itself most quickly was the Buraku liberation movement. Very soon after surrender – some suggest in August, others in October – four of those who had been core members of the Bolshevik faction of the Suiheisha, Matsuda Kiichi, Asada Zenosuke, Ueda Otoichi and Kitahara Taisaku, met at Ueda's home in Shima-gun Watakanojima, Mie prefecture and affirmed their determination to re-form the movement for Buraku liberation. This is known as the Shima meeting.

Following that, on 18 February the following year, a national conference was held of representatives of Buraku communities at which the Buraku Zenkoku Kaihō Iinkai – Buraku National Liberation Committee (BNLC) – was founded with Matsumoto Jiichirō as its first chair. At this meeting, as well as Matsumoto and the other four mentioned above there were Yamamoto Masao, Takeuchi Ryoun and Umehara Shinryu, all three of whom had previously been involved with the Yūwa movement. This suggested that after the war, although the government's values had undergone a 180 degree change from militarism to democracy, because Buraku liberation was not obviously a topic that was ideologically either left or right, it was one that could be addressed by a broad social movement. And although it only lasted for a limited time during the war the former members of both Suiheisha and Yūwa movements had been able to work together quite easily while they were jointly active in the Daiwa Hōkōkai.

Then, in 1948 the Buraku Problem Research Institute was established and became the focus for academic work on Buraku issues.

AGAINST THE EMPEROR SYSTEM

Debate about the emperor system had erupted firstly on the occasion of the production by the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) of the so-called ‘human rights directive’ of 2 October 1945. It continued within the BNLC. At the Buraku Liberation People's Conference held in Kyoto the day after the formation of the BNLC, Imoto Rinshi from Fukuoka proposed that: ‘We the oppressed Buraku masses are in quite the best position to oppose the emperor system now controlled by our conquerors.’