On a wooded lake shore in northern Japan, the government is building a modernist...
TOKYO - On a wooded lake shore in northern Japan, the government is building a modernist shrine that has divided the indigenous Ainu community whose vanishing culture it was designed to celebrate.
For some surviving Ainu, whose exact numbers are unknown, the project underscores how Japan has failed to come to terms with its history - despite more than a decade of deliberation on how Tokyo could meet its commitments to an indigenous group it officially recognized in 2008. A 2017 survey counted just over 13,000 Ainu in Hokkaido. The actual number is estimated to be much higher, because many Ainu fear identifying as other than Japanese and have moved to different parts of the country.
In 2009, after signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Japan’s government began considering how to establish a new policy for the Ainu. Early proposals zeroed in quickly on the creation of the government-funded “Symbolic Space” now taking shape on the shore of Lake Poroto near the town of Shiraoi in Hokkaido.
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