On 1st of April 2014, an open session and hearing was held at the Strathfield town hall for a building plan of comfort women statute submitted by the Anti-Japanese group of Korean and Chinese.
The Austral China Korea Alliance against Japanese War Crime group established in February 2014 has announced to build 10 statutes of comfort women in Australia in order to achieve their political goal and they have chosen Strathfield as a first target to build the statute where their ancestries and ethnic descendants hold about 30% of population in this city.
The Korean descedant, Deputy Mayor of Strathfield City had used his governmental power and governmental support from state and federal members of parliament to build the statue of comfort women without a chance for Japanese residing in Strathfield to notice it plan and the Japanese mothers who is stating in Starthfield were only able to start their actions in late March 2014.
Furthermore Japanese Women for Justice and Peace (which President is Yumiko Yamamoto) in Japan has started to take the action by sending the letters of protest to the City around this time as well, and the Deputy Mayor has taken an action to speed up the process by having the early open session on 1st of April to overcome the potential problem which could delay the completion of statue of comfort women.
To prepare the speech for open session, the groups of Japanese people have gathered up for first time on 31st of March which was a day before the open session but with well prepared team plan, were able to have a successful result at the open session.
On the weekend of 5th of April, same groups of Japanese people have gathered up once again at a cafe in Sydney and have established a group which has been named as JCN(Japanese Community Network).
We JCN put a high importance on our fundamental belief which have been stated in our Prospectus for JCN below .
Since our establishment, we are developing various activities to stop the establishment of comfort women statutes in Australia with whoever has a same belief with us despite of their race, nationality, religion and political views, by cooperating with each other.
JCN Secretariat is administrating this blog site, if you have any suggestions, enquiries and questions, pleae feel free to contact us at: jcnaus@googlegroups.com
Prospectus for Japan Community Network
Until now, Japanese organisations and groups in Australia have established themselves with the aim of facilitating mutual friendships and building harmonious relationships with their local communities and have engaged in activities towards such end. However, at this time, where it seems likely that the Strathfield Council of NSW is taking part in plans to erect a "Comfort Women" statue proposed by those foreign groups with clear anti-Japanese sentiment under consideration, the issues which until now had been thought to lie across the water have suddenly been dropped on our doorstep and are now a real and imminent problem. Although a group of several mothers concerned for the well-being of their children and for the future generation have bravely put up strong opposition to this unexpected and shocking turn of events, the Japanese community did not unite as a collective to address the issue constructively. One of the underlying reasons for this is that existing Japanese groups strongly believe that their goal should be to pursue "mutual friendship" at all times, and that they should not involve themselves in political activities.
In response to this, we have decided to establish a community network whose aim rather than the pursuit of "mutual friendship" is to engage in efforts to effectively address these specific problems which have now emerged. Firstly, we do not perceive activities which oppose the current plans to erect a "comfort women" statue to be political, because the impetus for such activities is not based on any specific political ideas but rather arises from the desire to promote "mutual friendship" with the immigrant communities and peace and tranquility within the local communities and from the universal goal as concerned residents and citizens to protect the present and future generation of children. To fulfill this goal, we will engage in lawful activities deemed acceptable in a democratic society and extend to include activities aimed at reaching out to the government and politicians.
Our motto is based on non-confrontational rationalism. We refrain from engaging in hostile activities based on feelings of hatred when we encounter conflicts of opinion and assert our ideas and opinions in a calm and rational manner and in a way that does not offend the multicultural community aiming at all times to bring about a peaceful reconciliation and finding a way for all of us to coexist in harmony and achieve mutual prosperity. An example of this is at the recent (April 1, 2014) public hearing regarding the erection of the "comfort women" statue held in Strathfield Town Hall where despite the intense accusations made by the other party describing Japan's behaviour as outrageous, we refrained from retaliating and responding heatedly and instead focused on making a coherent and rational appeal explaining that these plans could lead to the risk of promoting discrimination towards Japanese people or bullying of children of Japanese heritage at school, that they deviate from the policy established by the city itself and conflict with Australia's ideal of multiculturalism. We believe that this gained us a lot of sympathy from the non-Japanese community. We will take the same position when dealing with any future incidents. Our aim is to win a victory based on the good common sense of the community encompassing the opinions of a variety of races rather than simply a political victory for the Japanese community.
We are not a community network consisting only of Japanese and Japanese descendants. We work in collaboration with the non-Japanese community who share our values of multiculturalism. As an organisation, we share the motto outlined above, however, we are completely neutral both politically and religiously and our members have absolute freedom to follow and practice any political and religious beliefs they choose. While we may collaborate with a specific political party, we do not coerce our members to cooperate with or support any particular political party. Our main goal is to engage in activities for the common cause of ensuring the welfare of the Japanese community as a whole.
It is rare to find such a peaceful society as exists in Australia anywhere else in the world. However, saying that, a hopeful future in which our peaceful lifestyle is preserved should not be taken for granted and should not be left in the hands of others counting on the goodwill and decency of all people. As such, we will continue to work on specific issues as moral citizens, withstanding the duty of care for concerned parents who wish to protect our children.
April 6, 2014
