Japan, a late and guilty showcase for inclusiveness
Audio 02:32
A swimmer during training before the Paralympic Games, August 23, 2021 in Tokyo Charly TRIBALLEAU AFP
By: Bruno Duval
10 mins
The Paralympic Games begin this Tuesday, August 24 in Tokyo.
Japan has ten million people with disabilities in its population.
The archipelago says and wants to be very inclusive.
This is particularly striking with regard to the development of public space.
In the big Japanese cities, everything, down to the smallest detail, is designed to make life easier for the disabled: that of the visually impaired and people with reduced mobility in particular.
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The Paralympic Games, which begin this Tuesday in Tokyo, will take place in an even more perilous health context than the Olympic Games.
Japan is suffering a particularly violent fifth wave of the coronavirus epidemic.
The archipelago is currently recording seven times more daily cases of Covid-19 than a month ago.
However, only 20% of those polled oppose the holding of these Paralympics. By way of comparison, shortly before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, they were three times more likely to claim that they be postponed or canceled, deeming them too dangerous. The Paralympics therefore seem to be a more unifying event. “
These Games will be a great moment of bravery. All this courage will touch me even more than during the Olympics since it will be the work of less able-bodied athletes
, ”enthuses a Tokyo office worker. “
Unlike the Olympic Games, they will not only celebrate performance but also difference, tolerance and inclusiveness. It is close to my heart,
”adds a teenager.
"
Day and night compared to twenty years ago
"
This enthusiasm is due to the fact that Japan claims to be and wants to be particularly inclusive with regard to people with disabilities.
The layout of the public space bears witness to this.
In Tokyo, 97% of metro stations and most buses are accessible to people with reduced mobility. At crossroads, the sidewalk and the road are on the same level, the height difference having been removed to facilitate movement of people using wheelchairs. True tactile or sound paths have been developed for the visually impaired. Ubiquitous raised floor coverings guide them in their movements. Audible signals or messages also inform them when the light turns green for pedestrians as well as in elevators or escalators, in train or metro sets, and even in public toilets.
In addition, many television programs are captioned for the hearing impaired.
It is not imaginable that a manager would speak publicly without his words being translated into sign language.
A language perfectly mastered by Princess Kako, one of the nieces of Emperor Naruhito.
“
In terms of inclusiveness, Japan has made a lot of progress compared to twenty years ago.
It's really day and night,
sums up Satoshi Sato, who heads an association for the disabled.
The Tokyo National Stadium, moreover, which was built for these Summer Games, is a marvel in this area.
"
25
000 mentally disabled sterilized against their will
In its relationship to the disabled, Japan is a model country: this is the message it will try to convey to the whole world through the Paralympics. It's not false. But this Japanese inclusiveness does not arise from nothing. It feeds on a deep sense of guilt about the past. Because, for nearly fifty years, Japan mistreated - and even martyred - the disabled.
Under a law known as "
eugenic protection
" passed in 1948, which aimed to prevent the births of "
inferior offspring
" and was not repealed until 1996, Japan forcibly sterilized or forced to abort 25,000 mentally handicapped, people suffering from hereditary genetic diseases or contagious diseases (leprosy, in particular), physically handicapped (deaf-mute or blind) or petty delinquents who, it was judged, "
disturbed social harmony
".
Shortly before her death in 2013, Chizuko Sasaki was one of the first to testify publicly. Cerebral palsy, she was sterilized against her will in 1968, at the age of 20. "
I had no choice: I was told that there was no question of taking any risk that I would get pregnant
," she explained.
Every day, for over a week, I was given large doses of gamma rays. It was atrocious. I had terrible nausea. I felt extremely bad.
"
Kikuo Kojima, who is 79 years old today, was sterilized in 1971. His childhood having been "
a little difficult, between dropping out of school and 400 strokes
", doctors declared that he was schizophrenic.
“
No psychiatrist has ever examined me.
The diagnosis was made in an office, by an ordinary civil servant, on the basis of the social assistance file.
The operation was an ordeal.
They only gave me a little anesthesia.
I suffered martyrdom.
"
Like several dozen Japanese forcibly sterilized or forced to have an abortion, Kikuo Kojima went to court to obtain compensation.
In vain: Japanese law does not allow a claim for compensation more than twenty years after the facts that one incriminates.
A
minimum
repentance
Such strict application of the limitation rules has shocked the media and public opinion.
Two years ago, more than seven decades after the entry into force of the eugenics legislation, public emotion did not subside, Parliament ended up passing a law which compensated each victim up to 3, 2 million yen (some 25,000 euros, at the current rate).
The then Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, then expressed his “
deep regrets
” and apologized to those concerned.
But, at a time when inclusiveness was not yet a priority for political communication in Tokyo, no solemn speech enshrined this late act of repentance: only a laconic statement was issued.
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