Global Issues in Language Education: Issue 29. Dec. 1997. (p. 16)
Appeals and Opinions
Speak Truth to Power
by Michael Fox (Hyogo Women's College, Kobe, Japan)
My first computer manual read "There are two kinds of users, those
who have lost data and those who will." Being very cautious, I am fortunate
to count myself in the latter category. Likewise, there are two categories
of members in the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT): those who
have suffered abuse in employment and those who have not. Among those who
have not, conventional thought dictates that bad things do not happen to
good people, especially good "gaijin" (foreigners). And if they do, this is
Japan: the culture is different; we are guests; do not complain; acceptance
is the answer.
I spend a good deal of time researching human rights issues. While
having coffee with Etsuko Yamada, a social critic and defendant in the
Kabutoyama case who has been on trial and retrial since 1978, she
complained that most foreigners who settle down here become Japanized to
the point of cognitive lethargy. She, together with many human rights
activists and responsible lawyers, are quite convinced that the only way to
change this country is through speaking out and confronting social issues
forcefully and directly. From a historical perspective, she is quite
correct: nothing ever changed in feudal times until the peasants rioted.
Silence then, as it does now, meant acceptance.
The purpose of any gakkai (academic association) is to improve
society through research and education. The purpose of education,
particularly language education, is to stoke the fires of the mind, not to
stuff tepid information into apathetic heads. Those who assume that
confrontation and conflict are "western values" that "smack of cultural
superiority and imperialism" or that Japan is all lukewarm and collectivist
consensus building are historically and sociologically misinformed.
"Acceptance" of injustice in Japan or anywhere is the pedagogy of a
doormat. Loudly or softly, JALT fulfills its role in society when it
addresses issues directly; when it speaks truth to power.
Reprinted from The Language Teacher. Vol 21, No 12. Dec. 1997.
Michael Fox
Hyogo Womens College, Hiraoka-cho, Kakogawa-shi 675-01, JAPAN
Fax: 0794-26-2365 E-mai: thefox@humans-kc.hyogo-dai.ac.jp
Newsletter #29
Global Issues SIG Newsletter Index
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