Rightist attack

[Aaron Gerow]

I reported a few months ago about an incident in Yokohama where a 
rightist slashed the screen of a theater showing the Hong Kong-China 
co-production, _Nanking 1937_ (a 1995 film directed by Ziniu Wu).

Well, the film has come under attack again.  It was reported in the 
papers that the mayor of Kawasaki has asked a citizen's group renting a 
Kawasaki public hall to show _Nanking 1937_ to stop the screening because 
ultra-rightist propaganda trucks have been creating havoc in the 
neighborhood.  The rightists have deliberately slowed down their trucks 
when driving around the hall, creating traffic jams and nearly 50 minute 
delays in city bus services.  That and their loud calls to stop the 
screening have prompted over a hundred complaints from local residents.  
The mayor's office, however, saying that it is "difficult" to crack down 
on the rightists (even if they are violating traffic and noise 
ordinances), has decided to buckle under and ask the citizen's group not 
to show the film.  The group, however, declared it will not submit to 
rightist attempts to prevent free speech.

While the screening will probably go ahead as planned (though one worries 
what will happen at the screening), the rightists have probably acheived 
their goal of making it very difficult to show the film anywhere else in 
the country.  Other local governments, citing this precedent, will 
probably refuse permission to rent halls to show the film.

We can, of course, also thank people like Tokyo University Professor 
Fujioka Nobukatsu and manga artist Kobayashi Yoshinori (screenwriter for 
Ishii Sogo's _Crazy Family_) and their loud proclamations in the popular 
press that the Nanking Massacre is a hoax for creating the atmosphere 
that supports these kinds of rightist attacks.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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