Not really.Ainu had been considered as indigeneous minority group legally since 1899.
The court recognized Ainu people’s “legal rights as indigeneous people”in 1997.Recommendation of the awareness for the indigeneous people’s right from the United Nation was only started in 1993.

and also according to Wikipedia:
“(UN)General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The non-binding declaration outlines the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to identity, culture, language, health, employment, health, education and other issues. Four nations with significant indigenous populations voted against the declaration: the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Eleven nations abstained: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Samoa and Ukraine. Thirty-four nations did not vote, while the remaining 143 nations voted for it.”

Japan is included in “Yea”camp.

This has been an issue when I was at ethnology class of the university in the early 90’s and the way I understood,the issue was basically indigenous “right” thing.
The problem all goes to one point.How one can become an Ainu and become the righteous beneficiary of such legal rights.Do you have to be a natural speaker of an Ainu?Or do you have to be a genetically Ainu?These questions mostly remained unanswered.

Yes, the Meiji era government recognized the Ainu as a separate people and were busy trying to assimilate them using reeducation methods resembling what Australians did to Aborigines and Americans did to Native Americans. I’m not saying it was malicious in intent (it was often seen as positive progress). But it was an assimilation that was intent on erasing their Ainu cultural identity, not one saying they can still be Ainu who are also Japanese citizens.

”Hell, it took the Japanese government until 1997 to even admit Ainu were of a different ethnic group from the Yamato-minzoku and that’s only because the completely docile Japanese courts forced them to do it!!!”

That’s just completely wrong.The new Ainu cultural promotion law was indeed made in 1997 mostly by the effort of diet member and an Ainu activist Kyano Shigeru,but Ainu had been considered as a different ethnic group from waaay back in the days of Meiji.
Are you talking about Nibudani dam trial?Anyway “docile”court didn’t force Hokkaido government to halt the dam building.The court favored the counter-flood measures instead.The court did recongnized the “indigenous”right of Ainu people possesing the land though.

“You also have to consider the typical mistreatment and discrimination visible minorities in Japan have faced.Assimilating and losing/hiding your traditional cultural background is one of the few ways around it. Leaving out the Ainu, just look at zainichi Koreans, Burakumin and Hibakusha.”

First of all,they are all “invisible” minority.Secondly they are very loud minority.Thirdly all of them are chose as the member of the diet either in the past or today.That means the surrounding environment for these minorities are pretty much the same with that of the Jewish,Gay and Native Americans in the U.S.Not to say the discrimination toward them are entirely gone,but there are reality gap between individual case and the focus group dogmas,you seem to believe.

I totally agree with you about JET.

In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.

The people concerned have the right that their culture, religion, language are not interfered. But it is not clear that they have the right to demand to preserve their culture etc.
That said, I don’t think it is bad idea to preserve their culture and tradition by tax that have become parts of Japanese history;Whether it should be preserve by tax depends ultimately on Japanese people.

You also have to consider the typical mistreatment and discrimination visible minorities in Japan have faced.
Assimilating and losing/hiding your traditional cultural background is one of the few ways around it. Leaving out the Ainu, just look at zainichi Koreans, Burakumin and Hibakusha.

Zainchi Korean and Burakumin and Hibakusya were discriminated. But
What is traditional cultural background Zainichi Koreans, Burakumin and Hibakusya lost?
And did Japanese government genocide their “tradition and culture”?

Cultures might start out strong, but after over a century of pressure, even they begin to break down. Given the centralized nature of Japanese governance and education, even once overt pressure and oppression ended, it would be hard to argue that conditions were favorable to maintain or strengthen the damaged culture. Hell, it took the Japanese government until 1997 to even admit Ainu were of a different ethnic group from the Yamato-minzoku and that’s only because the completely docile Japanese courts forced them to do it!!!

You also have to consider the typical mistreatment and discrimination visible minorities in Japan have faced. Assimilating and losing/hiding your traditional cultural background is one of the few ways around it. Leaving out the Ainu, just look at zainichi Koreans, Burakumin and Hibakusha.

On JETs, etc., the part about them having a higher salary than many Japanese teachers is a bit of apples vs oranges urban myth because it almost never includes the bonuses Japanese teachers get every six months. Once you include those (JET ALTs and CIRs don’t get them), the financial stakes even out quite a bit.

JETs would be a lot less necessary if Monbusho required foreign language teachers to actually spend time overseas learning the language they were going to be licensed to teach. I grew up in the rural US and never had a foreign language teacher that wasn’t fluent in the language they taught. They weren’t all good teachers, but they were all fluent or nearly fluent. In Japan, not so much…

I’ve always viewed the JET program as having 3 primary goals: 1) improve the language skills (especially spoken/listening) of the Japanese English teachers and to a lesser degree, students, 2) introduce foreigners throughout Japan (especially rural areas) to get Japanese more used to being around foreigners (less pointing and shouting “gaijin da!”) and 3) foreigners return to their home countries with favorable impressions of Japan (i.e., semi-grassroots diplomacy and PR). I’d say the program has been at least somewhat successful at all these–although whether it was cost effective or not, or even worthwhile, is obviously open for debate.

Widening the parameters of the discussion moves the center closer to you and forces justifications for things that some thought needed no justification. (Assuming anyone is paying attention.)

“What are you getting at with the no English speakers near you bit? I don’t follow that.”

Along with my family background, reminding people that I know first hand about living somewhere as an ethnic and linguistic minority. I didn’t include it because the reason I do this is not to talk about myself.

“Come to think of it, are JET ALTs and CIRs “professional ethnics at taxpayer expense”"

You could make a case for it, though they were hired for a specific job. Part of that job was to get schoolkids used to being around foreigners, so…

I objected to them too when I heard about it. (I predate them in Japan.) Their starting salary (at least then) was more than the starting salary for a native Japanese teacher of anything. The Japanese had to have professional qualifications, while the foreigners just had to be foreign and get through the process. (I knew one Canadian whose sole job experience was as a proprietor of a record shop that went out of business.) They also didn’t have the other responsibilities of the Japanese teacher, such as homerooms, clubs, meeting parents, etc.

“People who advocate government assistance might suggest college scholarships or loan programs instead.”
Well, it depends what the government assistance is designed to achieve. First, there is the question of whether the government – any government – has the right or duty to preserve the cultural heritage of its people, minorities or not. As far as I know, most modern governments do offer support, but that aside, if a government has decided to support cultural activities, then the difference between funding dance classes and funding university scholarships (where presumably the person can study anything from anatomy to zoology) is the difference between supporting a culture and supporting a people. That is, offering support for anyone who wants to know more about (in this case) Ainu culture, or offering people who just happen to be Ainu the chance for a free ride.

For Europe, I would think that the more pressing changes are political – Poland gets eaten up as it is militarily weak, rather than because the invaders don’t like Poles. In the course of invasion and war the enemy is made to see as different as possible of course, and cultural differences are made bigger than they possibly are or would be in peace. There are certainly ethnic aspects to European history – the gypsies being a prime example – but it’s the extent to which ethnic divisions influenced Europe that I am somewhat sceptical about. Perhaps it is because I tend somewhat to the Krishnamurti idea (only to an extent) and generally avoid dividing peoples unless it’s pretty damn clear they are culturally/historically/et ceterally unrelated.
However taken to its logical conclusion, the Krish ideal seems to want us all to be the same, all over the world. That might bring peace and lack of xenophobia, if you know that from Bangkok to Birmingham people look the same, act the same, eat the same, dress the same…but what a tragedy for the world’s cultures.

What are you getting at with the no English speakers near you bit? I don’t follow that. I assume being isolated from other English speakers does not make you a professional ethnic, but don’t see how it really could. Come to think of it, are JET ALTs and CIRs “professional ethnics at taxpayer expense”?

Looking at this post and the FRPAC site, the biggest problem would seem to me to be the fact that FRPAC is “the sole corporation in the nation with the authority to carry out the services provided in the law”. This is possibly what your post is about, and I may have been focusing on the ideas of government and cultural support more than you intended, and if so then I do in fact agree with your annoyance. Government subsidies I do not mind – there are worse things they can spend my tax money on, and do – but to have one group of people having the right to channel all government benefits for an entire ‘race’ is very very bad. This “sole organization” thing is perhaps more worthy of being played up, since it is now them who basically define what it will mean to be Ainu and what Ainu culture is, at least on any official/government level. From the FRPAC site:

“Following the acceptance of applications from corporations which had been previously established to promote Ainu culture under the civil law (act #89/1896) Article #34, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will appoint only one corporation in the country, and recognize this corporation as proper to carry out fairly and surely the duties provided in the following article.”

This is insane. Various corporations competing to see who will be the sole voice for Ainu heritage? Was this done by the GOJ to throttle any dissent and control the sole channel? Establish an Official Government Ainu Culture? That’s what it looks like to me. Now, I don’t have a lot of problems with the government subsidising Ainu dance classes (ten yen a year per taxpayer at the outside) but when they at the same time they also dictate, through FRPAC, what ‘Ainu Dance’ is to be, then that steps over the line.