Inscriptions

“Designations such as Eta and Hinin shall be abolished. Hereafter their status and occupation shall be equal with commoners”

On 28 August 1871 (by the lunar calendar), the Emancipation Evict was issued.
We could dance for joy only for a few days, however.
We were deprived of our rights and then hit by poverty.
A rumor started to get around, “The implementation of the Emancipation Evict was postponed for 50,000 days”, although nobody knows who began to say that when.

Since then, a lot of people were involved in movements for us by different methods, which produced no welcoming outcomes. About some fifty years, the Yamato Doshi Kai and the Suiheisha were created. “Rise up, our spirited colleagues, and reinforce our autonomy”. “We, who now understand the laws of life, shall march to the final goal of human perfection”. Having strengthened our identity as Buraku people, we began to start to majestically challenge against discrimination.

The liberation was further kept away, however, by the Asia-Pacific War that brought the most serious human rights violations. A number of years were required before the post-war “democratic state” declared that the liberation of Buraku people was “the challenge for the people and the responsibility of the state” and adopted the relevant pieces of legislation.

The 50,000th day is here after 137 years.
We would like to put questions again to our spirited colleagues and to Tokushu Burakumin [literally “people of special community] throughout the country.
Do we still have the will to seek for human dignity and to fervently seek and adore the light and warmth of human life? Do we still have the mettle to rigidly promote our autonomy?

3 September 2008, the 50,000th day after the issuance of the Emancipation Evict

Nara Prefectural Federation of the Buraku Liberation League
Those of us who do not permit all kinds of discrimination

(On the back)
Proposers of the enactment of the monument [omitted]
Erected on 3 May 2008


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Suiheisha History Museum
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