It was revealed that the father of a charismatic activist in the BLM ran a hanba^※ in Maizuru City and employed a large number of Korean day laborers. The area was not, in fact, a Buraku. His hanba looked a bit like a town, and the father’s name was given that hanba as a common name. It is assumed that the Koreans were responsible for the physical labor in the military town of Maizuru. They have disappeared into history. Therefore, no one cannot here their voices.

In Fukuyama City, there was a company owned a 100-man shoe-making factory, which was involved in supplying the 41st Infantry Regiment. More than a dozen Korean workers were ‘employed’ at that factory. They were treated ‘slave-like’ laborers. At the time, one Buraku boy had a glimpse of their treatment. Their daily lives were seen as abnormal condition in the eyes of the child. For example, the sight of their foods and dishes were far extremely worse than those of Japanese laborers. The government started wartime recruitment in 1944; whether the Korean workers at the that company were conscripts or not was not clear to that boy. What we can know is that the factory's owner made huge resources from that business, and became a well-known wealthy man. The Korean in that factory has already been forgotten. The boy became an old man, but cannot be any supplement for Korean’s collective memories.

After the defeat, the office of Hiroshima City required to evict residents in district F and the neighboring district M for major river improvement project. The two districts were ‘land-locked’, with the only difference being the names of the towns. The former was Buraku, while the latter was a residential area for Zainichi Koreans (the Korean resident in Japan) who were laborers in heavy industry near there. An agreement was reached in 1957 on the State’s guarantee against eviction in District F. According to Takuya Motooka, Hiroshima Prefecture began to issue ‘informal removal recommendations and removal orders to residents’ [Motooka, 2016: 200] in neighbourhood M in 1960, and petitions for compensation for relocation were made around 1964. The following is a detailed account of the residents’ compensation issues in District M.

The members of the eviction task force were of course aware of the existence of the eviction problem in the Fukushima area, but they had little knowledge of how the campaign was conducted and how the negotiations with the administration proceeded, and their impressions were not very positive. In addition, activists involved in the movement in the Fukushima area did not enter the area downstream of the Asahi Bridge to support compensation negotiations at all. [Motooka, 2016: 223]

In short, even in resistance movements against a national project, the Burakumin was in a superior position. They did not overcome ethnic barriers. As a result, the state benefited economically because of cheap payments for satisfaction.

Often it is said that the relationship between Burakumin and Zainichi Koreans is friendly. In Buraku F, Hiroshima City, there is a record of a popular restaurant being operated by a Buraku woman who produced the characteristic dengaku (a kind of soup originated in this Buraku) and Zainichi Korean women who produced ‘shochu’ [Takio, 1994: 50]. They may indeed collaborate in order to survive. However, it is believed that the many Burakumin could not see the faces^※※ of Zainichi Koreans. Not being able not see the Koreans’ faces, the Burakumin cannot hear their voices. The face utters by silence the words that call for ethics. Without understanding it, any Burakumin cannot respond to live together.

As readers know discriminatory papers on Buraku issue written by Mark Ramseyer well, he also wrote hate papers against the Korean women. More than thousands of activists and researchers protest him. However, protester from Buraku studies were fewer than ten researchers. In addition, there were no significant linkage between Korean women side issue and Buraku issue side. I believe that this current situation is partly due to the fact that the Burakumin are unaware of the asymmetrical relationship between the Zainichi Koreans and the Burakumin. I believe that BLL should recognize seriously this condition of relationships.

※　Hanba is the camp for bottom laborers, where many day laborers were crammed into an unhygienic environment with thin walls, and isolated from the surrounding area. The word han means rice and ba means place or space. It still persists to this day.

※※　The face is Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of the place or space of ethical responsibility.