"Aoi Shiba" and denial of love and justice
Osamu Nagase, University of Tokyo
Abstract
One of modern disability movements started when "Aoi Shiba" (meaning "green grass" in Japanese), a group of people with cerebral palsy, established its platform in 1970 in response to the sympathetic community attitude towards a mother who killed her disabled child in Yokohama. Aoi Shiba's action platform, (1) emphasized self-consciousness as people with cerebral palsy and as disabled people, (2) promoted self-assertion, (3) denied love and justice, (4) pointed out risks of easy solutions, and later (5) denied able-bodied civilization. This was the first time that the disability community in Japan raised its voice against the dominant ablist discourse and practice, which were based on eugenics and pity against disabled people.
Though Aoi Shiba's philosophy and street actions were considered radical and too aggressive, it has had a lasting impact on the national disability scene. Aoi Shiba influenced many future leaders of disability movement by providing the perspective of disability discrimination and disability culture.
Aoi Shiba is among new disability movements that emerged in 1970's in different countries, including the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation in U.K. and the independent living movement in U.S.A. These efforts culminated with the birth of Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) in 1981 at the international level. This was made possible beyond different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds based on the social model of disability, the cultural model of disability and the philosophy of "voice of our own".
When Aoi Shiba declared that they denied love and justice, they denied love of able-bodied people, which often resulted in killing disabled children and adults, and their justice, which often led to lenient sentencing for parents who had killed their disabled children. As a major milestone in the development of disability studies, Aoi Shiba's philosophy has much to offer.