The above is a stump speech Nariaki Nakayama (J), gave for his wife Kyoko on July 17th in Otemachi, Tokyo for the Upper House elections. In it, he urges Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to visit Yasukuni in August as it is a symbol of Japan's fight for equality and justice. Japan prepared the ground for the civil rights movement in the United States and the election President Barak Obama. Starting at about 5:40, Nakayama says
Japan lost in the previous Great War, but we fought with a slogan of national independence and equality for all. The result was Asian and African countries gained independence. Black people steadily came to Washington and New York, and started to appear in public places like restaurants. Black Americans all around saw that and said “we want those kinds of rights,” so a civil rights movement started and requested various demands. At last, U.S. President Obama (who is a black person) was born. Shouldn’t we take pride that the world is the way it is today thanks to our ancestors?
This is exactly what happened when you look directly at history. What will happen when China and Korea really look directly at history? There’s no comfort women issue or Nanking incident, we know well that they were completely fabricated.
On August 15, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should visit Yasukuni Shrine. Beyond this, there won’t be worsening relations with China and Korea. It’s the worst time, so it’s ok to go now. We lead and pull the LDP along. It is the responsibility of the Japan Restoration Party to wake up the Japanese that have become addicted to peace. [Provisional translation by Asia Policy Point]Narioki is a seven term Lower House Dietmember (Kyushu Bloc proportional) and his wife, Kyoko Nakayama is running for a second term in the Upper House (national proportional). They are both founding members and leaders of the Japan Restoration Party (J).
Previously, he had been a LDP member and then a Sunrise Party member. In the Koizumi Cabinet, he was Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In the Aso Cabinet, he was very briefly Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. In 2009, Nakayama was de-endorsed by the LDP for his controversial statements and lost his Diet seat. Comments ranged from Nakayama vowing to destroy the teacher’s union to declaring that Japan was an ethnically homogeneous country. He is active in a number of conservative nationalist organizations and causes. Nakayama is an outspoken denier of the Nanjing Massacre and the coercion of the comfort women. He has tried to revise the Kono Statement and censor junior high history textbooks. You see him expound on these issues on the floor of the Diet this year HERE.
His wife was Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for the North Korean abduction issue under Junichiro Koizumi, beginning in 2002. She left the post in 2004 but was reappointed by Shinzo Abe in 2006. She was appointed by Yasuo Fukuda as State Minister in charge of the Population and Gender Equality Issues on August 1, 2008. She was one of the signatories of the November 4, 2012 "The Facts" ad in the New Jersey Star Ledger condemning the Comfort Women.
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