By Uli Schmetzer
Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent

June 11, 2001 KOSUGI, Japan. Pakistani Ahmed Gondal made a decent living  selling secondhand Japanese cars to Russia until right-wing mobs singled him out for their racist and religious slurs.

Since then, Gondal, 37, has become a symbol for the intolerance and smoldering xenophobia stoked by small but active nationalist and neo-fascist movements who believe Japan must close its doors to more foreigners and halt the spread of different religions.

This time however, the black-clad nationalists who crisscrossed the country on buses equipped with loudspeakers blaring their opinions may have taken on more than they anticipated.

Many of the estimated 100,000 to 150,000 members of Japan's Muslim community are upset because vandals last month tore up 100 pages of a Koran stolen from a makeshift mosque in this small town in north-central Japan. The torn pages were scattered like confetti on the road outside Gondal's office.

"The Koran is more important to us than our lives," Gondal said. "And those who did this are risking their lives."

Some of the Muslims protesting in recent days have reminded the vandals about the fate of Hitoshi Igarashi, a professor of Islamic studies, who was stabbed to death by unidentified assailants in Tokyo in 1991 after translating Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" into Japanese. Muslims believe the novel ridicules their religion. Iran's religious rulers condemned Rushdie to death, and the author went into hiding.

Recently, Gondal said, a number of anti-Muslim incidents have occurred. Buses filled with nationalists began arriving regularly from other towns.

In April, someone nailed a pig's head to Gondal's office door, a vile insult to a Muslim who shuns pork.

Within a week, a pig's leg was left on his steps. On May 22, Gondal found the 100 torn pages of the Koran scattered on his doorstep and along the road.


Muslim anger spreads

Since then, the torn Koran has become a rallying point for Japan's Muslims. This month, some protesters warned that those who violate the Koran might share Igarashi's fate if identified by Islamic zealots.

Muslim indignation spread across Japan. Within two days, 200 faithful traveled for a protest march to this town on the Sea of Japan where Gondal and several other Pakistanis have used-car dealerships.

Outside local police headquarters, the crowd demanded the arrest of the culprits, shouting: "Allah is great" and "We have come here to do or die."

About a week ago, 500 Muslims expressed their indignation outside their newly built mosque in downtown Tokyo after traditional noon prayers. The crowd then marched to two central parks chanting "We will never forgive those who tore the Koran" and "Arrest the criminals."

Within hours, Muslim groups took a letter of protest to the Foreign Ministry, lamenting growing religious discrimination.

Islam has steadily grown in Japan because of the eastern migration by Turks who fled Russia after the communist takeover in 1917. Many settled in Japan. The small Turkish community bought land 70 years ago on Tokyo's central
Inokashira Avenue to build a mosque and a school. The old mosque was completed in 1937 and was demolished in 1985 as structurally unsafe.

It took 15 years of negotiating with Japan's bureaucracy to complete a new mosque with a 70-foot dome at the same site. The new mosque serves the growing number of Asian Muslims, mainly Pakistani, who have swelled the
ranks of the original Turkish immigrants.

Tokyo's Islamic Center estimates that about 40,000 Japanese have converted to Islam, but a spokesman said he did not think the total number of Muslims in Japan is more than 150,000.


Investigation promised

Perhaps afraid that reaction to the Koran vandalism in Kosugi may snowball out of control, the Foreign Ministry issued a hurried statement lamenting the offense to Muslims. The statement pledged a police investigation and
agreed the torn pages had "deeply hurt the feelings of Muslims, and Japan deeply commiserates with them."

Gondal said he is certain the "criminals" are not from this quiet region where Pakistani Muslims have lived in peace with the locals since arriving six years ago.

The peace was broken early this year when buses regularly arrived on Route
8 crowded with nationalist fanatics.

Despite their fervent activities, Japan's nationalists have only one member elected to the parliament. Most Japanese dismiss the nationalists but admit their anachronistic credo enjoys support from a nostalgic older generation and youths who see their jobs endangered by immigrants or are attracted to the unarmed combat training and populist rallies of these racist groups.


Foreigners `go home'

Nationalist motorcades regularly take their message across Japan. "In April, 50 buses were parked on the road outside my office and people shouted: `Gaijin [foreigner] go home' and insulted me. They left leaflets on the road saying bad things about Islam. I cannot repeat the words," Gondal said. After the bus invasion, 35 local Muslims confronted police in nearby Toyama. They were told the protesters had a permit to demonstrate and there was nothing the authorities could do.

Such excuses are common in Japan, where right-wing groups seem to have little trouble obtaining permits for their motorcades under the guise of "democratic campaigning." Sympathetic police, who consistently blame foreigners for Japan's rising crime rate, often clear the route for the motorcades. A Kosugi town hall official rejected the idea that locals may have been involved in Muslim-baiting incidents. "People here don't even know what a Koran is. Like most Japanese, we believe in Buddha, we follow Shinto rites and many of us get married in a
Christian church," said the official, who wished to remain anonymous.

Source : http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=777