In fallout from what might be the most damning of all Wikiscanner-revealed edits yet, Sankei (via Yahoo News) reports that the Kunaicho (Imperial Household Agency) has officially banned its employees from editing Wikipedia. Someone within the agency was caught by Wikiscanner deleting a passage on Imperial tombs: “Some argue the Imperial Household Agency fears that historical facts that would undermine the basis for the imperial system will be found [if researchers are permitted to enter the tombs to study them].”
The Agency has “taken measures” to keep IHA workers from editing Wiki and Vice Steward (unsure of this title exactly but it’s something royal-sounding) said they will urge people to avoid such edits from their home computers as well as a matter of common sense.
I think the term they prefer at the IHA itself for (宮内庁) 次長 is “Vice-Grand Steward”.
Nice I was close. Their official hierarchy on the site left a bit to be desired…
BTW a Google search of the Grand Vice Steward Kazaoka shows he is apparently a confirmed Soka Gakkai member and suspected of being alternatively burakumin AND zainichi.
http://straydog.way-nifty.com/yamaokashunsuke/2005/05/post_e889.html
Well, I personally wouldn’t hold his family background against him, but it’s a little amazing that someone who was either of those things could make it to that position in the IHA. I’m sure everyone with a ranking position in that agency has a full background check, so it’s probably just malicious rumors.
Sure, it’s not necessarily so scandalous, but it makes for good tabloid fodder (“a vice president of Dentsu met with Sun Myung Moon in the Imperial Palace to plan staged zainichi right-wing protests over Asahi Shimbun coverage of LDP censorship of an NHK documentary on Princess Masako’s depression!!!! Yasukuni shrine leftist radicals pantiless shabushabu mistress tells all about shotgun marriage and murder-suicide of a foreign pro baseball player who’s hooked on shabu!!!!”). The IHA is opaque enough as it is without wondering if Ikeda Daisaku is somehow pulling the strings (and for what possible purpose?)
The Japan Times puts out a book called 和英翻訳データブック that’s helpful when looking up official English names for government positions. Unfortunately it hasn’t been updated in 10 years, so all the titles are pre-2001 government reorganization, but it can come in handy if you ever need to translate something dealing with that period. Anyway, it agrees with Matt’s Vice-Grand Steward (of the Imperial Household).
Sorry, didn’t mean to derail there.
It doesn’t surprise me that the IHA would go to this kind of extreme — you hear all kinds of crazy stories about their information control activities, especially when someone marries into the family.
In this case though I don’t think they had much to worry about. Is there really anyone out there who’s pro-Emperor now but would be disillusioned and turn republican based on how archaeologists interpret the things they find in a bunch of old tombs? It isn’t as though it would be the first time archaeologists and historians had made discoveries or connected the international dots in inconvenient ways.