yakusas

                                                                     YAKUSAS

 

Yakusas, Definition

 

Yakuzas designate the members of the organized crime in Japan, exclusively made of men. Yakuzas are also known under the name of Gokudo. By extension, this name applied to any Japanese “hooligan”. Yakuzas are specialized in various activities such as the basic extortion, industries of the sex, the games, the weapons, the loans of money, drugs, and clandestine immigration.

 

Origin of the name:

 

The origin of the word Yakuza comes from the 15th century. This word is resulting from a losing combination of a Japanese card deck called Oicho-Kabu which consists in having charts which are added at the end of the game. The aim of the game is to approach as much as possible the numbre 9 without exceeded.

 

So the word Yakuza is composed of:

 

- “Ya” which comes from yattsu and means 8

 

- “Ku” which comes from kyu and means 9

 

- “Za” which is a deformation of san and means 3

 

The unit forms a sum of 20, that is to say a “losing hand”. Thus, this name means that they are losers, because they result from the disadvantaged social background, excluded from the society.

 

Yakuzas, a long filiation:

 

The yakuzas support also the police force against the workmen’s movements. After the “riots of rice” (1918), for more effectiveness, the Secretary of the Interior asks Toyama to federate the bands: the national Fuel Company of  Japan (Dai Nippon kokusui kai) becomes the armed wing of Seiyukai, the dominant party of the time. Toyama enters the circle of the power and becomes the first of the kuromaku.

The yakuzas also collaborate in favour of the colonization. They create “crooked blows” to prepare the military interventions (1895: assassination of the queen of Korea), spy on and organize the traffic of invaluable or strategic materials for the army. It is at this moment that Kodama Yoshio (1911-1984) and Sasakawa Ryoichi (1899 - 1995), the great kuromaku of post-war period, build their fortune and weave the relations which will make their power

During the civil war which closes the Tokugawa era, some yakuzas served the imperial party and integrate the new elite. Contrary, samurais that have been made redundant by the end of the feudal mode join the underworld. They form bands of bruisers mercenaries, extremely useful in these beginnings of capitalism: from there the bonds between employers and the underworld. From those samurais is born also the claim from the yakuzas with being the heirs to the code to traditional honor, which enriches their Golden Legend. From there also comes their “patriotism” and their osmosis with the terrorists ultra-nationalist. Indeed, dreaming to find the use of their military talents, some of the samurais-yakuzas create secret societies to force the colonial expansion; most known is the Company of the black Ocean (Genyosha) founded in 1881 by Toyama Mitsuru. Their former brothers-in-arms passed to the service of the new State is not long in employing them against the liberal politicians: it is the beginning of a rich tradition of political assassination which occurs after 1945.

The word yakuza appears under the shogunat of Tokugawa (1603-1867). To put

An end to several centuries of bloody anarchy, the new governement locks up the secret society in a police yoke. The marginal ones are organized then around the tekiya (hawkers) and of the bakuto, professional players to which the yakuzas borrow them their name. They profit from a romantic and rebels aura but, actually, they cooperate with the authorities: in 1740, the chiefs of the hawkers receive the title of controllers of the fairs with mission of making the police force there.

The defeat and the Occupation (1945-1952) open new types of activities for the yakuzas. They are initiated to drugs with the GI's and recover the prostitution that have became illegal. In the burnt cities, where the land register burned, they started the traffic of the grounds. They compensate the police force dislocated to face the rising amount of communist movements and to control the Korean ghettos that placed them as protectors of honest peoples against the foreign dregs. Very quickly also, the CIA, badly implanted in Asia, contact the ultra-nationalists so that they reactivate their spy networks.

Amnestied in 1952, the politicians of pre-war period make their return. The former ones of Seiyukai like Ono Bamboku (1890-1964) and Kôno Ichirô (1898-1965), of which

the gangster dealings are public, become leaders of the democratic liberal Party, created in 1955. The key figure of this operation is Kishi Nobusuke, a former war criminal, become one protected from the CIA. He is assisted by Kodama and Sasakawa, which he knew with the prison of Sugamo. The two ultra-nationalists, reaction by the American services, finance the new party and “persuade” the reticent officials to join there. Until their death (Kodama in 1984, Sasakawa in 1995), they will be the great guardian figures of the “clandestine districts”.

Years 1955-1960 are violent. The PLD wants to abolish the democratic reforms of the occupation. The installation of the “Japanese model” of business acquaintances is accompanied by very hard social struggles. The yakuzas take again service against demonstrators and strikers. In 1957, Kishi becomes Prime Minister.

In 1960, overflowed by the demonstrations, it calls upon Kodama which federates 60,000 ruf- fians within the council of the patriotic organizations (Zen ai kaigi) to help the police force. The political murder reappears: the president of the socialist party and leader of the minors of Kyushu on strike are assassinated, the wife of the director of the liberal magazine Chûô Kôron seriously wounded… It is the apogee of the yakuzas. In 1963, the police force counts 184,000 of them, divided into 5,200 bands. But violences traumatized the country. Kishi must resign. The growth alleviates the social struggles. The request for violence decreases. In 1964, the Olympic Games of Tokyo are the pretext of the first cleaning. The number of the yakuzas falls to 110,000 in 1978. In reaction, the medium concentrates: the scattered bands join little by little the “families”.

From a historical point of view, the role of the criminal groups organized to control the marginal ones or as executors of political simple works and back-up troops of the police force does not have anything original. However, the Japanese case presents some specific characters:

- while collecting, at the time of the destruction of the feudal mode after 1868, a parte lite samurai, the organized criminal groups tied exceptionally close links with the apparatus of the modern State which was set up;

- the construction of this State, under the pressure of abroad and without the cultural standards penetrating the society, created a trauma and generated “an endemic lack of confidence” (Diagrid 1998: 51), a base for all the Mafias of the world, on which the yakuzas thrived by playing the guards of peoples and traditions, and by usurping functions of intermediation enters the communities and the State. On the same base was developed a structural political populism, to which we will see that the yakuzas are also essential.

- ultra-nationalist ideological positioning shown by the criminal groups provides to the preserving elite a convenient alibi to resort to their services.

In the Sixties, the historical utility of the yakuzas as suppliers of violence becomes exhausted. But the bonds woven with the State and employers allow them to switch to a new type of employment:  the following decade sees groups specialised in blackmail with the companies proliferated and the gangs engaged in speculative activities to which they can “convince” banks and houses of titles to help them.

The existence of family dynasties also facilitates them the task: the son of Kôno was president of the party in 1993-1995 ; and the concern of the family honor can make certain heirs vulnerable.

It is the characteristics of political system and economic, such as it was set up in Japan since the war that maintain a constant request for services which the underworld is better capable to provide.

 

 

Yakuzas today:

 

If fifty years ago, the number of yakusas reached the 180,000 members, their number strongly fell since the fight against crime and the law against gangs of 1992 engaged by the Japanese government. Nevertheless, about half still act today. Four first families of yakuza are distinguished particularly:  the Yamaguchi-Gumi branches with 21,000 members, Sumiyoshi Rengo with 8,000 members, Inagawa-kai with 5,000 members and the CAT Yuai Jigyo Kuminai which counts a thousand of members in its rows.

 

Yakuzas hierarchy:

 

 

The respect of the hierarchy is a pillar of the various yakuzas’ organizations. The branches yakuzas, more or less powerful, are established on a whole organization in scrupulously followed pyramid. Each family can adopt specific rules and more or less different operations but in all the cases, only one patriarch remains in charge of the family to guide it: it is Oyabun (the father) or Kumicho (chief of clan). Its uncontested and undeniable authority shows that only Oyabun holds the supreme power. Its succession is quite as solid: only the son of Oyabun becomes Oyabun in his turn. In rare cases, the direction of a family is entrusted to a trustworthy person clearly designated by Oyabun as being its successor. In addition, the woman of Oyabun called nee-san or kami-san is the only woman who can play an important role in the organizations yakusa.

 

The hierarchical lines of the yakuza are defined then as follows: Waka Gashira is number 2 of the organization and in parallel, Shatei Gashira also carries out the orders of Oyabun but with less influence than his/her big brother  Waka-Gashira. Saiko-Komon also forms part of these senior officers. Its statute defines it as the main adviser of Oyabun and deals more particularly with the administrative side of the organization. Others own him the greatest respect even if he does not have any power on the yakuza of execution.

 

Then, the middle executives come such as the yakusas of the row of Kyodai (big brothers). The yakusas of minor row are classified in the category of Shatei (little brothers) while the sakazuki (new recruits) enclose this hierarchy. It should be noted that the Kumi-in executes orders that come from the yakuza without being member of the organisation and they are to some extent applicants to enter the organization. They are intermediate groups between the yakusas and the katagi (civil).

 

 

 

Inculcated Values

At Yakuzas, the chivalrous way or Ninkyôdô contains nine rules which dictate their policies. Thus, she says:

 

1- You will not offend the good citizens.

 

2- You will not take the woman of the neighbor.

 

3- You will not steal the organization.

 

4- You will not take drugs.

 

5- You will owe obedience to your superior.

 

6- You will agree to die for the father or to go to prison for him.

 

7- You will not speak about the group to whoever.

 

8- In prison you won’t say anything.

 

9- It is not allowed to kill a katagaris (nobody who does not belong to the underworld).

 

All these rules should not be transgressed. However the ninth is often not applied. Moreover, if a Yakuza transgress  the code of honor, he must, in order to be forgive, cut this finger and offer it to Oyabun as well as the sake which was given to him during his initiation rite.