After three Japanese volunteers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP External Operations executed an attack on Israel's Lod Airport (see Lod Airport massacre) on May 30, 1972, PFLP leaders and other Japanese volunteers became targets for Israel's assassinations. In retaliation for the attack, PFLP's spokesman Ghassan Kanafani was killed on July 8, 1972, by the Israeli Intelligence Agency Mossad in a car bomb. Mei's mother became wanted by the INTERPOL in 1974 after the French embassy hostage-taking in The Hague in which she was thought to be involved, so Mei had to move frequently and used aliases to evade reprisals by her mother's enemies.[3]
Mei Shigenobu lived some of her childhood years in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; Fusako Shigenobu was absent for months at a time and Mei was raised in those periods by her mother's comrades in the Japanese Red Army and Arab friends and supporters; while her birth father was killed sometime during her childhood.
She had her early education in several schools in Lebanon and in other countries she refuses to name. She studied journalism at the Lebanese University as well as going to the American University of Beirut in Lebanon for her tertiary education where she continued her graduate studies in International Relations. During those years, she learned to speak fluent Arabic and English, but hid her knowledge of Japanese, fearing that if her identity as Fusako Shigenobu's daughter were to become known publicly, her mother might be captured.[4]
She was not a citizen of any country until March 2001, when she received Japanese citizenship.[5][6]
Return to Japan
Mei came out of hiding after her mother was captured in Osaka, and visited Japan for the first time in April 2001, making her the first child of a Red Army member to return to Japan in five years.[7] She was the subject of some controversy in December 2001 when she gave a talk at a public school in Kanagawa Prefecture about Arab culture and food at the invitation of a teacher there; the Israeli embassy in Tokyo sent a complaint to the school, describing her discussion as conveying "blatant, biased political" anti-Israeli sentiments.[8] Japanese lawyers, scholars, journalists, writers and activists responded by signing a protest petition against the Israeli embassy and government saying that Mei was now a Japanese citizen and had the right to freedom of speech in Japan.[citation needed]
She earned her PhD degree in Media Studies from Doshisha University in 2011, doing research on the development of Arabic media, and the effect of satellite channels (a case study of Al Jazeera) on Arab societies.
Mei Shigenobu is a supporter of Palestinian statehood and a critic of Israel. In contrast to Bettina Röhl's (Ulrike Meinhof's daughter) disavowal, shown in Children of the Revolution, she views her mother's actions with pride, to the point of stating that she considers her a role model, merely repeating, as her mother, that those were different times, as she mentioned to the Standard, "there were no means of gaining media attention",[4] and with today's media and communication, other venues prove far more effective. Also arguing that her mothers activities should not be viewed through 'contemporary eyes', saying that it was in an era people were fighting against oppression around the world, and that "We forget all that background and we just pick up a person from there and choose to sentence her using today's sensibility, today's values and today's way of thinking.".[3][10][4]
In popular culture
Mei Shigenobu appears in Nobuyuki Oura's November 2006 movie 9/11-8/15 Japan Pack Suicide (『9.11-8.15-日本心中-』).[2][11] Mei also appears in Documentary on Zunou Keisatsu (ドキュメンタリー頭脳警察, 2009), a documentary featuring the life of the Japanese Rock band "Zunou Keisatu" (頭脳警察, 'Brain Police') and its lead singer PANTA.[12][13]
In 2010, Mei costarred in the fictional Japanese movie on figure skating Coach as a sports journalist.[14][15] In 2010, Mei Shigenobu and her mother Fusako Shigenobu were featured in Shane O'Sullivan's documentary film Children of the Revolution, which premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.[16][17] In 2011, Mei Shigenobu was featured in Eric Baudelaire's experimental movie The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 years without Images along with filmmaker and Japanese Red Army member Masao Adachi, which was entered at the 22nd Marseilles International Film Festival.[18]
Publications
Shigenobu, Mei (May 2002), 秘密―パレスチナから桜の国へ 母と私の28年 [Secrets - from Palestine to the country of cherry trees, 28 years with my mother], Kōdansha, ISBN4-06-210859-3
Shigenobu, Mei (February 2003), 中東のゲットーから [From the ghettos of the Middle East], Weitsu, ISBN4-901391-31-3
Shigenobu, Mei (October 2012), 「アラブの春」の正体 欧米とメディアに踊らされた民主化革命 [The "Arab Spring"; How it was Played out by the West and the Media], Kadokawa Publishers
