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Historic Groups that Started Innocent then Took an Evil Turn

Khalid Elhassan November 8, 2020 32 min

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9. From Innocent Origins, to Not at All Innocent Fanatical Terrorism

Shindo Renmei was neither the sole nor first organization founded by Japanese immigrants to Brazil. All such organizations, with the notable exception of Shindo Renmei, were innocent entities that were formed to offer mutual support for the Japanese-Brazilian community.

One such was Pia (“Pious”) a charity founded by Japanese Catholics, with the approval of both the Catholic Church and Brazil’s government, to help the poorer Japanese immigrants. One of Pia’s more active members was a former Japanese Army colonel, Junji Kikawa. In 1942, violent clashes erupted between Japanese immigrants and local Brazilians. That led Colonel Kikawa to split from the innocent Pia and form the not-at-all innocent Shindo Renmei, which urged Japanese-Brazilians to engage in sabotage. That began a dive down a rabbit hole of crazy that terrified Kikawa’s fellow immigrants, and bewildered and alarmed Brazil and the Brazilian government.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.