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| Lullaby for the Outcasts (はみだし野郎の子守唄) by Barefoot Gen director Masaki Mori. |
Post-war Japan experienced growing pains during its industrialization, with the late-60's Zenkyoto student riots serving as a woefully short-lived period of rebellious adolescence. The peaceful picketing of Nichidai University students against the corrupt administration's gross embezzlement of tuition fees met with indifference from the government and violence from Yakuza-backed strike breakers. As the batons of the riot police fell, public dissidence rose, with over two-thirds of the universities in the country joining their brothers in organized protests and campus-jacking barricades before the flames of revolution died out as quickly as they had spread.
Looking back generations later, the highly fragmented nature of the movement makes it difficult to piece together an accurate image of the people involved, their struggle, and the end result. The best source of information is from eye-on accounts from participants like Michiko Sasaki (佐々木美智子), who had her boots on the ground and camera in hand behind the barricades.
Based on her photographs below, you have to wonder if the gates of the prime minister's residence would stand as firm if the anti-nuke protesters were armed with this sort of tenacity.
Excellent BGM while viewing this post:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bveiZdezNqE
"Get Your Guns" by Zunou Keisatsu
With the birth rate having plummeted since the 60's that was pretty much the country's last chance to shake up the old institutions and incite change by way of a youth movement.
ReplyDeleteAs for the older folks, well, we all know how much that demographic loves change.
DeleteOnce the country shook off the ashes of WWII, they had good reason to take to the streets upon realizing what a raw deal the Anpori/Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security was. Modern Japan is too complacent to show such organized militant resistance, even with much bigger issues at stake.
Then again, Noda has recently stated that the country is moving to completely ween itself off nukes over the past 30 years, so maybe the constant jeering has finally sunk in. I'll believe in change when I see it.
It is a well known fact that the best way to rouse the complacent masses out of their comatose complaisance is by way of sudden appearance of tangible concerns.
DeleteNo revolution got its start amid the perfectly content masses.
Japan would have continued using nuclear power with nary a peep if it were not for the disaster and the media storm that such things turn into once the media get a hold of something actually exciting to report on and in milking it blow into panic inducing proportions.
Having people worry about about contamination levels of food they so recently effortlessly threw into the old gullet is a proven catalyst for getting a organized movement going.
You have to strike while the fumes are still volatile though. People used to their hazy comfortable existence have a way of quickly lulling back into the dormant comfort of their routines once tangible danger has passed.
Noda might be saying this or that, but weening a country like Japan off of nuclear power is a decades long endeavour and one can easily imagine that in a few years apathy will permit the powers that be to quietly sweep such silly plans under the rug where no one will care to find them until such as time as the next disaster strikes. Which it might very well never do.