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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.
