Despite all evidence to the contrary, a persistent stereotype about "East Asians" is their alleged lack of interest in social and political activism. While it is true that decades of affluence in Japan and more recently South Korea has contributed to hyper-consumerism at the expense of meaningful social engagement particularly by the youth, one should not forget the sustained student activism on elite South Korean campuses throughout its years of authoritarian rule. At the height of the Vietnam War, the security arrangement between the United States and Japan triggered off massive waves of enduring protests that radicalized an entire Japanese generation.
The social and political quietism the appeared to have set in during the post-Vietnam era of prosperity in Japan, driven by a dominant ideology that the state and corporations can be trusted has been rudely shattered the Fukushima catastrophe. Of course social activism around many important issues such as the environment and women's rights had never been extinguished. However, by and large, engagement with such important social issues was limited to a relatively small section of the general Japanese population. More often than not, the general population whose lives were devoted to the corporations or the state, had no time for such activism. The Fukushima nuclear disaster however, has galvanized a very large and diverse cross-section of the population. The evidence of organized cover-ups in the nuclear industry has contributed to the rapid evaporation of trust in corporations and the state.
After the post-Fukushima suspension of all nuclear reactors, the recent decision to re-start the reactors at Ohi has triggered off a tsunami of protests in Tokyo. At the anti-nuclear rally last Monday, over 170,000 activists from all walks of life demonstrated outside the Prime Minister Noda Yokohiko's residence in the heart of Tokyo. The Nobel Laureate in Literature Oe Kenzaburo as well as the prominent composer Sakamoto Ruichi were there. More importantly, "salarymen" or the corporate employees who might be expected be disdainful of such behaviours, were part of the massive demonstration. There were also tens of thousands of "furita"" or the part-time workers who have rejected the mortgaging of one's life to corporations. The presence of the part-time workers in significant numbers was significant, particularly as they perceived by the wider population as socially disengaged and shirkers. There were of course thousands of grandparents, housewives and children.
Decades of complacency and misplaced trust in authority and expertise has been sharply eroded by these anti-nuclear activists from all sections of Japanese society. Civil society activism and engagement by people demanding a say in policies that affect their lives has been re-ignited by the Fukushima catastrophe. The nuclear issue however is obviously not restricted to Japan. Locked into the same game of global neo-liberal capitalism, China and India are also dramatically increasing their lethal dependence on nuclear energy.
The social and political quietism the appeared to have set in during the post-Vietnam era of prosperity in Japan, driven by a dominant ideology that the state and corporations can be trusted has been rudely shattered the Fukushima catastrophe. Of course social activism around many important issues such as the environment and women's rights had never been extinguished. However, by and large, engagement with such important social issues was limited to a relatively small section of the general Japanese population. More often than not, the general population whose lives were devoted to the corporations or the state, had no time for such activism. The Fukushima nuclear disaster however, has galvanized a very large and diverse cross-section of the population. The evidence of organized cover-ups in the nuclear industry has contributed to the rapid evaporation of trust in corporations and the state.
After the post-Fukushima suspension of all nuclear reactors, the recent decision to re-start the reactors at Ohi has triggered off a tsunami of protests in Tokyo. At the anti-nuclear rally last Monday, over 170,000 activists from all walks of life demonstrated outside the Prime Minister Noda Yokohiko's residence in the heart of Tokyo. The Nobel Laureate in Literature Oe Kenzaburo as well as the prominent composer Sakamoto Ruichi were there. More importantly, "salarymen" or the corporate employees who might be expected be disdainful of such behaviours, were part of the massive demonstration. There were also tens of thousands of "furita"" or the part-time workers who have rejected the mortgaging of one's life to corporations. The presence of the part-time workers in significant numbers was significant, particularly as they perceived by the wider population as socially disengaged and shirkers. There were of course thousands of grandparents, housewives and children.
Decades of complacency and misplaced trust in authority and expertise has been sharply eroded by these anti-nuclear activists from all sections of Japanese society. Civil society activism and engagement by people demanding a say in policies that affect their lives has been re-ignited by the Fukushima catastrophe. The nuclear issue however is obviously not restricted to Japan. Locked into the same game of global neo-liberal capitalism, China and India are also dramatically increasing their lethal dependence on nuclear energy.
