Japan has recently seen some of the largest demonstrations in a generation or more. Alastair Stephens traces the emergence of a movement

The government’s decision to restart nuclear reactors, which were shut down after last year’s accident at Fukushima, has sparked a wave of public anger. In mid-July 170,000 demonstrated in Tokyo’s Yoyogi park. This was followed by a second massive demo which surrounded the residence of the Japanese prime minster.

All 50 nuclear reactors in the country had been shut down following the accident, a near-catastophe at the Fukushima Daichi plant caused by the earthquake and tsunami of March last year. Up until then they produced a third of the country’s electricity.

Fukushima disaster: ‘made in Japan’

It was the decision to restart reactors at the Oi plant in Fukui prefecture which has caused the growing backlash against nuclear power to manifest itself on the streets. The outrage was added to by the publication, on the same day of the restart, of the 641 page report by a parliamentary committee of investigation into the incident.

The report labelled the Fukushima incident as very much “made in Japan.” Tepco (the Tokyo Elictrical Power company, the owner and operator of the Fukushima Daichi plant) had claimed it was a result of an unforseeably massive earthquake.

The committee exposed Tepco as having complacent attitudes to health and safety, saying there exists a culture of collusion between nuclear power companies, regulators and the government.

There were demonstrations against nuclear power at the time of the accident, but they were small. The country was still in state of shock following the earthquake and tsunami which killed 15,000 people.

It wasn’t until this spring that weekly Friday night demonstrations were started by the Metropolitan Coalition Against Nuclear Power. Starting small they have built into a protest which regularly mobilises thousands.

A tradition of protest

This is not the first time that campaigning over environmental issues has mobilised large numbers of people into the streets. The 1970s saw demonstrations over incidents such as the Minamato poisoning.

The presence of nuclear waepons on US navy ships docking in Japan, which is of course the only nation ever to have been attacked with atomic bombs, has always been a flashpoint as well. These contributed to the massive wave of protests and strikes against the signing of a treaty with the US in 1960.

Probably the most famous protest against environmental degradation was over the expansion of Narita airport in the 1970s.  This led to years of clashes between radical leftist students and evicted farmers on the one side and the police and authorities on the other. These led to a number of fatalities and marked the peak of two decades of escalating violence on demonstrations in Japan.

The ‘economic miracle’, repressive policing and a political culture dominated by the right meant that, in the three decades following Narita, street protest remained comparatively rare and small scale.  

A new generation of Japanese people are now becoming involved in protest again, and are taking inspiration from the movements across the world of the last few years. This could be the start of a whole new chapter in radical politics in Japan, as well as being the beginning of the end of the country’s nuclear power consensus.