Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley. 2001. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Main points:

Ch. 1- Introduction: May 19 and June 15 evoked a similar stream of memories since 1960 which was related to the protest of the revised US-Japan Security treaty, or called the Anpo. (1) The June 15 incident was about the right-wing group attacking citizen marchers that resulted in the death of a university coed. The incident led to the resignation of the PM. It was described as a major historical watershed that set the course of post war democracy which could be traced to later protests e.g. the Vietnam War, the campus revolts, and the environmental movements.(2) [background note: in Japan the security treaty was finally approved by the House of Representatives on May 20 1960. Japan Socialist Party deputies boycotted the Lower house session and tried to prevent the LDP deputies from entering the chamber, but were forcibly removed by the police. Massive demonstrations and rioting by students and trade unions followed].

- citizen movement articulated new idea of political subjectivity. This book seeks to present a fundamentally different perspective on the process of the movement by examining four different citizen’s groups that took part in the Anpo protest: The Mountain Range, the Poets of Oi, the Grass Seeds, and the Voice-less Voices. (3)

- the Mountain Range showed the importance of the historical context, specifically the specter of WWII to the protesters. The ruling party seemed intended to bring the warring days back to Japan. The Poets of Oi illustrated a crucial organizational context for the movement. The foundation of the group was the culture circles. The glass Seeds showed the importance of new sectors and constituency of the participants, in particular the women. (4) The Voiceless Voice showed the importance of ideas and values in mobilizing protesters. Their protests manifested a political philosophy based on the citizen as the subject of political engagement. Citizen’s movement shifted the emphases from ideology to action that became the organization’s principle. (5)

- the analysis presented in the book began with the premises that the Anpo protest was not monolithic or homogeneous. It was ideologically and organizationally diverse. (6) The book did no rely on official communiqués but instead tried to present the participant’s own voice. (7)

- there were two main reasons that made it difficult to define the characteristics of new social movements. One was the wide range of the groups; the other was a major paradigm shift seen in the new social movement theory in the past three decades.

- the appearance of new social movement had been taken as an indication that, as Stuart Hall wrote, “Socialist man with one mind, one set of interests, one project, is dead.”(9) The new social movement identified different subject – whether citizens, local resident, or people who suffer discrimination. In Japan it developed around a plethora of issues, arising in responses to the rapid economic growth and the state’s attempt to establish a ‘managed society’. (9)

- the question of multiple historicities was important to the formation and activities of the groups examined in this book. Protests implied a struggle over histories and who would be the custodian of the past [in Carol Gluck’s words]. The protesters had to historicize their situation. (14) The contest over historicity was crucial to understand the Anpo era movements.

Ch.2: The security treaty was signed in 1951. From 1959 to the fall of 1960, about 16 million Japanese engaged in protest against this Security treaty. (16) The protests had been called the most important post war confrontation between democratic forces and traditional paternalism in Japanese politics. (17)

-citizen groups often referred to their own participation in the protests as ‘spontaneous’, to denote that they were self-motivated rather than impulsive or instinctual. (21)

- four factors that had not received enough attention in the past should be highlighted to account for the level of citizen participation. First, the specter of WWII; second, new channels for involvement had arisen; many came out from the circle movement. Third, it was the increasing presence of women. Fourth was the development of citizen ethos that placed the citizen rather than the proletariat as the subject or agent of historical changes. (24)

- the Anpo generation acutely felt the traumas of Japan’s defeat in WWII and was incensed by the instantaneous ‘conversion’ to democracy of teachers and community elders. This Anpo generation had their disillusionment with the Japan Communist Party over the latter’s ideological flip-flops and the suppression of dissidents. (35)

- Kanba’s death during a protest was deeply shocking to all who were involved in the protest. First, the nature of the protest was legalistic. The protesters were exercising their right to petition the government. The fact that Kanba was a student at Tokyo University reinforced the shock. The most shocking thing was that it was a woman who had been killed. Women accounted for only 15 percent of the student population at Tokyo University. She was an officer in Zengakuren. (49)

- Ch. 3. - one of the key instruments that prompted a reassessment of people’s WWII responsibility was a book published in 1949 called “Listen to the voices of Wadatsumi: Writing of Japanese students killed in the war”. Numerous reading groups formed throughout the country that used the book to reassess their experience of the War through the thoughts of these soldiers. (63). One person who was influenced by the reading groups was the founder of the Mountain Range, Shiratori Kunio. (64) In 1947 Shiratori and his friends started a magazine called Nameless Flower. They changed the name to Mountain Range in 1950. (64) The magazine kept records of ordinary people’s lives that were more heterogeneous and came from different occupations and locales. (68)

- Mountain Range reformed in 1956. Their members communicated primarily in writing and since the groups were so spread out, they began to make plan to get everyone together. (69). They saw themselves mainly as a researcher and writing circle. (71)

- the Mountain Range did not make any resolution about Anpo, even when the treaty was forcibly ratified on May 19 or when Kanba was killed on June 15. (76) Members’ description of the Anpo protests tended to emphasize their heterogeneity in the forms of action, the different locations in which they took place. (77) Members had continued to meet as a whole group once every two years, always in a different location. (77)

- the group’s mission of chronicling people from various walks of life and spreading their work through small scale communications networks had spawned several publishing ventures. Their Tokyo group in particular had many members connected with the publishing world. (78)

- for the Anpo generation, the day of Japan’s surrender was the beginning of their lives, 1945 was the year zero. It afforded the chance to construct a new system on top of the old one razed in the bombing. For them, rebirth took placed in radically personal terms. To survive, they had to take personal responsibility for the way they were in order to effect changes under their new circumstance. (80)

(to be continued)