Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture from 1945 to Fukushima

by William David Andrews

Conformist, mute and malleable? Andrews tackles head-on this absurd caricature of Japanese society in his fascinating history of its militant sub-cultures, radical societies and well-established traditions of dissent

Following the March 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, the media remarked with surprise on how thousands of demonstrators had flocked to the streets of Tokyo. But mass protest movements are nothing new in Japan and the post-war period experienced years of unrest and violence on both sides of the political from demos to riots, strikes, campus occupations, faction infighting, assassinations and even international terrorism.

This is the first comprehensive history in English of political radicalism and counterculture in Japan, as well as the artistic developments during this turbulent time. It chronicles the major events and movements from 1945 to the new flowering of protests and civil dissent in the wake of Fukushima. Introducing readers to often ignored aspects of Japanese society, it explores the fascinating ideologies and personalities on the Right and the Left, including the student movement, militant groups and communes. While some elements parallel developments in Europe and America, much of Japan's radical recent past (and present) is unique and offers valuable lessons for understanding the context to the new waves of anti-government protests the nation is currently witnessing.

Genres: Japan, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Japanese History, Asia, Sociology

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

William Andrews is a writer and translator in Tokyo. He holds degrees from King’s College London and Sophia University. He is the author of Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima (C. Hurst & Co., 2016) and The Japanese Red Army: A Short History, published in German as Die Japanische Rote Armee Fraktion (bahoe books, 2018). His translation of Miura Daisuke’s play Love’s Whirlpool (2005) was published in 2018 by the Japan Playwrights Association, which also published his translation of Setoyama Misaki’s Their Enemy (2013) in 2019.

Reviews

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

this turned out to be a little more relevant than i would have liked. a long and frigid postmortem for the corpse of radical japanese leftism.... with the depth of a wikipedia article. i understand that the basic framing device -- the author's argument that japan isn't the passive and peaceful country most americans dream it to be -- is definitely important, but it does nothing to give the protracted and lifeless writing here any significance.

that's not to say this wasn't massively informative, honestly i got exactly what i was looking for: a base understanding of the history and culture of japanese activism, just not much else. ever since i watched mishima debate a bunch of disheveled college aged marxists, smoking and holding babies and screaming death threats as they demanded revolution, i just can't stop noticing the profound shadow of movements like zengakuren all over the country. pops up on tv, in movies, passing comments from my coworkers. i was really hungry to learn about that precise history and i got what i wanted.

but that history is also deeply pessimistic and not encouraging. japan seems to have gotten much closer to revolution than a lot of places, at least it seems so from the sheer scale of mass communist action, but watching each spark of leftism begin to turn inward, cannibalize itself, die out under capitalists and infighting and the appeal of Owning Your Own TV Set just really stinks. i get worried watching the same action unfold in america, on the other side of the world and in a different timezone for which i am often asleep or at work.

this never suggests much in the way of concrete reasons or discernible facts as to precisely how these movements sputter out and burn. there's some simple theories and suppositions that are easy to agree with, but i often found myself questioning why and how a lot of these things were happening. i can't say for sure if it's really the book's fault: there may just not be an answer at all. but it makes me concerned all the same -- if there is no answer, if there is no solution or hope for a sustained leftist movement, what are we supposed to do? i don't know and this book doesn't either, but i guess at least i know about ~something ~ or other a lot more than i did when i started. i also have a much longer reading list, and, totally unsurprisingly, a deepened obsession with the theatrical melodrama of revolutionary women in pain and crisis. shigenobu fusako new diva legend, nagata hiroko cuck your husband in the name of the advancement of the proletariat and then kill half your militia DRAMA !!!

[Giulia Comerio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fondamentale per capire la cultura giapponese. L'assunto di base di questo libro è che il popolo giapponese non sia naturalmente portato all'armonia, ma che sia stato schiacciato dallo stato-regime fino ad assumere questa qualità, in un atto di mobilitazione dall'alto (come in tutta la storia moderna giapponese d'altronde). La storia giapponese è piena di ribelli e di voci di dissenso, ed è importantissimo e interessantissimo ascoltarle e scoprire di più. Questo libro parte dal dopoguerra, con le rivolte contro il trattato di pace US-Japan che di fatto rendeva il giappone un vassallo degli US, fino ad arrivare a Fukushima. Ne esce un ritratto ricchissimo e sfaccettato di un paese spesso travisato, vittima di uno dei peggiori meccanismi di 'orientalizzazione' mai visti da parte della cultura occidentale.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shallow journalism. Too many words. Too few information. And lots of drama added for drama's sake and maybe to compensate for the lack of sources.