Japan, it's everything I imagined it to be.
Polite, quiet, overcrowded, a high-tech Mekka.
[Lots of Japanese brands], all of them powered by nuclear energy.
Some say, the ultimate expression of industrial civilization.
On March 11th 2011, a powerful earthquake damaged the cooling equipment at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Causing the reactors to overheat, and later melt down.
Releasing dangerous radioactive materials into the air and water,
these radioactive materials can have long-term damaging effects on millions of people, including cancer.
And make large geographical areas uninhabitable for decades.
This is a story about a country at a crossroads.
Where technology and innovation are the proud achievements of a post-war nation.
A story about how government and industry work together to blind the population to the dangers of radiation.
But most importantly, this is a story of a rag-tag group of troublemakers
who have kickstarted a massive anti-nuclear movement, in a country where dissent is frowned upon.
This is a story of resistance to stop the flows of radiation.
I am here to promote my film END:CIV,
which proposes that all of this technological prowess,
the things that Japanese society view as proof of their success, should be dismantled, to save what is left of nature on the planet.
Nine months ago, many Japanese people would have thought that I was out of my mind,
but the reality of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown has made some Japanese people reconsider.
We have to know that our civilization produced the nuclear power plants, it also produces plutonium.
The civilization us human beings created and it have like, you know such a disaster.
This is a very deep, you know, problem. We have to change how to live.
It's a very big answer, but you know this is also one of a important goal for many people.
But before I tell you the story of the unlikely band of heroes of the anti-nuke movement, here are some not so randam facts:
1: In August of 1945 the US attacked the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two nuclear bombs named Fat Man and Little Boy.
Killing more than 100,000 people.
2: By 1950, about 200,000 people in Hiroshama and Nagasaki died of radiation related illnesses or side-effects.
3: In 1954 the Japanese nuclear power program was started by war criminal Matsutarō Shōriki,
while working for the CIA and with the support of the US government.
Shōriki is also credited with bringing American baseball and commercial television to Japan.
4: The menace of nuclear radiation is deeply ingrained in Japanese popular culture,
most famously in the Godzilla franchise, and the anime film Akira.
5: In Japan the police can arrest you and hold you without charge for up to 23 days.
6: About 30,000 people commit suicide in Japan every year, one of the highest rates of suicide in the world.
This last factoid helped explain why Wataru Tsurimi, the man you see sitting next to me,
wrote the book entitled The Complete Manual of Suicide.
A detailed illustrated guide on how to end your life.
Apperently levels of depression in Japan are so high
that even with the introduction of anti-depressants the rate of suicides does not seem to diminish.
Throughout my stay here the question that kept bugging me was this:
With all it's wealth and technology, why are people in Japan so unhappy? Nah... scratch that.
The question was: if the achievements of industrialization are destroying the soul and health of the Japanese,
was it worth the risk to power the country with nuclear plants?
As I write this, the Japanese government made an announcement that the meltdown was finally contained.
That's nearly nine months after the disaster.
Nine months of radioactive contamination escaping into the world's atmosphere, that is, if you believe the government is telling the truth.
But just how bad is it?
Judging from life in Fukushima city, it can't be all that bad.
Walking around the city you get the sense that it's business as usual.
After all, Fukushima city is about 80km from the nuclear power plant, well beyond the 20km evacuation zone enforced by the government.
But the problem with radiation is that it's odorless and invisible.
So it's easy for people to forget that their bodies are being attacked by radioactive particles.
Wataru Iwata is a proffessional musician.
After the disaster he left his home in Tokyo and travelled south to Kyoto, in fear of being exposed to radiation.
He had planned on leaving Japan permanently, but his conscience got the better of him and instead of escaping he moved to Fukushima city
and helped found the Citizens' Radioactivity Measurement Station.
A group dedicated to measuring levels of radiation in food and humans.
After the accident, the government set an evacuation zone from 3km,
then it became 5, and then 10, and it stops at 20km.
And then the government says: It's ok, it's safe.
When I first met Wataru he showed me some measurements
on a plastic scintillator, and told me that background radiation that day was about 6 times higher than what is safe for humans.
The soil about 16 times higher, and the water almost 18 times higher.
Yet kids continued to play on the dirt, mothers continued
to hang their clothes outdoors, and the government continues to play up the narrative that everything is ok.
I want people to evacuate, if they can.
Especially people who have children, small children.
Today I am meeting with several anti-nuke activists in Chiyoda, a section of Tokyo that holds many government buildings
and is also the home of Tepco, the owner of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
We're here because a high profile member of the anti-nuke movement is being released from jail.
The activist did not want to release his name and simply identified him as 'A'.
A was arrested at an anti-racist rally while carrying an anti-nuke banner.
He was being held without charge for twelve days,
and the day he was released he was supposed to go to a hearing where the state wanted to argue that he be held for an additional eleven days.
So his comrades were surprised and elated at his release.
An impromptu celebration was held a block away in front of the headquarters of Tepco,
where activists have had a protest encampment since March.
He told me that the reason why the state is trying to crush the anti-nuke movement is because it has connected and unified all the
social struggles in Japan, creating one massive movement.
He also told me that he believes that the Japanese state will not meet the demands of the anti-nuke movement,
which includes the end of nuclear power in Japan.
Korangi, April 10th 2011.
Exactly one month since the nuclear disaster, more than 15,000 people take part in a sound demonstration to demand an end to nuclear power.
This is why the government is so scared.
To put it in context, there hasn't been a large grassroots protest movement in Japans since the 70's.
With a brief spike in the run-up to the US war with Iraq.
Activism is not looked upon favorably by the Japanese society, so a protest of even a 1,000 people is a major event.
The same group who organized this music-driven demonstration has pulled up similar numbers every month since the first month.
The organizers of these sound demos are a variety of loose collectives.
The HRP, like people from a place called Korangi, which is the location for Shiroto no Ran.
And yeah it's basically... no NGO is involved.
The last group Kaori mentioned, Shiroto no Ran, translates to Amateur Riot.
Amateur Riot is not your garden variety activist group, but a collective of folks who opened twelve shops in the neighbourhood of Korangi.
The shops range from bars and restaurants to recycle shops, like the one this gentleman operates.
That's Hajime Matsumoto, one of the founders of Amateur Riot.
He explains that public space has been rapidly disappearing in Tokyo.
So opening shops was a way for them to reclaim space and have multiple locations to socialize and plot their actions.
One of the spaces that has been instrumental to the success of the anti-nuke protests is Irregular Rhythm Asylum.
For the past nine years Narita Keisuke has been running the tiny anarchist infoshop that also serves as an impromptu restaurant,
meeting room and web-design studio in the ward of Shinjuku.
Also the site of the largest grassroots anti-nuke demo to date.
Some people want to forget radiation,
so they can go back to their daily life.
We did feel a big, big shake from the earthquake, but it was only that moment, that we felt like emergency or we felt danger.
And now everything's gone back to normal, everyone is like consuming, consuming, consuming...
And we just wanted to raise awareness that this isn't the normal state that it used to be, and that we're living in a nuclear polluted country.
It's a no compromise movement. We want to shut down all nuclear plants in Japan and never let them open again.
These sound demos have energized the youth, who are new to any sort of dissent, and had given the Japanese people a glimpse
of what they can achieve when they stick together.
Even though Japan's grassroots anti-nuke movement is in it's infancy,
the people I spoke to truly believe they can stop nuclear power in their country.
For people who doubt that this is possible, one only needs to look to Germany's anti-nuke movement, who after massive protests
following the Fukushima disaster, put enough pressure on the government to effectively shut down nuclear power for good.
Narita Keisuke sums up his comrades' can-do, yet irreverent attitude, with this phrase:
Ladies and gentleman, you ain't seen nothing yet.