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