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Anti-Olympic Rallying Points, Public Alienation, and Transnational Alliances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Sonja Ganseforth
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Abstract

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Since the radicalization of some leftist movements in the 1960s and 1970s, political activism in Japan is often met with skepticism or suspicion, and social movements are largely characterized by small and senior membership. Anti-Olympic opposition in Japan is largely sustained by activist veterans from this “invisible civil society”. While this activism may alienate the public, connections to other Japanese social movements are rich, especially to the anti-nuclear movement that has emerged since the 2011 nuclear disaster.

When Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko and Olympic dignitaries pushed the button to light up an Olympic symbol floating off Odaiba, there was a discernible and discordant background noise on the live TV broadcast despite the loud celebratory fireworks: the voices of protestors screaming, “Stop the Olympics right now!” Members of the group Hangorin-no-kai (English: No Olympics 2020) had gathered in front of the luxury hotel where the festive ceremony rang in the six month count down to the Tokyo Summer Olympics. In addition, OkotowaLink, the broader network Orinpikku-saigai-okotowari-renrakukai (No Thank You to 2020 Olympic Disasters Link), held a demonstration on a close-by waterfront deck. “Many people seem to be excited about the upcoming Games, but quite a lot of foreign tourists asked us why we are protesting,” one activist relates afterwards. “Most Japanese don't talk to us, but unlike at our usual protests, this time, many also accepted our Japanese-language flyers!”

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 5 , March 2020 , e16
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2020

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