People Power

When countries around the world are demonstrating against government policies, often Japan only has small or no demonstrations going on. Why is this and what are the consequences to this? 

My opinion is that this is because of the Japanese culture. First of all, Japanese people are collectivists. Therefore, if only a few people engage in the demonstration, not many people will participate in it. In order for a successful demonstration to happen, the majority of people would have to have an interest in it. Secondly, Japanese people are too busy to participate in the demonstrations. Leaving home at six and coming home at eleven is normal for Japanese “salary men”.  These people probably would not be willing to sacrifice their precious leisure time for the demonstrations. Thirdly, many Japanese people are not interested in, for example the whale problem Rab mentioned today. Even if it is a problem, if it has little effect on their daily lives it is not worth fighting for. Finally, according to Rab, it is difficult to have a protest in Japan because of the laws that don’t allow for protests that have not received permission. This makes protests ineffective and loses its purpose.

           

This is potentially dangerous as this can mean that the government can do whatever they want to, because the people do not protest against anything. I assume that this is what the government is trying to do, obviously because it would be a pain in the neck to have to fight through protesters every time they want to change something. Although it is a threat to the future in Japan, is there anything we can do about it?

I honestly believe that it would be extremely difficult to change the root cause of this problem. It is impossible to change the deeply rooted culture of any civilization, but without doing so, it is impossible to make change in the way we react to national powers. I think that the only way for change is if something drastic happens that go against the liberty and rights of the citizens of Japan. Otherwise, I don’t think trying to create communities to fight against the government to try to overturn government intentions is realistic. There are things we can do about this, but I don’t think they would be effective and would result in little progress.


(image source: http://crenshawsubway.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/peoplepower.jpg)