ANPO Protests: My journey
In today’s blog I had the lucky opportunity to travel back to a mostly overlooked but highly important social period in Japan. This period would be the ANPO protests in Japan during 1959–1960. After World War II, the US felt that they needed to punish Japan for losing the war, with this came arguably unfair treaties and rules towards Japan about their way of life and their military as well as having a number of US military bases in Japan. Many residents of Japan felt reasonably uneasy having many foreign military bases on their islands, even practically giving up entire islands to be military base islands like Okinawa. On top of that, many residents of Japan very much blamed the higher ranking government officials for their loss in the war and the miscommunication and lies that were spread to the general public. In this blog I’m going to be sharing images and consensuses from the public regarding their emotions at the time so that we can delve further into how the Japanese people felt during this time of social unrest.
Seen above is a painting that was made before my time traveling date by artist Ikeda Tatsuo. Tatsuo is one of many artists that used art as a form of expression during these times. In this piece, Tatsuo depicts the relationship between Japanese women and the American military soldiers that would oftentimes be seen in the areas of Japan with large foreign military presence. An MIT article worded this in a spectacular way, “Ikeda’s depiction of the young woman in the GI’s casual embrace captures her ambivalence, torn between abject gratitude and debilitating humiliation.” Many of these women either relied on these men due to social status and money or fell prey to these men for the very same reasons. Looking back at art pieces like these that were made during the time are a great way to gain insight into what society was really feeling while all of these things were happening.
Above are on of the more tame images captured the day of the “June 15th incident”. On June 15th, 1960, hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, and others alike upset with the Japanese government stormed the National Diet in Tokyo. During this chaotic protest, there were many clashes with ultranationalist’s and police forces including violent uses of weapons and water cannons by both the ultranationalist’s and the police forces. Although this day is a very well known historical moment, being present for this event bought a lot of dismay to my heart. During this pinnacle event of the ANPO movement, it felt as if that all the unrest that Japan’s youth were feeling unleashed at this very moment. As a result of all the violent clashes between these forces, a total of 80 people were left injured, and A young student named Michiko Kanba unfortunately lost her life.
Above is a painting by artist of the time Nakamura Hiroshi, titled “Sunagawa #5”. This painting depicts a confrontation that happened in 1955 at a military base in Sunagawa. Being able to talk to the artists behind these pieces has been a very eye opening experience for me. Nakamura Hiroshi had this to say about art during the ANPO protests era, “In the early 1950s, socialist realism was spreading throughout the world as an art movement and many art students were influenced by it. The Alliance’s basic premise was that our paintings had to be readily understood by anyone who saw them. We were encouraged to persuade the viewer.” As mentioned before, the ANPO protests gave rise to many different artists, being painters, photographers, and so on, using art as an outlet for the Japanese people. Many interesting art pieces and photographs have come out of this time depicting the state of unrest that was common among the Japanese people during the time. I am truly grateful for this opportunity to travel back in time and witness this pinnacle point of history for the Japanese people.