Source: Global Voices — Politics · By Jo Carter
Republished with attribution from Global Voices — Politics. Text reformatted for readability; original reporting belongs to the credited author.
Young activists are reshaping protest into something accessible, individual, and nonhierarchical
Tattsu’s “Hibiya Kōen Lunch Protest.“ Every Monday and Friday, he spreads out placards about government policies, fro m health care to peace issues, on a blue tarp in Hibiya Park during lunch hours, inviting people to sit and discuss with him over lunch. Photo taken by Jo Carter. Used with permission.
This post is part of Global Voices’ September 2026 Spotlight series, “ Protest in Democracy .” With this Spotlight, we seek to explore the many forms of protest, the tactics states use to delegitimize and suppress them, and the complex relationship between protest and democracy. You can support this coverage by donating here .
August 15, 2026, marks the 81st anniversary of the end of World War II — a date when Allied nations celebrated victory over the Axis powers, including Japan. The date triggers a complex collective emotion in Japan: For some Japanese, it is a moment for deep reflection over the country’s history of wartime violence . For others, the anniversary dredges up feelings of remorse, pain, or humiliation, as the war and the atomic bomb that ended it, took hundreds of thousands of their countrymen’s lives.
This year, the anniversary landed amid Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s push, as part of her broader right-leaning agenda, to amend the country’s pacifist postwar constitution , stepping away from a strictly pacifist framework.
Meanwhile, Japanese peace activists commemorated the date with a variety of events and rallies. Attending several of these gatherings, Global Voices observed Japanese peace activism shifting from a more ideological, often confrontational and hierarchical approach among the older generation to a more individualized, accessible, pop-culture-centered approach among young people.
The first event was a leftist symposium, “ The 81st Year of the Post-War Era: A Dialogue to Halt the Collapse of Democracy,” organized by Civic Cultural Forum on August 15 at the Japan Education Center, a few miles away from Yasukuni Shrine — a controversial site which has been criticized by China, Korea, and even Japan’s own left-wingers for including more than 1,000 convicted WWII war criminals’ names in its “Book of Souls,” an honored list of people who have devoted their lives to Japanese society.
Three professors from The University of Tokyo opened the discussion with their critical perspectives on the current civil society crisis in Japan.
Among them, Professor Tetsuya Takahashi, who is a known critic of Japanese nationalism, pointed out that the Japan-U.S. security treaty signed in 1951, which grants the U.S. military forces access to its land, air, and sea for mutual defence purposes, had led to the “colonization” of Okinawa , as much of the island was handed over to the U.S. military, while Indigenous people there were stripped of their lands and rights.
Takahashi criticized the mainland liberal left for failing Okinawans, as they did not challenge the structural discrimination against minority citizens.
The 81st Year of the Post-War Era: A Dialogue to Halt the Collapse of Democracy. Photo taken by Jo Carter. Used with permission.
The 156-seat venue was packed, with some standing through the whole three and a half hour gathering. The vast majority of attendees were well-educated retirees in their 60s and older, comfortable with academic discussions on complex issues such as geopolitics and post-war political theory.
Some participants expressed concern about the very few young faces in the room. Sociologist Yuki Honda explained this by noting that the younger generation was overwhelmed by despair of an unjust society:
Despair is driving young people to authoritarianism. These days, they are desperate to survive and often end up trying to suck up to the powerful and punch down on the vulnerable.
On the same day, numerous protests took place near Yasukuni Shrine, including one from conservative groups advocating for “reverence for the heroic spirits of the war dead,” and another by anti-war left-wing groups calling for “the pledge of non-war and peace.”
An Okinawan activist, Takamatsu Gushiken, known as the “ bone hunter ,” because he has spent nearly 40 years searching caves in southern Okinawa for the remains of soldiers from the Battle of Okinawa, held a symbolic hunger strike to protest the government’s plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a new location in Henoko, which would require mass land reclamation using sand from southern Okinawa. Many remains have yet to be excavated from Southern Okinawa, and Gushiken argues that the project is disrespectful to the dead on both sides of the battle.
During the Battle of Okinawa (April 1–June 22, 1945), at least 149,425 Okinawan people were killed or forced into suicide upon defeat, with their remains yet to be recovered. Gushiken launched his first hunger strike in 2021, when the relocation plan was made public.
Takamatsu Gushiken. Photo taken by Jo Carter. Used with permission.
On the eve of the anniversary of the end of WWII on August 14, Gushiken expressed worries at the event “A Talk by Takamatsu Gushiken: No More Battle of Okinawa, No More War” about the Prime Minister’s remarks on Taiwan and its implications for Okinawa:
We are basically told to die if war breaks out. […] If a Taiwan contingency happens, the large population on Okinawa’s main island makes it impossible for us to evacuate outside the prefecture.
Highlighting U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s statement in March 2025, that “Japan would be on the front lines of any contingency we might face in the western Pacific,” he appealed to the young generation to see the war in terms of human lives rather than geopolitical interests.
On August 15, as Gushiken approached the Yasukuni Shrine , a right-winger blocked his way and shoved him and his team down to the small corner of the slope.
In the afternoon, another confrontation took place as 50 activists from Hantenren (the Anti-Emperor Association) held their annual protest near the Shrine ; a group of right-wing protesters attacked them while shouting discriminatory slurs such as “Korean, go back to your country!” and “you old hag.” Eventually, police officers had to move in to separate the two groups.
Japanese police officers stepped in as right-wing protesters approached anti-war activists. Photo taken by Jo Carter. Used with permission.
Young people forging their own path to peace
Many young Japanese find academic talks and street conflicts unappealing and far removed from conventional activism. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about politics and peace issues.
For images and additional context, see the original article.
Original publication: 2026-09-25
Text license: CC BY 3.0. Credit, source link and license supplied. Text formatting may have been adapted. No source photographs reproduced.
Automatically compiled source-linked news digest.