As embarrassing as it is, I had never heard of the 1999 Seattle protest before this class. Although I don't want to turn this post into one of those sentimental ones, it was heart-breaking, absolutely heart-breaking to watch the police, who by the way are there to protect the people, actually spray chemicals directly towards the people and even shoot some of them with rubber-riffles or whatever the narrator was saying.
Anyways, the one thing that was bugging me the whole time was the fact that there was no demo in Tokyo to support Seattle at the time. For a split second, I thought "oh, that's because the Japanese are afraid of raising their own voices." However, I quickly realized that that was 100% wrong and would be a complete disgrace to the Japanese by saying so. The recent demonstrations in Oi were not as publicized as they should have been but were veryvery identical to the demos in Seattle.
Look at these pictures,
https://twitter.com/zekkoucho/status/218720713245339650/photo/1
http://ceron.jp/url/news020.blog13.fc2.com/blog-entry-2513.html
These were all protests conducted all over Japan to appeal to the government, not to restart their nuclear plants in Oi. As you can see in the last picture, little ones were even brought to the scene, just to prove to Japan and the whole world, what democracy really is. However, those hopes were shot down when the policemen decided to get violent with the people.
This is a video showing the policemen forcing those with cameras to exit the scene. By the way, from what I know, policemen have absolutely no right to do so and is completely against the law.
In some other videos, you can actually see the policemen kicking some of the peaceful protestors.
Although protests around the prime minister's residence in Tokyo(first pic) was put on the news, barely any news about the protest in Oi (second and third pic) was reported. However, as you can see in the video and pictures, these are Japanese people fighting for the future of Japan. However, we the people of Japan barely even heard of them or what they did.
I just wonder what the policemen have in mind. Surely they became officers out of good intentions, but some how, they find themselves hurting the people and invading their rights.
Now how did that happen?
Protests occur all around the world every single day; whether it's small or big. It is like the 'living-proof' of the democracy in that country. However, what cannot happen is for us to ignore those people. Simply watching the news and accepting what has only been reported is the same thing as ignoring them. We need to hear them out because together, we make up the people. Even though the policemen are restricted by the law, we are not because we make the law. Well, at least that's how it's supposed to be.
All in all, today's lesson was thoroughly thought provoking and motivated me to actually defend my rights and my opinions as a human being.
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