Campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks is spreading beyond the agricultural sector to include university professors, lawyers and other citizens. Citizens’ groups and the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives plan to hold a protest rally with some 2,000 participants in Tokyo on Saturday, May 25. People from various different groups are now voicing opposition to the TPP which they say will lead to the devastation of the country. In July, Japan is expected to join the TPP negotiations and the Upper House elections will be held. It is time for us to raise a cry of protest and go out on the streets to let the voices of farmers and citizens be heard in the political scene.
Citizens’ groups are flexible thinkers. They come up with unique ideas to get young people who are indifferent to the problems concerning the TPP talks become aware of the issue. They hold street meetings in railway station squares, inviting people to sit together at tea tables and discuss the TPP in a free and easy manner. Anyone is free to participate. People can come and go at any time, and they are welcome to bring snacks. The groups created signs indicating pros and cons of the TPP. Such footloose and fancy-free actions were widely accepted and inspired many similar events to be held across the nation.
During the Golden Week holidays in May, citizens’ groups held the TPP Walk, in which participants walked to give some thought to the TPP silently without using loud speakers or yelling slogans. They said just taking to streets in angry protests and crying out against the TPP is not enough to attract people who are not interested in the issue. Grassroots movements are spreading more than you can imagine.
The Japan Agricultural News did a series of six articles starting on Wednesday, May 1, titled “Anti-TPP Campaign Part 5: It is not just a matter of agriculture.” Previous series reported on voices of opposition by various people such as a singer, a taxi driver and a lawyer, and the latest series includes interviews with a family of a man who died from overwork, a small business owner, a bar owner, a dietitian and an international volunteer organization. The articles portray the harsh reality of excessive reliance on market mechanisms worsening the gap between the rich and the poor and making the weak the sole victims both at home and abroad.
The article on death from overwork focuses on the parents of a 27-year-old man who worked as a deemed manager of a video rental shop without being given any vacation and died from overwork. The aged couple decided to bring suit against the employer, and in the course of participating in study meetings concerning labor laws, they learned the problematic aspects of the TPP. “Workers are treated like old rags and are easily thrown out,” the man’s mother said. “If Japan joins the TPP scheme, labor laws and regulations will be further deregulated and more people will die from overwork.”
In Thailand, which announced its intention to join the TPP talks and is pushing on free trade, workers from its neighboring country Myanmar are forced into a serious situation. Burmese who entered Thailand illegally are abused as workers at rubber plantations and as prostitutes. Some Burmese women who worked as prostitutes were infected with the AIDS virus, with their children also becoming victims. Meanwhile, in the capital city of Bangkok, big enterprises – the main benefiters of free trade – are craving for profit.
If Japan participates in the TPP framework, the rich will undoubtedly get richer and the poor will get poorer. The TPP scheme poses a direct threat to our lives. Japanese people should not take this reality as someone else’s problem. Now is the time for us to spread the anti-TPP movement at home and abroad.
(May 25, 2013)