Pickup trucks with posters and placards opposing the security bills are lined up in Ikeda, Nagano Prefecture, as farmers held a protest rally on Saturday, Sept. 5.
Hiroko Obara
Many farmers have been protesting against the security bills which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration aims for approval at the current Diet session. Farmers on pickup trucks rallied in Nagano Prefecture, while a farmer of Aichi Prefecture collected signatures opposing the bills. They are increasingly worried as the bills are expected to be passed in the Diet next week.
On Saturday, Sept. 5, farmers driving 33 pickup trucks paraded down the streets in the town of Ikeda, Nagano, with placards holding slogans like “Stop the war bills”. “Pickup trucks are the most appropriate vehicle for farmers to rally. We wanted to hold a demonstration which can only be held in rural villages,” said Takashi Takayama, a 73-year-old farmer who planned the rally.
Takayama, whose father died in the war, said he has a particularly strong feeling against war. “The government has not provided any convincing explanations on the security bills nor the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks,” he said. “I sense danger over the current state of this nation.”
Voices of opposition are rising also within the supporters of the ruling bloc. Tatsushi Amano, a 51-year-old farmer of Anjo, Aichi, and a member of Komeito, visited the party’s headquarters on Wednesday, Sept. 9, to submit 9,143 signatures opposing the security bills. “Many people, regardless of which party they support, agreed to sign,” Amano said. “The more I listen to the government’s responses to the questions made in the Diet, the more difficult it becomes for me to understand the significance of the bills. It is wrong to put the bills to the vote now when such a large number of people are against them.”
Hiroko Ogasawara, a farmer of the town of Tohoku, Aomori Prefecture, expressed anger over the eagerness of the government and the ruling parties to make the bills passed in the Diet. Ogasawara, whose farm is located near the Air Self-Defense Force’s Misawa Air Base, says she is always troubled by aircraft noise. “All women farmers in my neighborhood are opposing the bills, because they are threatened by the underlining thought that the bills could lead to war,” Ogasawara said. At the same time, she said she refrains from saying it out loud, as there are people with different opinions within the community.
“It is hard to say whether I’m for or against (the bills), because every issue has both good and bad aspects,” says Isao Oogushi, a 37-year-old farmer of Kohoku, Saga Prefecture. He calls on the government not to push through the bills by sheer force of numbers, but thoroughly explain them to the public.
Protests against the security bills are spreading nationwide, with students’ associations such as the SEALDs holding demonstrations engaging tens of thousands of people.
“Although the security bills are an important issue for the Japanese people, the government seems to have skipped the process of careful explanation,” said Prof. Naoto Nonaka of Gakushuin University Graduate School of Political Studies. “The Abe administration should care more about proceeding with its policies after getting approval of the people.”
(Sept. 10, 2015)