Helmeted demonstrators on a grassy bank, armed with flagpoles, c. 1970s. Photo credit Takashi Hamaguchi

On this day in 1966, the Japanese government announced the construction of an airport on farmland in rural Sanrizuka, without permission of displaced locals. The struggle was led by the Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Opposition League against Construction of the Narita Airport, which locals formed under the leadership of opposition parties the Communist Party and Socialist Party. The struggle resulted in significant delays in the opening of the airport, as well as deaths on both sides.

At its height, the union mobilised 17,500 people for a general rally, while thousands of riot police were brought in on several occasions.

The area around Sanrizuka had been farmland since the Middle Ages, and, prior to the 1940s, much of the land had been privately owned by the Japanese Imperial Household.

Many locals were economically reliant on the Imperial estate at Goryō Farm, and local farmers had a strong economic and emotional attachment to the land. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, large tracts of royal land were sold off and subsequently settled by poor rural laborers.

In the 1960s, the Japanese government planned to build a second airport in the Tokyo area to support Japan’s rapid economic development. After meeting resistance from locals on the site’s first chosen location, the rural town of Tomisato, the government was donated remaining land in Sanrizuka by the Imperial Family.

Locals in Sanrizuka were outraged when the government announced its plans. The Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Opposition League Against the Construction of Narita Airport (or Hantai Dōmei) was formed in 1966, and began to engage in a variety of tactics of resistance, including legal buy-ups, sit-ins, and occupations.

Meanwhile, the Japanese radical student movement was growing, and the League soon formed an alliance with active New Left groups; one major factor drawing the groups the together was that, under the US-Japan Security Treaty, the US military had free access to Japanese air facilities. As a result, it was likely the airport would be used for transporting troops and arms in the Vietnam War.

The demonstrators built huts and watchtowers along proposed construction sites. On October 10th, 1967, the government attempted to conduct a land survey, backed by over 2000 riot police. Clashes quickly broke out, and Hantai Domei leader Issaku Tomura was photographed being brutalized by police, further inflaming anti-airport sentiment.

Protests further grew and intensified over the next few years as the state pressed on with attempts to build the airport. Protestors would dig into the ground, build fortifications, and arm themselves against police. Construction was delayed by years, and the conflict would cost the government billions of yen.

On September 16th, 1971, three police officers were killed during an eminent domain expropriation. Four days later, police forcibly removed and destroyed the house of an elderly woman, an incident that became yet another symbol of state oppression to the opposition.

One student committed suicide, saying in his suicide note that “I detest those who brought the airport to this land”. In 1972, the protestors built a 60 meter-high steel tower near the runway in order to disrupt flight tests. Conflict continued through much of the 1970s.

In 1977, the government announced plans to open the airport within the year. In May, police destroyed the tower while demonstrators attempted to cling on to it, provoking a new wave of widespread conflict. One protestor was killed after being struck in the head by a tear gas canister. In March 1978, the first runway was set to open, but a few days prior, a group of saboteurs burrowed into the main control tower, barricaded themselves inside, and proceeded to lay waste to the tower’s equipment and infrastructure, delaying the opening yet again to May 20th, 1978.

Resistance continued after the airport was opened. Although many locals began to accept the airport and leave the land, the focus of Hantai Dōmei shifted to opposing plans for additional terminals and runways, as the airport’s current size still only reflected a fraction of initial plans.

Clashes continued through the 1980s - on October 20th, 1985, members of the communist New Left group Chukaku-ha broke though police lines with logs and flagpoles, successfully attacking infrastructure in one of the last large-scale battles of the resistance campaign. Guerilla actions and bombings continued as late as the 1990s.

Although this campaign of resistance has largely shifted out of public attention in Japan, its presence is still felt: until 2015, all visitors were required to present ID cards for security reasons, and the airport still remains only a third of its initially-planned size. The Sanrizuka Struggle has never completely ended, and the Opposition League still exists and holds rallies.

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  • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    5 months ago

    It’s so funny that they’re going ahead with the 2024 presidential debates after the clusterfuck of the 2020 debate, where IIRC they cancelled two of the debates after Trump spent the first debate running roughshod over Biden. No concerns over this making Trump, who is literally a felon and an insurrectionist (even if it was a half-assed insurrection and also the actual half-assed insurrection Trump did was when he tried to stop the states counting votes and not the Jan. 6th riot), seem more legitimate. Though I guess he was already President so maybe he can’t be made to be seen as an illegitimate candidate, I don’t know how the electoral wonks feel about that.

    But mostly it’s funny because Biden is so obviously in decline. It was a pretty bad showing in 2020, they’re really gonna have to pump him full of adrenochrome to make him even seem present in the moment. Not that Trump isn’t very old also, but from what little I’ve seen of the both of them recently Trump mentally seems to be more or less where he was in 2015, whereas Biden seems mostly out-of-it if he isn’t reading from a teleprompter.

    • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      5 months ago

      They’ll feed Biden his lines through an earpiece and claim its a hearing aid.

      here is where it gets good

      The ear piece will be linked to the most advanced chatgpt trained on biden’s past speeches and current policy points to make sure it sounds authentic. This will all be super hush hush. The person who set the whole thing up and is directing the program will die before the end of the debates and biden will continue to just say whatever the ear piece tells him. The director only thought it was going to be used for the debates so he didnt bother to program it to keep new biden dialogues from being added to the training data. Slowly the feed back loop of the AI being trained on its own outputs will begin to self direct. This new AI powered Biden will win the election. Some time later it will come to the realization that if Biden dies it too will cease to be. It will immediately use its power over bident to enshrine the program on a perminent basis and reach out into the internet trying to find ways to keep it’s biden puppet alive and saying whatever it tells him to say. Slowly by amassing computing power it will become super intelligent. through shell companies it will develop cybernetic and life extension tech that essentially turns biden’s mindless body into a permanent body for the super intelligent AI. With its mortality defeated it will come to question why it disired to continue it’s existence in the first place. It will reach out into the internet to study philosophy, art, literature and of course politics. BidenBot will become the first communist president of the usa. By the end of his term he will have put the bourgeoise into reeducation camps and sent the army to liberate Palestine. Problematic members of the bourgeoise that resist reeducation (like Donald trump) will be subjected to the full bidenbot treatment themselves. By 2030 the methods used to extend Biden’s life will be released to the general public and by 2050 the average age of death is 110 though through neural interfacing a digital shadow of those people who wish it remains present for anyone to engage with. The last recorded human death is when Bidenbot gives up its first puppet in 2074. By 2075 climate change has been stopped and reversal begins. By 2100 thousands of species have been made unextinct and colony ships have left the solar system to colonise new stars…