Kanikosen steams on; J-youth take a hard left turn

By Matthew Ward | Friday, Jul 3, 2009

Japanese booms are funny things: on one extreme, they sometimes seem to finish almost as quickly as they begin, and on the other extreme, they can become long-lasting or even permanent parts of the culture. In my last article on the proletarian literary classic Kanikosen (http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/1638/Kanikosen:++a+proletarian+literature+classic+comes+back+to+life), I wrote that the Shinchosa Publishing Corporation had raised their annual number of copies published from 2000 to 57,000. Now, a little more than a year later, the Shinchosa edition has sold around 600,000 copies, and that is not even counting various other editions of the book.

Obviously, this boom is turning out to be more than a flash in the pan. The word “Kanikosen” itself has become a kind of catchphrase to symbolize the growing economic disparities in modern Japan that have come with economic liberalization. A new movie based on the book is out on July 4th and looks likely to be a major summer hit: (www.kanikosen.jp).

For those who haven't heard of all of this yet, you're probably wondering what the heck “Kanikosen” is. My own translation of the word is “crab factory ship.” It's a literary classic written by left-wing writer Takiji Kobayashi in the late 1920's that describes the exploitation of crab-processing workers who eventually rise up against their employers. Although Kobayashi was killed by the Japanese Imperial Police in 1933, it seems that his voice is ringing more loudly and clearly than ever, 75 years after his death. Indeed, the current Kanikosen boom is also credited in part with a sharp rise in the left-wing youth activism and rising membership in the Japanese Communist Party.

To those unfamiliar with Japanese politics, that last part might sound alarming to those who associated communism with the Soviet Union, China under Mao, etc, etc., etc. But, the JCP, in its modern incarnation, is a very different animal. With the more mainstream Japanese left-wing parties having either faded or become almost indistinguishable from the conservative Liberal Democrats, the JCP has become more like the so-called “communist”parties in modern Western Europe. It's essentially a pro-working class, anti-militarist social democratic party that renounces revolution and focuses on issues like free subway passes for the elderly, keeping Japan's war-renouncing Constitutional Article # 9, and speaking for the plight of the growing army of largely youthful part-time workers.

It's the last part that has attracted Japan's youth to Kanikosen and to the JCP. Starting in the 1990's and intensifying under Koizumi-economics, Japanese companies started increasingly relying on temporary workers who lacked the job security and benefits that older generations had been taking for granted. One commonly-cited statistic is that the “working poor” (as defined workers making less than about 2 million yen per year) rose by 40% between the years of 2002 and 2006. With the current economic crises, we've seen the phenomenon of tent-cities set up by laid-off temp staffers, the first people to get laid off in hard times. In factor, another recent buzz-word in Japan has been Haken-Giri (派遣切り), which means layoffs of temporary workers. JCP chairman Kazuo Shii made a parliamentary speech about the plight of these people in 2008 that has since become a massive Youtube hit among young Japanese. Meanwhile, the JCP has been adding about 1000 members per month and making a comeback in the voting booth.

There are also a lot of amusing video clips floating around on Youtube of recent JCP rallies where chanting left-wingers drown out the sound trucks of right-wing counter protesters. Although the level of activism is still a far cry from the radicalism seen in Japan in the late 60's and early 70's, it does seem that the rightward drift seen in Japanese youth early in this decade has been utterly reversed, and the stereotype of the apathetic young Japanese looks to be a likely casualty as well.

Another casualty may also be right-wing, revisionist versions of history. Kanikosen, written when Imperial Japan was on the ascent, pulls absolutely no punches in describing the nationalist movement as a brutal and toxic menace to working Japanese people. The JCB, for its part, proudly promotes the fact it was the only Japanese political party that opposed Japan's involvement in WWII and the war with China, and advocates that Japan issue clear, unambiguous apologies for its role in that conflict.

I also wonder whether there might even be a third casualty here: with all of these interesting developments, could it be that the long reign of boring politics in Japan is coming to an end? Anyway, stay tuned to Kanikosen, because the unfortunate economic conditions strongly suggest that there is a lot of steam left in this particular boom.

Matthew Ward's Profile

Late 30's, have lived in Asia for a lot of my life.

Interests: Music, politics, linguistics, learning languages, culture, food, traveling.

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