For many in Japan, the postponement of the Olympic Games is a heartbreaking necessity, but for a small and motley crew opposed to the Games altogether, it does not go far enough.
“Damn it — we absolutely reject postponement. The Olympics should be canceled and abolished,” an umbrella group of anti-Games advocates wrote on Twitter after the historic delay to this year’s Olympics was announced.
Just minutes before Tuesday’s dramatic decision, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, a handful of protesters gathered in central Tokyo to hold one of their regular demonstrations against the Games.
“We’ve been doing a monthly rally for various reasons. One of the things that most annoys me is the commercialism of the event,” said 59-year-old Toshio Miyazaki, standing with protesters holding signs that read: “We are opposed to the Tokyo Olympics.”
Miyazaki works for the Tokyo City Government, a key partner in organizing this year’s Games, but he is vocal about his opposition to the event.
“The coronavirus situation is pushing them to postpone the Games, but I think Japanese should think twice about whether it is really necessary to host the Olympics,” he said.
The prospect of hosting the Olympics remains popular with most Japanese, with 4.5 million tickets already sold.
In domestic surveys, only about 10 percent of respondents think that the Games should be canceled, even with the global pandemic menacing the globe.
Those who protest do so for a variety of reasons.
Kumiko Sudo, who was among the protesters out on Tuesday, said she was uncomfortable with the nationalist undertones she feels are associated with the Games.
“Hosting the Olympics was proposed to boost a sense of nationalism” by then-Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishikawa, she said.
She was also angered by moves Tokyo made in the run-up to the Games, including clearing out makeshift camps occupied by homeless people.
Japan has billed the Tokyo Games as the “Recovery Olympics,” planning to showcase reconstruction in the northeastern parts of the country that were devastated by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster.
However, some in the battered region oppose the Games, saying that the money spent would have been better directed to people forced to evacuate.
“Tokyo landed the right to host the Games by calling it a ‘Reconstruction Olympics’... but that’s a phony discourse,” said Hiroki Ogasawara, a professor of sociology at Kobe University and coauthor of a book on opposition to the Tokyo Games. “Holding the Olympics will not by itself rebuild the disaster-hit area. It’s an attempt to pretend that these communities have been reconstructed with the holding of the Olympic Games.”
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