On April 10th, 2011, I participated in the Anti-Nuclear Power Plant demonstration in Koenji, Tokyo with my friends and colleagues at APLA.
In the park, where the demonstration was planned to begin, the number of people joining us kept growing and growing. With such a huge crowd of people, it was impossible to see the organizers speech and enjoy the live music performances by various artists. Despite the crowd, I was amazed to see all the colorful costumes and placards people prepared for this marching. Many of the participants seemed to be in their twenties and thirties, which is around my generation. However, there were also many families with young children and lots of foreign people as well.
We were unable to start marching at the scheduled time; 15:00. In fact, it took us more than forty minutes to start marching from the park (according to the organizers, the last group of people started marching two hours later compared to the head group). We were surrounded by rappers and street musicians who rhythmically repeated “No more Nuclear!”using their voices and percussions. The atmosphere surrounding us was full of lively and cheerful energy.
According to the organizers, the total number of people who marched in the demonstration was estimated to be about 15,000 people. This was a number far exceeding the expectation of any of us. (We were not aware of this number while we were marching. During our walk, it was very difficult to even predict what is happening around us!)
On the same day, there were many demonstration marches happening in various places in Japan, such as Sapporo, Kamakura, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Toyama, etc., These demonstrations were also uploaded on the internet if you are interested. No matter what age, gender, religion, occupation, and belief you have, April 10th made me realize the importance of raising our voices loud and clear. “No more Nuclear Power Plants!”
* You can find more movies and photos here; http://410nonuke.tumblr.com/