This social media troll’s antics reminded me to some extent of Monju-kun.

Let’s Join TEPCO!, sung by Barakan, is based on Takada Wataru’s 1969 anti-war song Let’s Join the Self-Defense Force, but that one was based on Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger’s song Andorra.

The song starts out with Barakan inviting the audience to join TEPCO, just like the anti-war song invites everyone to join the Self-Defense Force. But at the same time, it sounds like an invitation to a paradise vacation. The image shown during the first line “Everyone in the audience, does anyone want to work for TEPCO?” is that of Las Vegas in the 1960s as a place where people went to watch nuclear testing. This sets the tone for the song as a mockery of all the promises of TEPCO about how nuclear energy is the solution to all of our problems. Throughout the movie there are pictures of soldiers looking at a nuclear mushroom cloud. I believe that the song is trying to connect nuclear energy and disaster to war with these images, because it contrasts these images with the image of the stamp that says “Atoms for Peace”. The stamp is shown twice in the song and it accompanies the lyrics “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”, which sounds like a call to war. This is just one example of how contradictions are used as irony and a wake-up call in the song.

Another example of this type of contradiction can be seen when Barakan sings “We’ve got everything you want!”. During that line an image of a Chernobyl liquidator crew is shown and reminds us of what terrible gruesome deaths many of these poor men awaited. I think the line has a dual meaning: On one hand it is reminding us of a commercial line for a luxury vacation spot, but on the other hand it is implying that when working at TEPCO you will get what you don’t want: Disease caused by Plutonium and Uranium radiation. These two are listed in the line before.

The song has a lot of religious references as a mockery of the propaganda acting like silly religious promises that TEPCO cannot deliver. One example is the refrain line: “All the real men are coming to die for TEPCO like flowers that bloom and fall to earth”. It could be referencing the Bible in which Jesus promised that God will take care of you even more so than of the flowers of the field that bloom one day are gone the next day (Matthew 6: 28-30). Another religious reference is the refrain line “It’s like heaven on earth”. This could be referencing the Bible as well. In the “Our Father in Heaven” Prayer, the most known Christian prayer, the plead to God is to let his kingdom and will come “as it is in heaven on earth”. The song is mocking TEPCO leaders acting like gods that promise heaven on earth with the nuclear energy, but they cannot perform miracles and they are not almighty which are qualities you need in order to make nuclear energy a “heavenly gift”. You would need to be able to make the waste disappear and also the radiation after an accident. You would also be able to be in complete control of the nuclear reaction which is definitely something humans are not. The line that follows immediately says: “All those who support nuclear power, please assemble under the reactor.” The song here is mocking supporters of nuclear power as worshippers of it. The lines are accompanied by an image of the Chernobyl memorial of the liquidators in front of the sarcophagus and an image of the inside of the reactor cells. Both images are referring to idolizing something. The image of the inside of the reactor cells is kind of eerie and other-worldly in the way they glow in this mysterious blue light. When the song invites to “assemble”, which is a word that is used very commonly for religious gatherings, the audience imagines a religious service with people worshipping the inside of the reactor.

Barakan mocks the lies of TEPCO in another part of the song as well. When the line “Plutonium is not really so scary” is being sung, an anime character is shown wearing a green helmet and drinking a green drink (see image). This character is from a propaganda video for children and the song is mocking it. According to Matthew Penney, “the 1993 video Our Reliable Friend Pluto was produced by the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation, a group associated with the Japanese government. In it, a cute cartoon stand-in for radioactive element plutonium tells children that not a single case of cancer can be traced to him and that he is even safe to drink!” The expression “Plutonium is not really so scary” is child talk. You talk to children like this when you want to comfort them and say something like “See, now that wasn’t so scary, was it?”. I believe it references to how the government and the nuclear industry treat the citizens: They are little stupid kids that can easily be convinced that there is nothing ‘scary’ about nuclear energy. You can see this propaganda video with English subtitles on http://www.evilyoshida.com/thread-11110.html.

There are many more examples of the contradictions and mockery in the song, but I was only able to point out a few. The melody chosen originates from another mockery song that makes fun of the ridiculous defense budget of Andorra. Pete Seeger sings that he wants to go to Andorra, because it is such an amazing place. And then he makes fun of everything that is wrong with Andorra. This theme is picked up by Barakan, setting a light-hearted melody to a mockery. I believe that music like this is needed very much to express the irony and mockery that many citizens feel in Japan and around the world.

Works cited

Penney, Matthew. “Songs for Fukushima.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (1970). May 2019. <https://apjjf.org/site/view/4672>.

We are living in a time, where it often feels as if we are being presented with recycled culture, often in forms of re-makes or remixes. Younger generations are often unaware of the re-make/remix status of various media that they consume and even if they are aware of some factors, they are almost never aware of the entire story. Jay Z and Mr. Hudson’s Young Forever (2009) is a splendid example of this. Few who were not old enough to remember Alphaville’s Forever Young (1984) could have ever imagined that Young Forever took the chorus and ‘hook’ from an 80’s group. Even fewer could imagine that Alphaville is actually a German group whose lyrics “evoked images of nuclear destruction defiantly singing, ‘Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while/Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies/Hoping for the best but expecting the worst/Are you gonna drop the bomb or not’” (Klimke and Stapane [my printed version doesn’t have page numbers]), but this is indeed the truth as outlined in Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s. Although keeping the exact same chorus and song text, that Klimke and Stapane indicated as ‘evoking images of nuclear destruction, Jay Z and Mr. Hudson’s version loses what the Alphaville version aimed to accomplish.

Clearly 2009 was drastically different than 1984. This is especially true when considering the lack of East-West Cold War tension and the threat of the ‘bomb.’ With that being said, however, some of the goals that activists, including musicians, set out to achieve during the 80s are still left largely unfinished and in some instances in much worse conditions than they were in the past. One aspect that is certainly left unfinished and that many would say is in a worse position now than it was then is the environment.  Jay Z and Mr. Hudson could have used their sampling to further a similar ‘anti-nuclear’ message to contemporary listeners, but decided to send their track in an entirely different direction from Alphaville’s and send a ‘live in the moment’ or ‘yolo’ type message with their track. At first glace, a Jay Z track about any kind of nuclear agenda seems unlikely. However, it is not all that uncommon to see rappers go outside of their ‘traditional’ zones. For example, Lil Dicky, who is known for rapping about lighter themes, like saving money, recently released Earth (2019) as a clear move to raise awareness about human impact on earth.

Even though Jay Z could have taken a more active stance in Young Forever, his and Mr. Hudson’s sampling represents something that is lacking in Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s (or at least chapter five). This lacking refers to misinterpretations of music. Klimke and Stapane point out some strong arguments for how a variety of artists used their music to promote political messages. Young Forever takes the heart of Forever Young, quoting the exact same text that Klimke and Stapane highlight as critical to their evoking of images of nuclear destruction and gives the text an entirely different meaning just 25 years after its original publication. This is only one example of a text gaining a different meaning other than its intention. There are many musical texts that come to mind, like the Beastie Boys Fight for your Right (1986) and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA (1984), both of which were received in different, almost opposite ways, than originally intended. Fight for your Right was intended to mock partying, but to this day remains a party anthem, while Born in the USA was meant to be a critique of the US/living situation of the main character, but quickly became seen as one of the ultimate American songs. Although the songs mentioned by Klimke and Stapane certainly sent the messages that they mentioned and were received by the audience, there is also the chance that the message could be altered as in the case of Young Forever or not received by the general public as in the case of Fight for your Right and Born to Run.

Works Cited:

Klimke, Martin and Laura Stapane. “From Artists from Peace to the Green Caterpillar”. Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fears, and the Cold War of the 1980s, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Manabe Noriko’s The Revolution Will Not be Televised examines the initial and continuing pro-nuclear messaging in the aftermaths of the 3/11 Tōhoku Triple Disaster from the government, TEPCO, and broader media. Strict control of the radio, television, and news outlets along with increasingly strict laws mean those speaking against TEPCO, the government, or critiquing nuclear power grapple with personal, social, and financial risk. Such restrictive pressures as well as cultural expectations of social ease pushed anti-nuclear organizing, cultural production, and information sharing out of shared physical space and into online platforms. Manabe shows how the movement between physical and digital space is always in flux – an artist may share an anti-nuclear song/performance on YouTube, which may be played by individuals in public space (collectively like the Frying Dutchman’s Human Error parade or individually), cycling back to online discussions and then to public performances. Space and power are both physical and digital, embedded with architectures and resisted in place and online.

Manabe thinks with Henri Lefebvre’s concept of a spatial triad, a frame for how spaces, particularly urban spaces, are shaped over time by the interlocking dependencies of 1) quotidian daily practices of people in the space, 2) the idealized images of how the space could and should work, and 3) the representation of the space such as planning models, policies, and advertisements. Lefebvre understands space as a product shaped by the interests of the powerful. The interests and practices of the powerful are then mediated to the masses through consumption of media, through sponsored public performances and events, radio, festivals. Yet, physical spaces are not simply ideals and representations of power relationships, but are reshaped and remade by the daily routines, activities, and claiming of place by the people who reside within it. One can simply look at the paved sidewalks and the unpaved but well trod foot-paths to see this shaping and reshaping; the planned and the lived experience.

Similarly, while reading and listening to the artists Manabe highlights as engaged in this process of negotiation of who owns the space, who gets to speak in this space, who can transgress demarcations of ‘private’ and ‘public’ spaces, I remembered the 2014 Bustle article Vancouver’s RainCity Housing innovative Bench Shelters  and London’s anti-homeless spikes. Both architectures readily expand to the ideals and desires of those influencing public space, to the representations of city life in such space, and the use of the space. London’s (and Washington D.C.’s) spikes discourage leaning against buildings, sitting under windows, seeking shelter; whereas the RainCity bench-shelters unfold to offer light protection from the elements and an address and phone number for housing assistance. Manabe, discussing risks for anti-nuclear musicians,  highlights similar management of physical urban space by the Japanese government – such as limiting demonstrations to a single lane, wide-parameters of ‘interference of public employee’ (bumping into someone) for arrest and detention, mid-performance arrests, barricades, and limited to no mainstream media attention (24). Lefebvre underscores while there are top-down visions and representations of a space , these visions are locked into histories and realities of the physical and experimental uses of the space, the lived-in space.

David Harvey expands these interlocked negotiations of space into realms beyond the physical space, including mental and emotional space layered within and alongside the physical. Representations of space have substantial role and influence in the production of space – meaning, as Harvey extends Lefebvre – that spaces ‘intervene’ through construction, through architecture (London’s anti-homeless architecture vs RainCity’s shelter project). These representational contexts and textures do not vanish in the symbolic or imaginary realms, rather are guidelines for how ‘thought’ becomes ‘action’ in that space. Manabe shows how the affordances of the internet – with the myriad networking, information sharing, and musical production platforms – offered Japanese musicians and citizens an alternative place to identify and analyze the visioning and representational architectures offered by the Japanese government. The ability to asynchronously and anonymously gather and share information and experiences fosters a community networked together online, which occasionally emerges collectively and co-located in physical space in the form of anti-nuclear festivals and demonstrations.

Manabe details Lefebvre’s spatial triad is present within digital spaces – lived inequalities in physical space can translate to unequal access, either in limited data plans, access to mobile phones or computers, and quality of internet connections. The physical architectures of digital access shape how users can find and connect with online communities; social norms and expectations of behavior align to the representations of space. Manabe notes that a significant percentage of Japanese Twitter users do not share their real names or personal identification – more direct and frank critique and conversation happen on Twitter than Facebook, which required a real name and seeks to digitally connect users to their in-person networks. Manabe is careful to underscore that power relationships are not completely re-made online; anonymous online identities are not fully anonymous – careful measures are taken by artists and activists to distance themselves from online persona in real-life to protect family, jobs, and social and financial standings. She highlights the ‘visioning space’ online can be co-opted and formed by activists within the digital space, but online spaces are not completely free of the top-down visioning that often occurs in urban spaces by elites and governments. Lefebvre’s spatial triad with the attending contest and representations, the marking and re-marking of who speaks, for what causes, and when are in ongoing negotiation. Manabe shows the spaces that shape organizing and critique has fundamentally changed from physical co-located place to distributed digital space, however the power relations embedded within place and place-making have not.

In Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly Judith Butler very slyly draws on speech act theory to suggest that “the political meanings enacted by demonstrations are not only those that are enacted by discourse, whether written or vocalized. Embodied actions of various kinds signify in ways that are, strictly speaking, neither discursive nor prediscursive.” To say that demonstrations have a performative character is eminently sensible, it’s patently obvious that they are meant to be noticed. Yet Butler’s deployment of the word “performative” is a little different than the standard usage and this difference is worth thinking about. J. L. Austin’s original formation of the performative in language in How to Do Things with Words begins by theorizing kinds of utterances which are not evaluable as true or false and for which the saying is part of doing a particular action. The classic example is a priest declaring, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the statement of which makes it so. By the end of the book Austin extends this analysis to declare that in fact all utterances have a performative character, that is, that they perform an action apart from (though often not unaligned with) their semantic value. When Butler suggests, then, that bodies coming together are performative, she asks us to consider the significance of this political act beyond the dimensions of what is being explicitly protested. This is question is particularly significant when dealing with protest methodologies like Japan’s ‘sound demonstrations,’ which lack explicit discursive meanings. What assembly performs for Butler, is, I would say, still in question. (As her title suggests, these are, after all, notes.) But she offers us a number of tantalizing thoughts as she asks to question the received primacy of political speech.

The neo-liberal moment ‘answers’ the problem of precarity with the discourse of personal responsibility. As Butler notes, this is deeply isolating. Such “responsibilization” transforms a condition of life that is the result of structural political and economic problems into unshared personal moral failings. Within the context of the precarious life, one of the things which embodied assembly performs is aa affirmation against this isolation. As Butler writes: “Over and against an increasingly individualized sense of anxiety and failure, public assembly embodies the insight that this is a social condition both shared and unjust, and that assembly enacts a provisional and plural form of coexistence that constitutes a distinct ethical and social alternative to ‘responsibilization’” (16). This is a significant gesture not only personally, but politically. Democratic forms of political legitimacy depend on the construction of ‘the people,’ which draws “a discursive border…somewhere, either traced along the lines of existing nation-states, racial or linguistic communities, or political affiliation” (5). This discursive border aligns in interesting ways with the tendency of neo-liberal capitalism toward designating “vulnerable populations,” “distribut[ing] vulnerability unequally” “for the purpose of shoring up certain regimes of power” (143). Butler demonstrates the violence of such a discursive move when she notes that “within the terms of booth military and economic policy, certain populations are effectively targeted as injurable (with impunity) or disposable” (143). It strikes me that responsibilization functions to justify the designation of the victims of precarity as vulnerable or even injurable, removing them from any connection to political legitimacy or action.

It is particularly fascinating in Butler’s analysis that vulnerability becomes a condition for and an object of assembly. Part of what occurs in assembly is a demand for access to infrastructure in and through which assembly takes place and from which vulnerable populations are excluded. More than this, assembly becomes a demand for space in which to live, the infrastructure that makes living (for Butler this signifies conditions beyond mere survival) possible. Butler argues “that part of what a body is…is its dependence on other bodies and networks of support…We cannot readily conceptualize the political meaning of the human body without understanding those relations in which it lives and thrives” (130). That very interrelatedness is a kind of vulnerability that is necessary to collective political action even as it becomes the goal of that action.

Anti-nuclear activism becomes an interesting test case for Butler’s work. The permeability of our bodies, our very interrelatedness with our environment, is the means through which radioactive contamination harms. Radiation itself seems to blow up the concept of vulnerability to extreme proportions—highly energized particles pass through and damage indefensible bodies. There is a way in which the threat of nuclear contamination seems to demand collective action. In Butler’s words, “to say that any of us are vulnerable beings is to mark our radical dependency not only on others, but on a sustaining and sustainable world” (150). The specific dangers of contamination threaten that dependency in a way that begs to be leveraged into political action. And yet vulnerability is distributed unevenly. In the case of radioactive contamination this is biological but also political and social. The triple disaster of 3/11 exacerbated for many what was already a precarious life. Vulnerability is one metric that helps inform the phenomenon of the Haha Rangers movement as depicted in Little Voices from Fukushima. The reproductive and social vulnerability of the mothers involved in the protest movement both necessitates and makes possible a collective coming together. If vulnerability is unequally distributed it seems that responsibilization is as well; the absence of men in Little Voices from Fukushima may in part be explained by Alexander James Brown’s interpretation of the work of Robin LeBlanc: “the gendered imagery of the heroic self-sacrificing salaryman” in Japan, he notes, “restricts the debate ‘between the polarising dangers of nuclear power and economic decline’” (63).  Thus, precarity is contorted in neo-liberal discourse to re-insist on the value of nuclear power. The threat of social isolation inherent in the discourse of responsibility becomes the means through which a destructive severing of ties between man and his environment is perpetuated.