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.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • iridaniotter [she/her]
    ·
    3 months ago

    Here I compiled some of the funniest parts

    excerpts (warning: kill-all-menism, bioessentialism)

    Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.

    stfu-terf Hardest opening to a manifesto that I've ever read, and I've read like five

    [The male will] screw a woman he despises [...] Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies.

    black-mold-futures

    Women, in other words, don't have penis envy; men have pussy envy.

    centrist Menzoberranzan Freud be like

    Every man, deep down, knows he's a worthless piece of shit.

    antelope-popcorn Go off queen

    There is no human reason for money or for anyone to work more than two or three hours a week at the very most [...] But there are non-human, male reasons for maintaining the money-work system: 1. Pussy

    Marx never considered this marx-hi

    The male has a negative Midas touch - everything he touches turns to shit.

    chefs-kiss

    Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units.

    Solanas predicted margaret-thatcher

    A true community consists of individuals

    Solanas is Thatcher?! kril-wtf

    No genuine social revolution can be accomplished by the male, as the male on top wants the status quo, and all the male on the bottom wants is to be the male on top.

    "The USSR collapsed because of authoritarianism," "Americans will never revolt because of settler-colonialism," WRONG! There will never be Actual Existing Communism unless we overthrow the male sex. power-genius

    SCUM .... these females are cool and relatively cerebral and skirting asexuality [...] they've seen the whole show - every bit of it - the fucking scene, the sucking scene, the dyke scene - they've covered the whole waterfront, been under every dock and pier - the peter pier, the pussy pier ... you've got to go through a lot of sex to get to anti-sex

    volcel-judge the first volcel vanguardists were SCUM

    All diseases are curable, and the aging process and death are due to disease; it is possible, therefore, never to age and to live forever.

    Branding Solanas as a TERF is a psyop by deathists to prevent leftists from reading truly liberating anti-death theory phoenix-evidence (jk)

    The male likes death - it excites him sexually and, already dead inside, he wants to die.

    RIP Solanas; you would have loved the male loneliness epidemic k-pain

    The male is, by his very nature, a leech, an emotional parasite and, therefore, not ethically entitled to live, as no one has the right to live at someone else's expense. Just as humans have a prior right to existence over dogs by virtue of being more highly evolved and having a superior consciousness, so women have a prior right to existence over men. The elimination of any male is, therefore, a righteous and good act, an act highly beneficial to women as well as an act of mercy.

    It's over vegan radfems ooooooooooooooh

    However, this moral issue will eventually be rendered academic by the fact that the male is gradually eliminating himself.

    RIP Solanas; you would have loved microplastics microplastics-cool

    If men were wise they would seek to become really female

    Consider me very wise then sicko-fem

    intensive biological research that would lead to men, by means of operations on the brain and nervous system, being able to be transformed in psyche, as well as body, into women.

    that's not how sex works cringe

    if a large majority of women were SCUM, they could acquire complete control of this country within a few weeks simply by withdrawing from the labor force

    Why does the Proletariat not simply go on an indefinite general strike? picard

    SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM [...] every male present will give a speech beginning with the sentence: "I am a turd, a lowly, abject turd," then proceed to list all the ways in which he is.

    waow-based

    It will be electronically possible for him to tune in to any specific female he wants to and follow in detail her every movement The females will kindly, obligingly consent to this, as it won't hurt them in the slightest and it is a marvelously kind and humane way to treat their unfortunate handicapped fellow beings.

    pooh-wtf

    • SpiderFarmer [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      Damn, this lady would love the Drow in DnD if a bunch of dudes didn't write them up.

      • iridaniotter [she/her]
        ·
        3 months ago

        If we're gonna have a female patriarchy let it at least be written by Solanas lol