A study of the meanings and limits of SEALDs as a youth protest movement : from a global and local perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the meanings and limits of “SEALDs (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy‐s)”as a youth protest movement, appeared in the midst of public opposition and large demonstration against a set of security‐related bills that would allow the Japanese military to fight in foreign conflicts for the first time since World War II. BR Youth protest movements, represented by Occupy Wall Street, los indignados in Spain, Nuit Debout in France in Europe and the Sunflower revolution in Taiwan, the Umbrella revolution in Hong Kong in East Asia have been growing since 2010. Those global movements means young people are faced with difficulty of living in common. However, in the case of SEALDs, we should consider the local (Japanese context) as well as the global background. This results of this paper from local perspective are as follows.BR First, SEALDs were supported by many people, especially liberal intellectuals, because they were conducted by college students who could intellectual and inspirational speech in their own words. They also practiced attractive demonstrations that looked to dispel the image of the violent youth demonstrations of the 1970s.BR Second, members of SEALDs have the desire to escape from a sense of stagnation in lives as well as the desire to keep their lives relatively enriched. This results from the desire of recognition in young people who have lived in the low growth era since 1990.BR Finally, they are relatively elite students and havenʹt had to confront the poverty that the youth in unemployment and non‐regular employment (been increasing recently) encounted in their everyday lives. But, they will soon be faced with the problem of poverty, for example, tuition loan, part‐timer abuse involving college students. In the near future, SEALDs movements will be more energetic as students from different socioeconomic classes are able to find more common ground in global and local.