2021 Tokyo Olympics Prompt Protest, Online Activism in Japan

“Yo, as somebody from Japan, f*ck the 2020 Olympics!” musician Kazuo says emphatically in a recent TikTok, referring to the upcoming Tokyo Summer Games. (The Games are still called “Tokyo 2020” even though they are taking place in 2021.) “We should cancel the Olympics. Not like cancel culture ‘cancel,’ like it just shouldn’t happen.” The Black Japanese rapper goes on to detail key reasons why this is the case: Tokyo has been in a state of emergency because of COVID, a marginal percent of Japan’s population is vaccinated, and most foreigners still aren’t allowed to visit.

“I don’t think people outside of Japan know how bad this whole pandemic is being handled,” Kazuo explains to Teen Vogue. “It’s so irresponsible. There are people still dying in the country, with Tokyo being hit the worst, yet they want to bring in athletes from other countries to compete? Priorities, homie.”

Like Kazuo, the vast majority of Japanese citizens don’t want the Olympic Games to happen this summer. And, like Kazuo, many young Japanese people are taking to their social media platforms to voice frustration with their government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“No one I've spoken to, young or old, has said they felt the Olympics were a good idea. We feel it's a huge public health risk and somewhat of an international embarrassment to hold such an event amidst a global pandemic,” Yurié Collins, a millennial Japanese content creator, tells Teen Vogue. A May poll from the leading Asahi Shimbun newspaper found that 83% of Japanese citizens don’t want the Olympics, largely because of the pandemic; a June survey from the Yomiuri daily newspaper showed that 48% think the Games will be canceled.

“In Japan, an increasing number of people are opposing the Olympics this summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Satoko Itani, a professor of sport, gender, and sexuality studies at Kansai University, tells Teen Vogue. “But I see more and more people are against the IOC, and the Olympics in general, because the IOC executives have failed to listen to people and show any care for [the] Japanese public.”

In conversations with Japanese millennials and Gen Z'ers, the IOC came up time and time again. “I am not so much against the Olympics as I am against the IOC and the Japan Olympic Committee’s complete disregard for the safety of the host country’s citizens during a global pandemic,” says Sachiko Ishikawa, a writer who has been using her social media to protest the Olympics.

The financial incentives for the IOC to continue with the Games are high — between 2013 and 2016, broadcast rights made up for 73% of the IOC’s revenue. If the Games are canceled, Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College, told the Associated Press that he estimates the IOC could lose up to $4 billion in broadcast revenue.

So, “barring an armageddon,” IOC committee member Dick Pound said, the Games will happen. But for many in Japan, a version of “armageddon” has already arrived. The week the Olympics were postponed in March 2020, Japan had 647 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 12 deaths. The week that Pound commented on an “armageddon,” Japan had 27,400 new confirmed cases and 684 deaths.

“The IOC has the authority to decide, and the IOC has already decided to hold the Tokyo Olympics,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said. Suga is right: Even if the Japanese government wanted to cancel the Olympics, it would have a difficult time doing so. All host cities sign a host- city contract (see Japan’s here) that gives the IOC broad powers, including the power to cancel the Games. Clause 66 of the contract covers various reasons for termination, including if the IOC has reason to believe athletes’ safety would be “seriously threatened or jeopardized.”

When reached for comment, the IOC had this to say: “The Olympic community all over the globe is with Japan and is thinking of the Japanese people who are affected by the pandemic. It is only because of the ability of the Japanese people to overcome adversity that these Olympic Games under these very difficult circumstances are possible.”

The disconnect between Japanese public opinion and the IOC’s plans has created a storm of anti-Olympics sentiment. There have been a number of in-person demonstrations, particularly along the torch-relay route, but anti-Olympics activism in Japan is primarily found online. In May, Japanese lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya launched a petition to cancel the Games on Change.org, garnering over 400,000 signatures. According to Itani, this is “by far the biggest number of signatures collected on Change.org in Japan.”

A recent study found Japanese teens are more likely to turn to activism online than in-person protests. And when protests do occur, they are less likely to involve young people. (Kazuo says that “protesting and rallying [are] seen as something elderly people do.”) A volunteer for Utsunomiya tells Teen Vogue that there are young activists working against the climate crisis and student debt, but activists against the Olympics are mainly in their 30s or older.

Yumiko Sakuma, an activist and writer who runs a collective called Sakumag, tells Teen Vogue that she used to have a “hard time” persuading people to join her in activism. But now? “This time it is very different. The support for the games is very spotty…. The situation around the Olympics is a test of the state of our democracy.”

“In Japan, people feel difficulty in raising their voices due to strong peer pressure. There is great significance in social media that can help people educate themselves and lower the hurdles to raising their voices,” says Momoko Nojo, a Japanese youth activist and founder of No Youth No Japan. “Even in Japan, where the rate of participation in social movements such as demonstrations is lower than in Western countries, participation in online actions is widespread, which gives me hope.” And Nojo knows the power of online actions: In February, she launched a campaign with the hashtag #DontBeSilent that helped lead to the ouster of Tokyo Olympics president Yoshiro Mori after his sexist comments that women talk too much.

Nojo hypothesizes that many young Japanese people feel resigned to the idea that there is no chance of changing Japan, often called a “silver democracy,” where younger people are underrepresented in politics. “The graying democracy has progressed and the voices of the young are not being heard,” Nojo says. “However, if we do nothing, nothing will change.”

Although protests appear to more likely consist of older folks, there are absolutely still young people out there, demonstrating against the Olympics. For example, Akira Hayama, a college student, has been participating in protests with Hangorin No Kai, a Japanese anti-Olympics activist organization. Hayama tells Teen Vogue they were motivated to join protests because of the destructive impact of the Games. Much of the focus is on the IOC’s failure to take current COVID case numbers sufficiently seriously, but Hayama points to a long list of negative impacts from before this year: the Kasumigaoka public-housing complex evictions to build a stadium; the strengthening of police forces under new anti-terrorism initiatives; the destruction of rainforests in Malyasia and Indonesia for wood to build sporting venues in Tokyo; and the allocation of state resources to the Olympics instead of toward recovery from the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The Olympics has seemed to empower many Japanese citizens to speak out, even those who don’t consider themselves activists. When the Tokyo organizers asked the Japanese Nursing Association for 500 nurses to help out during the Games, Japanese nurses took to social media, tweeting with a hashtag that translates to “nurses opposed to being dispatched to the Olympics.” “We are not disposable pawns,” one nurse wrote.

Inspired by the nurses’ protests, Mio Yamanaka, a Tokyo illustrator, drew an animation of a person pushing against the Olympic rings, crying out “STOP,” and posted it to their Instagram with a link to a petition to cancel the Olympics. While Yamanaka has been unable to participate in any in-person actions, sharing art on Instagram is their way into activism. “When the third state of emergency was decided, I drew a picture against the Olympics for the first time,” they tell Teen Vogue. Soon, they were responding to the news with art. When Yoichi Takahashi, an advisor to the prime minister, laughed off the rising COVID-19 cases in Japan as “ripples,” Yamanaka drew an animation of a human drowning in the sea with text that read “Protect our lives over the Olympics.” As a plane swoops in, the person reaches for help, but the aircraft circles away, leaving vapor trails in the shape of Olympic rings.

Aya, a Japanese millennial who runs the popular Instagram Ko Archives, felt compelled to begin posting about the Olympics because of the international nature of her following. “Ultimately, this is an international sporting event, so even if it’s being held in Japan, it’s an international issue," she tells Teen Vogue. "With this pandemic, we've seen how health is a global issue; something we need to tackle together. We need people from other countries to point out how wrong it is to hold the Games in a place where over 80% of the people who live here oppose it.”

Anti-Olympics sentiment in 2021 is truly a global phenomenon. “There does seem to be wider interest in anti-Olympics messaging considering how terribly the Games are being handled in Tokyo, as well as from the efforts of our Japanese comrades on the ground," NOlympics LA organizer Mikaela Rose tells Teen Vogue. "The heightened scrutiny, globally, reaffirms our goal of abolishing the Olympics rather than reforming them.” NOlympics LA launched in 2017 against Los Angeles’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Games (the city was awarded the 2028 Games), and is now working to both get the L.A. Games canceled and abolish the Olympics worldwide. “Reform is impossible,” Rose adds. “Even when the IOC is facing potentially catastrophic consequences, they have chosen profit over people.”

Some of Japan’s biggest athletes have also expressed concerns about the upcoming Games. “Of course I want the Olympics to happen, because I'm an athlete and that's what I've been waiting for my entire life,” Naomi Osaka said in May, before announcing she would be taking some time away from tennis. “But I think a lot of unexpected things have happened, and if it's putting people at risk, if it's making people very uncomfortable, then it definitely should be a discussion.” Fellow tennis player Kei Nishikori echoed Osaka’s concerns, wondering how Japan could possibly make a “bubble” of thousands of athletes; as did star Japanese golfer Hideki Matsuyama, who said he has “mixed feelings” about the Olympics.

But when it comes down to it, many athletes still hope the event can go forward. Asa Toyoda, a snowboarder who represents Japan in international competitions, tells Teen Vogue that among most of her young athlete friends, “it’s a given that the Olympics should go on.” Japanese athletes, she explains, are laser focused on the goals they have worked for their entire lives. “The majority of Japanese citizens have no ill will towards the athletes, since their anger is directed towards the administration. If I were in their position, I'd be really grateful and relieved that the Olympics are happening after a heartbreaking cancelation last year,” she says.

By all indications, the Tokyo 2020 Games will happen this summer. Barring, of course, some new armageddon beyond the pandemic.

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue