Nakajima Michiko’s career has been, to say the least, impressive. Over the past 50 years, she has been involved in ANPO protests, in the peace movement, in women’s lib, and now in the women’s lawsuit calling on Japan to withdraw the SDF from Iraq. She has truly lived the life of a career activist, tirelessly moving from one issue to the next.
For me, one of the most noteworthy aspects of this trajectory is its progressive move towards international issues. This internationalization of Nakajima’s activism provides an interesting parallel to the involvement of Japanese business in global affairs. Indeed, she represents an alternate form of Japanese globalization. Instead of toyotas, anime, and mass produced electronics, Nakajima has pushed the anti-war values of Article 9 into the international arena.
Two interrelated issues arise from this globalization of the Japanese constitution. First, her activities are indicative of the ways in which local forms of protest can break through national boundaries, gaining relevance in diverse milieus. By pushing local activism into the international arena, Nakajima provides a blueprint for social movements everywhere–local issues need not remain bound by the borders of the nation. Second, by providing a Japanese basis for global activism, Nakajima decenters the ascendant position of the West in human rights activism. Too often, we tend to associate humanist values with the Western tradition, as if liberation can only come from the Greco-Roman corpus. Indeed, Nakajima’s calls for the international relevance of Article 9–the origin of which she places in the Japanese experience of war and destruction–opens a space for a worldwide contribution to human rights discourse.
Whether such a move will be successful remains to be seen, yet through Nakajima’s persistent activism the foundations for a decentered human rights discourse have been laid. It seems that this decentering and localization of human rights values is a necessary precursor to a more humane world.
