edu-factory.org: A Note from japanese students and a possibility to link up anti-nuclear power protests and struggles against the neoliberal education system:
Manifest for De-Nuke University General Strike
To all students and faculties — Go for a de-nuke university general strike!
A month has passed since the earthquake. It seems as if everyday life has returned. It is said that recovery has been set out in the stricken areas. The worst situation is over; things will be the way they were, only if we watch calmly. It is cherry blossom season, too.
But we all know that these are sheer lies; that our everyday life that looks smooth has lost all bases.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant exploded. The government, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and the pigs of nuclear power promoters: we are being exposed to radiation because of you! The radiation gushing is limitless. Air, ground, and ocean of all surrounding areas are poisoned, and we cannot eat meat, vegetables, and fish. Even water is not safe. In this state, universities are about to commence their courses. Students are forced to attend classes as if everything is normal, notwithstanding radioactivity being scattered and all of us being exposed.
Now it is becoming clear that the atomic energy is the ultimate technology to control immaterial powers and mobilize them into labor. Intelligence and information as well as sensibility and affect that shape them – these powers that can become almost anything are dominantly mobilized by the industrial world. The workers are driven by specialists’ advanced knowledge of atomic power. In this situation they cannot say no, no matter how severe the tasks are. Of course, they cannot, since it will lead to a bigger explosion that could kill all the locals. And the locals themselves have to follow the words of the specialists. In order to sweep off the invisible fear of radiation, there is no other choice but to cling to the specialists.
During the 1970s, an atomization of universities took place. That is, a total mobilization of invisible and immaterial powers took place. Universities used to be a place for students and faculties to develop immaterial powers and with them to conduct experiments for a better future. These powers came to be unconditionally mobilized into labor. Now intelligence means nothing other than specialized knowledge for the industrial world. Faculties are forced to advance the specialized knowledge which are to be handed down to their students. They cannot refuse this task no matter how hectic they become, trying not to trouble their students. Meanwhile students have no other choice but to cling to their professors just out of fear of losing their livelihood. They force themselves to believe that the only choice for survival is to listen to the specialists.
But now the nuclear reactors are exploding in front of our eyes. This is no longer the stage of talking about nuclear threat. In actuality humans are being killed and tens of millions of people are exposed to radiation. Atomic energy is already proven to be a failure. Nonetheless only the mobilization to labor is swollen more and more. The workers who engage in radioactive labor, the Self Defense Force personnel, fire fighters – they are made into heroes, paragon of the nation. They are like banzai unit for Japan. Everyone is forced to ask themselves: who they are, what they can do. A shameless professor said: “a literary scholar as I am, I cannot do anything whatsoever for nuclear issues, so I will do what I can, that is, my literary study.” Is he mad? Yes, he is, but more or less everyone is repeating a similar word. Comedians perform comedies, company men work for their companies, and students study. Wanting to do something for everyone, yet we all are mobilized into labor by our immaterial powers being controlled. We are told to follow the instructions of specialists who have correct knowledge. In the public domain, shockingly, critique of atomic energy is taboo. Don’t be a troublemaker, don’t panic, don’t spread rumors, because everyone is, though frightened, striving to do what they can. Just have a faith in our specialists’ knowledge: it is safe, safe, safe, safe, safe, safe… You, me, and everyone – let us do only what each can do, push on expertise of each. Be calm and go to universities.
However, all students and faculties – don’t look away from the truth. The nuclear reactors have exploded! The specialists tell lies with no shame! The researchers of atomic science at Tokyo University have been deemed the supreme authority of the genre in the world and annually provided with hundreds of billions of yen. But their knowledge has proven to be false, showing as they are their inclination toward the safety of radiation. Now the top specialists reveal their true colors. To be honest, only we the amateurs can say upright things. To all students and faculties – would you still feign calm and go to classes to learn/teach specialized intelligence? Doubt! There is no such knowledge as only specialists can take charge of. Hell with the specialists! Doubt is only our weapon!
The nation-state has been constantly surveying, managing, and monopolizing the monstrously humongous power of radioactivity by the apparatus called nuclear power plants. But now that the explosion has taken place and radiation leak is unstoppable, the panicked specialists are seriously suggesting uses of bath oil and newspaper even. Should we just deride them? Only clear thing is that it is over, all over. This is the ruin of what the specialists used to be. The radioactive water has been stopped for a short while, but will leak from other fissures and flow out. That is the nature of flow.
Our potentiality is an invisible flow precisely like radiation. Now that the nuclear power development as the symbol of managing and monopolizing the potentiality has collapsed, it is high time for us to think and act by ourselves for rejecting the mobilization by the name of specialization, reorganizing our own potentiality, and decommissioning capitalism and nuclear power. Spit on those who still insist on: “act calmly with correct information; do what each can do.” They are our enemies! They are pigs! What is wrong with being panicked? What is the meaning of correctness that disregards our affects? What is wrong with losing words as we confront the man-made disaster that is causing this many victims? What is wrong with us having fear, becoming frightened, getting angry, and screaming out of derangement? When you see the researchers of nuclear science at Tokyo University, boo them as loud as possible! Boo them with your own words of truth, again and again, repeat until they finally resign!
Now we call for a de-nuke university general strike. Let us reject the education for just teaching and being taught. Let us untie ourselves from the bind of our own specialty and the specialists, for we all know the destination of the specialization would be, namely, our own junkyard. Let us remind ourselves that from the beginning, there is nothing that we cannot think, nothing that we cannot say. In front of our eyes, the nuclear reactors are being exploded. It is frightening. This is the truth. Anyone can think the truth. Everyone thinks it inexorably. Those who make a fool of us that we are panicked; those who preach us to be calm; those who scold us consumers, students, and workers to return to our specialties and our posts; those who instigate recovery by employing the pathetic slogan: “Fight Japan” – please leave us alone. In front of the truth, we are with another morality. We are foreigners. As such we call for the immediate termination of nuclear power plants. As such we don’t have time to study calmly amidst not only cherry but also radiation blossoms. Let us stop all university activities that lock us up in our specialties, and let us begin a grand chitchat! Let us manage to gather our wisdom for decommissioning nuclear plants and capitalism. Do whatever you like on the street to express yourselves! Damn with the atomic mobilization! Be panicked! Resist! Keep your eyes on the truth!
Stop atomized universities by exploding our de-nuke intelligence!
Committee for De-nuke University General Strike April 10th 2011
