When 18-year-old Tomohito Kubo sent out invitations to a war protest he was planning, he hoped his e-mail announcements would bring together a few hundred classmates and acquaintances. But he got the surprise of his life when more than 1,500 people showed up. Kubo, a senior at Gakugei Daigaku High School in Tokyo, serves on the communications committee for the National Coalition of High School Students for Peace. Like many young people in Japan today, he is angered by the invasion of Iraq. Unlike most, he decided to do something about it.
He and his fellow students planned demonstrations at Miyashita Park in Tokyo; they got the word out via a flurry of e-mail invitations. "We used both mobile phone and PC e-mail to get the message out," said Kubo. "The response far exceeded our expectations."Kubo isn't alone. Beneath its typically placid exterior, Japan is buzzing with Internet-fueled anti-war activity on a scale that hasn't been seen since the Vietnam War. Information spread via Web sites, e-mail and wireless communications has helped create a formidable grassroots peace movement largely sustained by online communications. "The Internet enables us to mobilize very quickly, more quickly than at any time since Vietnam," says Takayoshi Uchiyama, 37, a software developer and volunteer for World Peace Now. "Back then, information about the rallies took much longer to circulate. Today, the Internet is a powerful tool for spreading the word in a viral fashion -- it enables us to quickly reach people beyond our existing network of supporters." There are now more than 45 activist groups in Japan, including World Peace Now, Peace Act, Chance, Asia Pacific Peace Forum, No-War Network and Peace Boat; most are using wireless communications and the Internet to organize demonstrations, collect signatures and present declarations to government agencies. Many of the activist groups are "virtual" organizations with no offline component. Nevertheless, they've generated impressive offline activity. Collectively, the groups mobilized some 70,000 demonstrators at three separate rallies held in Tokyo in March, according to the organizers. The numbers are small by U.S. standards, but in Japan they are extraordinary. "The Vietnam War protests drew nearly 100,000 people," says Uchiyama. "But those rallies were organized primarily by labor unions and other formal associations. In terms of independent, grassroots activity, these anti-Iraq War demonstrations are far more significant."
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