Reverberations of Youth: The Baby Boomers and Politics, Culture, and the Student Movement (1960s-1970s)

Reverberations of Youth: The Baby Boomers and Politics, Culture, and the Student Movement (1960s-1970s)

The baby-boom generation entered their youth in the 1960s and early 1970s, a time when Japan was in the throes of rapid economic growth and at the same time the shadow of the Cold War and Vietnam War hung over society. They were educated in postwar democracy and taught freedom and respect for the individual as ideals, but in reality they were confronted with a bureaucrat-driven and corporate-centered social structure. Sensitive to the gap between ideals and reality, these young people were strongly repelled by the political contradictions and gradually took a stronger stance against the state system itself.

The 1960 Security Treaty struggle was seen by the baby boomers, who were still in their early teens, as a living scene of political fervor. The televised clashes between the crowds and police in front of the National Diet left a strong impression on their minds. The spark of the clashes eventually spread to the Zenkyoto movement. Barricades were erected at the University of Tokyo, Nihon University, Waseda University, and other universities across the country, and students shouted "opposition to the system. However, the ideals gradually crumbled: the United Red Army incident in 1972 was a turning point for the movement, and the radicalization of internal rebellion and violent revolution disillusioned many young people. The defeat of ideals meant the end of political passion, but it also marked the beginning of adaptation to the real world.

While interest in politics cooled, the baby-boom generation sought new forms of expression in the realm of culture. Folk songs and rock music became the language of the young, and Nobuyasu Okabayashi, Takuro Yoshida, and Happiendo sang about the breath of their generation. The underground theater of Shuji Terayama and Juro Karo, and the films of Nagisa Oshima and Koji Wakamatsu reflected a sense of discomfort with society and the cries of the individual. They read Marxism, existentialism, and Freudian psychology, climbed the university stairs with Iwanami Bunko under their arm, and engaged in discussions with the Asahi Journal in hand. There were not only revolutionary textbooks, but also earnest contemplations on the question of what it means to live.

At the same time, they were pioneers of the consumer society. Televisions were widespread in homes, and audio equipment and cameras became symbols of youth. They saw freedom in jeans, long hair, and miniskirts. Cultural revolutions began in the details of everyday life and eventually drove the advertising industry, fashion, and the mass media. The students who followed their ideals went out into the world and built the economy as the leaders of corporations. This was both an irony of the times and a testament to the strength of the new Japan.

They were at the center of the student movement, and despite their setbacks, they made their way into society. Political ideals morphed into corporate democracy, the pollution movement, and the environmental movement. Even though they lost their ideals, their thirst for justice continued to burn quietly in the back of their minds. They were sustained not only by strength in numbers, but also by their pride as a generation that lived with the memory of their ideals.

The baby-boom generation, born in the ruins of the war, lived between idealism and realism, and embodied Japan's postwar period. Walking between defeat and creation, disillusionment and rebirth, they left behind a record of their youth in which the fire of politics, the breath of culture, and the fervor of the student movement were all blended into one. Looking back, the atmosphere of that era is somehow nostalgic, and it wavers in the back of my mind like a distant dusk. The steps of the baby-boom generation are not only a memory of the past, but also a symbol of the time when Japan as a nation had its youth.