The “Hardest” Students in the World: Japanese Student Protesters and the Global Aesthetics of Protest in the 1960s

This paper discusses the transnational exchange of images and tactics of Japanese student protest in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It traces how radicals in Japan sought to use the heroic image of a street fighting student as a means to connect with like-minded groups globally and how students in other states actively sought out and attempted to mimic that protest aesthetic and employ similar tactics. Starting with anti-war protests at Haneda Airport in 1967, groups within Japan’s revolutionary student movement, Zengakuren, began to wear helmets emblazoned with their factional affiliation, carry a long wooden stave called a “gebabō,” and cover their face with a mask. These were a practical means to protect students from rival factions and riot police, but increasingly, they evolved into a protest ‘style’ which was instantly recognizable for other students around the globe. The image of the Japanese student street fighter became a touchpoint for Japan’s place in the transnational imagination of the Global 1960s. Student movements around the world attempted to emulate these masculinized and heroic tactics of Japanese ‘counter violence’ – notably at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the “Battle of Tegeler Weg” in West Berlin, both in 1968. The paper suggests that Japan’s 1968 was not simply a parallel development with global events nor were Japan’s students simply importing ideas. Rather, the Japanese student street fighter became an inspiration for many other groups in the US and in Europe.