Beheiren (ベ平連, short for ベトナムに平和を！市民連合, ''Betonamu ni Heiwa o! Shimin Rengo'', "The Citizen's League for Peace in Vietnam") was a Japanese "

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...

" activist group that existed from 1965 to 1974. As a loose

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

of a few hundred anti-war groups, it protested Japanese assistance to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. Beheiren claims to have helped 20 U.S. soldiers to desert, in some cases providing them with false passports and other paperwork and helping them escape to

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

via the

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. They also used

shareholder activism A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal owner ...

techniques — buying single shares of

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

stock so that they could address shareholders meetings about the company's support for the American war effort. The group also assisted American soldiers who were publishing and distributing underground papers and pamphlets in Japan. They helped the Intrepid Four desert and seek asylum in Sweden in 1967 and later helped Terry Whitmore desert in 1968. Members included

Makoto Oda was a Japanese novelist, peace activist, academic and ''Time'' Asian Hero. Early life and career Oda was born in Osaka in 1932 and graduated from the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Letters program, majoring in classical Greek philosophy and li ...

(Official Spokesperson), Yuichi Yoshikawa (Secretary-General), Michitoshi Takabatake, Osamu Kuno,

Amon Miyamoto Amon Miyamoto (, born January 4, 1958, in Tokyo) has directed numerous productions in Japan and worldwide, from musicals, straight plays, opera, and kabuki as well as other art genres. In 2004, he became the first Japanese director to direct a m ...

, Ichiyo Muto, Shinobu Yoshioka,

Takeshi Kaiko Takeshi ( in hiragana or in katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings *武, "warrior" *毅, "strong" *猛, "fierce" *健, "healthy" *剛, "sturdy" *彪, "spotted" *威, "intimidate" *壮, "robust" *丈, "length" *雄, "mascu ...

, Yoshiyuki Tsurumi and

Shunsuke Tsurumi was a Japanese philosopher, historian, and sociologist. Tsurumi Shunsuke was born in Tokyo in 1922. In 1937, his father sent him to study in the United States, where he enrolled at the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. At the age of 1 ...

History

Beheiren was organized with the assistance of the " Science of Thought" research group led by

, which sought to create a new type of autonomous Japanese "citizen" (''shimin'') capable of "spontaneously" organizing to form "grassroots" protest movements without guidance from hierarchical "Old Left" political parties and organizations. As a supposedly "nonideological" organization that "anyone can join," Beheiren grew out of, and was modeled after, the similar "Voiceless Voices Society" (''Koe Kaki Koe no Kai'') that Tsurumi and the Science of Thought group had organized to take part in the 1960 Anpo protests against renewal of the

U.S.-Japan Security Treaty The , more commonly known as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in English and as the or just in Japanese, is a treaty that permits the presence of U.S. military bases on Japanese soil, and commits the two nations to defend each other if one or th ...

. However, historian Simon Avenell has argued that the concept of the autonomous, self-organizing "shimin" was a "myth" that sometimes proved useful for organizing protest movements but rarely if ever reflected the actual structure and organization of such movements. In March 1965, political scientist Michitoshi Takabatake approached Tsurumi about the possibility of creating a new organization along the lines of the Voiceless Voices to protest against Japan's involvement in the

. Tsurumi agreed, and the two approached novelist and travel writer

to become the new group's official spokesperson. Oda agreed, and on April 24, Beheiren was officially established as an offshoot of the existing Voiceless Voices Society. Oda traveled extensively around Japan and the world to promote national and international movements against the Vietnam war. In particular, he pressed Japanese new left activists to overcome their consciousness as helpless "victims" (''higaisha'') of defeat in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and recognize their role as "victimizers" (''kagaisha'') as citizens of a country that was deriving economic benefit from supporting the U.S.-led war in Vietnam. In 1970, Beheiren took a leading role in organizing large-scale protests against the automatic renewal of the

, which allowed U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam to be based on Japanese soil. However, these " 1970 Anpo protests" failed to prevent automatic renewal, as the government of conservative prime minister

Eisaku Satō was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1972. He is the third-longest serving Prime Minister, and ranks second in longest uninterrupted service as Prime Minister. Satō entered the National Diet in 1949 as a membe ...

simply opted to allow the treaty to continue as is. Beheiren continued its activities until the U.S. announced its withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1974. A final closing ceremony was held in Tokyo on January 26, 1974. In a farewell address, Tsurumi Shunsuke told an audience of around 1,000 activists that although Beheiren was ending, "another day I think Beheiren—although not as Beheiren—will want to make an appearance once again. Beheiren is dissolved. Long live Beheiren!"

References

Citations

Bibliography

*Simon Avenell (2010), ''Making Japanese Citizens: Civil Society and the Mythology of Shimin in Postwar Japan'', University of California Press * * {{Authority control Anti–Vietnam War groups Peace organizations based in Japan Organizations established in 1965 Organizations disestablished in 1974 1965 establishments in Japan 1974 disestablishments in Japan Japan–Vietnam relations