As a journalist I have always had a natural suspicion and wariness of political parties, and a hesitation to join or outwardly support any one party. Maybe that comes from my education in journalism school while a university student, in which I understood that I was to be an objective third party in reporting politics, not a part of the news story itself.

But that’s the ideal. In reality, journalists on all points of the political spectrum — right, center, left — vote for political parties. They support the party they think will best represent them and other citizens like them. Sure, their news reporting as journalists has to be balanced, fair and held up to high standards of public scrutiny. But when it comes to personal values, is being “objective” really preferable...or even possible?

One party that I have made a personal exception to is the Green Party. Over the past decade, I came to understand and support the kind of “green politics” to which the Green Party and its supporters around the world stand for: grassroots democracy, ecological wisdom, social justice and nonviolence.

For years I had asked, “Where is the Green Party in Japan? Why hasn’t it taken root here like in other countries?” It didn’t exist in Japan, and I wondered when or if it ever would.

Then came March 11, 2011, with the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan. Suddenly, people in Japan were becoming aware of what nuclear power was all about. An anti-nuclear/pro-sustainable energy movement was being born at the grassroots level in this country.

In the summer of 2012, that led to the creation of Greens Japan, the Japanese version of the Green Party. Just as with major nuclear plant accidents in the U.S. and Russia in the past, it took a nuclear accident of major proportions with Fukushima to finally kick “green politics” into gear in this country as a grassroots political force to be reckoned with. I was angered and saddened by what had happened at Fukushima, yet elated to finally see this change happening in Japanese society after Fukushima.

On the weekend of March 9 and 10, to commemorate the second anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident, I went to check out two public rallies, one in Kyoto and the other in Osaka. You can link to some photos taken of the Kyoto event here on the WEB STORIES page of this website.

At the Osaka rally the next day, I received a handful of pamphlets from Greens Japan volunteers, pamphlets that encouraged me to support or join this new political party in Japan. As one of those Japanese volunteers told me: “After many years, finally Japan has a Green Party of its own.”

Indeed it does, and speaking personally, I intend to support Greens Japan in whatever practical way I can. But join the party as a full-fledged paying member? My journalistic instinct after all these years still tells me: “No way.” And my instinct is still right. I have always thought, and do think now, that citizens have more power as citizens in society than they do as cogs in the wheels of a political machine. “People power” is real political power.

It is thanks to my journalism professors at university J-school that I still harbor a healthy skepticism of political parties and politicians. But it is also the tireless efforts of ordinary working people in Japanese society, and any society, who believe they can change things for the better by being involved instead of being apathetic, that still inspires me to think I can too.