(Version Française) Kyoto University Students: "Stop Calling Murder a Science!"

Protestation étudiants univ. de Kyoto ''Cessez d'appeler science un meurtre !''

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(H/T Helios for translation)

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Kyoto University Students: "Stop Calling Murder a Science!"

I never thought I'd be cheering for what I used to know as a radical, Marxist student organization like Zengakuren (All-Japan Federation of Students' Self-Governing Associations, some info from wiki), but I am now.

Here's the video of the Kyoto University students who are the members of the Zengakuren, confronting Dr. Sentaro Takahashi, deputy director of the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute and protesting the public lecture that the Institute was hosting on October 1, 2011.

Dr. Takahashi was in charge of organizing the public lecture by Dr. Yoshiya Shimada of National Institute of Radiological Sciences, who is known for his claim that radiation exposure up to 100mSv/yr is safe. The students had been opposing the lecture, but Dr. Takahashi decided to go ahead and refused to let the students in.

The Kyoto University Zengakuren students are telling, in no uncertain terms, that holding the lecture in the name of Kyoto University is totally unacceptable, and they tell the deputy director why. They speak in a dialect of Osaka area (Kawachi dialect), which is as harsh as you can get in Japanese. Th dialect itself sounds angry to many people in Japan even in peace time, and the students are actually really very angry. But then they are the students attending Kyoto University, one of the most prestigious universities in Japan and known for academic rigor. They are angry, speak in rapid fire, and they remain logical, using precise terms when they talk about radiation exposure.

I posted this video on my Japanese blog sometime ago, and it became one of the most popular posts in my blog. Many who knew what Zengakuren used to be were pleasantly surprised. Those who didn't know were still surprised. Many living in Fukushima commented, thanking the students for standing up for them. One or two said they didn't approve of the rough words that they used against a senior figure.

Rough translation by me, captioning and a minor editing by Tokyo Brown Tabby (who eliminated the s--t word, as Tabby's youtube channel is "known for decorum", says Tabby). I just cannot do enough justice to the particular Japanese dialect that the students are using.

Some people are rather impressed with Dr. Takahashi also, who listened to the students and tried to speak with them in a polite language. It is also possible that he was shell-shocked.

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