STAY HOMELESS

My interview with another anonymous international anarcho feminist superstar about Japanese homeless movement. Talking about existence without ownership of space, interdependent survival and dreams.

It’s my impression that theres multiple different movements, overlapping within a broader movement with people with different intentions, you have the activists and the day labourers, thats the impression that i got from the places that we went, we went to the queer camp where your friend was asked to go to different places around the world to help with that. I might be wrong but seems they come into it from different points for different reasons?

I think the right way to frame it is homeless and active day labourers. When it comes to activists, different people who are homeless or day labourers see themselves as activists, them that participate in activism protect there survival but not necessarily wit in a political perspective its very much not separate, it all overlaps.

People come into it from a different thing, they come from a different point but then theres an overlapping of values and its different form the squatting scene in Europe?

It is not a subculture at all, it is just people who are homeless for all sorts of reasons. With all sorts of backgrounds and values or day labourers, in the same way, and who have historically had a sort of pride and a way to phrase there demands. In ways of being able to exist in the life that they have built for themselve’s without having to face repression and discrimination. And then there are people who have supported that struggle who have are not themselves afflicted, people who are not homeless, who are housed, who are normal employed. Many people who have engaged with that struggle supporting there demands. I think thats whats quite special about the homeless movement, in particular the homeless rights movement in japan. Theres a demand for the right to be homeless, and to be ignored by the social institutions if one so choses. The demand for autonomy for homeless communities.

Theres two things i want to ask really. What are the demands, and if you wanted to go into anymore detail on the criticism of European squat subculture?

The demands change depending on whats happening in the moment. In general they are mainly to be respected with the diversity and range of needs and backgrounds that the people have. So in a society where there are people who want social services and need them, as well as those that refuse, or are not able to access them for a lot of different reasons. And so the demands can be for better social services, as well as for people to be left alone who choose or end up for whatever reason to sleep on a bench under a bridge or in a park. And the demands are often very specifically tied to sleep in a specific park, which is tied to that park being open in the night, and not having security close the gates. Then, the demands can be to leave a specific tent village alone and not evict it, it really depends whats happening in the moment.

Thats interesting. I think of us in the west as movements that have contradictory demands that are unresolved. Instead of just accommodating that, they just get into a fight and i wonder why do you think that it is that special to Japan? That they are able to house more contradiction?

This is something that also becomes a problem that also ends up causing fights between people, the main thing is that its not a subculture. It’s not based on theory. It’s firstly the practice and then people create statements based on the reality, and the reality is that people have different needs.

I think in the UK in the subculture theory dominates, it got gentrified basically- the squatting movements.

And when you say something that specific culturally, do you have and English word for, in german you say placate- it means a statement for statements sake. Just something you write on a board the ways you express yourself, when your writing in slogans. I feel like subcultures create quite a lot of empty words, words for words sake, there are a lot of movements here that are theoretical and a lot of subcultures but that day labourers movement and the homeless movement aren’t like that.

And you think because of that, they allow more contradiction or do you think that the other political things in Japan also allow more contradiction?

Allow more contradiction yes although, they end up allowing more contradiction because they are more real, that’s the thing i feel. There based on a lived reality and they start with it, and the people who gather there have a shared need, a real physical need, as well as different opinions and backgrounds. There is no like… it doesn’t start from the presumption there is one valid way.

Ive been thinking a lot lately like, if you think theres one version of reality you’re lost, like an official version, there’s just a million different versions.

So where you like disillusioned with the European squats?

I wouldn’t say disillusioned, i very early started to move away from subculture cause i just didn’t feel right with it, i found it frankly boring. Not real, i gravitated towards struggles that felt like they encompass all of reality or as much as possible. And not just that, with a shared value that has a physical reality for me, a demand for existing without an ownership of a place. Which to me is a positive value as such i can get on board with. I don’t have to add any ideology to that, that’s absolutely valid to me and i can see and understand it. I think I’d like started to accumulate as many of these connections as possible, where its like really as clear as possible what we are sharing, whats the basis of us getting together cause then i feel like i am actually included in that.

I was thinking about the movement as one body of people, cause theres many different places, but there seems to be that they have connection with each other and go between the places. It might be in many different places but its one thing.

Sort of, but its so organic, it’s specific people, who have specific connections all over, that so beautiful to see cause its so organic. How i am connected to all these places and to home, and in what way, it is one but it is not flat. It has so many dimensions and i think the common understanding is not of fitting the norm, and having to fight for your survival against exclusive norms, hierarchies and inequalities. And just like shared identity based on that minimum. You are someone who has been excluded who sees that you want to be, and need to be in solidarity with others who where excluded as well, like thats the minimum and thats enough.

On the basis that you don’t want to be included, while some people do?

On the basis of yes of not wanting to be included, but not wanting any one to be excluded. Not wanting to be included as long as not everyone is included, necessarily means that you question the entire system.

I’ve always said i love the underclass cause its the only class you cant get thrown out of.

And do you want to talk about your friend, (who lives in Nora) we went for food with her? I thought it would be good to talk about why you are inspired by her, and what it means. Cause you went and sort her out basically, and you had heard about her?

I think the special connection with me and her, i can not define it we are just destined to be friends. But to put it into words it’s something about her clarity on having gone on this path of life, as a struggle for her dignity. This is why she has this word Nora. The name of the women who left home. This woman who left her entire existence without any gruarantee to become more human, to no longer be a puppet. I left home for the same reason- to become real for the first time. To save myself from an existence that was lies and violence, and it was the only choice i had. Its been so wonderful to have her, in her way put the same thing into words and create a community around it. I think those that create radical lived practice of ideas and at the same time, in the background there always been these visions and the dreams as well. She’s someone who is always dreaming, always putting things into words, and expressing them and at the same time it always starting in radical practice, so she doesn’t start from ideology. She lives things, and then she expresses the dimension of the things she experience as art and radical political expression.

What are the dreams?

She its kind of amazing, the kinds of organising she does. Nothing is too small for her, she doesn’t think in scales, she does aspire for anything to be big, she actually told me she believes in small scales, just a few people together and that being real and everyone being seen and heard properly, she doesn’t make rules and proclamations. Maybe towards the enemy but not towards anyone whose on her side, and that’s why she doesn’t have a manifesto in that way. But what she does is she describes people, she observes and she describes and she loves peoples existence. She’s written books and zine just observing and describing other people. Homeless people, ill people, people who are her friends, just small things about them, what they looked like, what kind of thing they said, and she’s just constantly helping people survive. And when i see her i think the basis ideology, or her belief or her dream is the absolute. Not accepting something big crushing something small. Like everything about her stands for something opposite of that. Everything big, crushing something small under it foot is her enemy, and everything she does is lifting up, protecting and fighting for the smallest of the smallest thing, against the biggest of the biggest things. I feel like everything she does is that whether it’s her art or her actions or her way of life.

Would be nice to hear what you think about- you say there was a book by a women who was living in the tent village and she died, did you mean her?

I didn’t. She, died before i came to Japan.

You must have heard a lot about her ?

Yes and i know many people who were caring for her at the end.

And what do you think about her?

The book is basically her diary, although she calls it her note book. This was the first book i read in Japanese and i just burnt thought it. I read it so quickly cause everything just resonated with me. I know a few people who weren’t able to read through it cause it was too painful. It describes a lot of violence, hopelessness and despair, but to me it was incredible uplifting and empowering. Her life situation was incredibly, incredibly underprivileged, she had almost nothing. No support, she experienced violent direction with the world around her. At the end she had these people who cared for her but her life was incredibly hard. And the reason why she wrote, the reason why she did anything, was out of a burning need for her world. For a world that fits her aesthetics, her dreams, all of her needed and she couldn’t let it go. She just couldn’t let it go and from the beginning she describes, how this started she just had this need, she couldn’t even define it so clearly it was just everything. I like this and i don’t like that, and this makes me happy and this makes me really uncomfortable. All these expectations of her to be a certain kind of person. To go though certain education, to get a certain job, to get in a certain relationship, non of it worked cause she just had these intense feelings and she just couldn’t ignore them, and so that ended up making it impossible for her to have a stable existence, and ended up landing her on the street, and kept on making her lose her jobs, because she wanted a beautiful life full of dignity. In her words she puts it in many different ways, but all of the notebook is just her clinging onto that and protecting it and fighting for it, its amazing how she does that. She’s immediately there as soon as she’s left alone to be with it she’s there, its so powerful. Most people cant do that at all, even if they have a lot of privilege, free time and a lot of resources. They, even then, there own world is really hard for them to find. And she created it out of almost nothing. I resonate with that so much. Everything I’ve done so far in my entire life has been looking for that version of me and has made it impossible to life a normal life inside society, and the thing is that she had vague ideas of what that could mean in practice. And one of them was going to Europe and traveling. She loved to read and listen to music, she loved arts and culture she wanted to like be in a space where she could talk and listening to people about the same things. Just enjoy art and be respected and cared for, she couldn’t find it here. She thought maybe she could find it in a western country, for whatever reason she had this idea. I guess the fact that she never got to go. She should have had these opportunities, she should have had so much support and care. It’s such a manifesto her diary, for so many people if you understand that or have any version of that experience, because it’s so hard to explain for me. It just made me really want to translate her book and at least now in spirit to Europe where she really wanted to go. And for me who used to dream of finding a place I belonged. I thought i wouldn’t find it but i did, not like its in anyway rosey or perfect at all, but i was so lucky. I had so may things happen for me, i struggled but everyone struggles. But some people get opportunities and others don’t, and I’m here now and i’m just being the person who needs that inner world more than anything. Wants that for everyone else, makes that everything, these kinds of feelings for myself. It’s so hard to survive in this society, thats so not made for being like that. I really hope you can read that book in English sometime.

Yeah me too, do you think people share a common thread of wanting to have there true reactions and true emotions, people involved in the homeless movement? It seems to be something you and people you like seem to think about?

I think that it’s a complicated thing, i never know. A part of me wants to say this is just a basic need of bring a human. Theres so many ways to talk about or imagine it. Maybe the more you accumulate privilege and a fixed identity and stuff that expectably defines you, the more you become that stuff and the further you go away from whats behind that. When people own a place they become someone who owns as place and that already creates a divide.

Yeh, your class interests change.

Me connecting to the sorts of people i connect to, in different movements there is a tendency to this. All the people in my life that are important have some experience of homelessness and at the same time they have this need. If you are like that, its hard for you to create a stable existence in this society and you end up having that experience and it shapes you and to other people through that, it wouldn’t be too flat to say a reason for that its just how it ends up being.

Cause other wise you wouldn’t survive?

Not being able to live a lie you lose a home because most homes are lies. 99.9% of homes are just based on lies in order to be stable, and if you cant do that then you’re out.

So what would you say to anybody thats homeless and or haven’t figured out where they need to be?

I mean i stopped being in survival when i realised that my survival and everyone else survival is the same thing. Everyone who survives in any of these sort of ways does it for anyone else that needs to do that. We all need each other and since i know that, i know i could never give up cause its not about me. That’s one of the biggest gifts and stable feelings, i never lost it once i got it. I goes though history so far back, it’s the best feeling knowing everyones there with you.

And what about dignity?

Dignity is kind of like what I’ve been talking about this whole time. It’s the possibility of being exactly how you are, and not being punished hurt insulted diminished ignored. On one level that, and on another level inside of you theres a point where it doesn’t matter what anyone does to you, you are untouchable. Theres also the word integrity. I think dignity is unconditional in a sense, also things can threaten it. On one level yes, on another i think things can. Integrity is the strength to stand up for yourself. I guess i realised everything i’ve done in my life on some level was to protect and save my dignity, and i have no idea what my life would be like if i didn’t have to do that, because everything has been shaped by that. Something that is mysterious to me is when i see people who is not struggling in that way. For some people it is just very over whelming thing and overwhelming presence they face everyday, all the time and for me thats how it is, dignity is the biggest most important the most basic need and if thats not met everything else is secondary. That just really makes me question when i see that in a different context they face. A completely different context to mine. They face different discrimination and violence to what i have, but in that way we are somewhat the same, not that we can always feel the same but on some level they are.

The one thing I was really curious about, one of the person you said about was 90 something and had just died, and the other was 80 and he was living there alone [in a tent village]. I was really curious about that, especially what you said about the dignity. They both wanted to live and die in the exact same way.

Yes they said that they wanted to stay there until the end, it is a village by the river and there used to be many people living there. It became less and less and at the end there was only two of them left.

Did some people die already?

Yes and some people left, often when people start to be too ill to care for themselves they do end up going into shelters or hospital or into the social system. In the case of those two they cared for each other, especially the one that was a bit younger cared for the older one and the older one really wished to stay in his home until he died, and his friend made that possible for him. He ended up working for the both of them and caring for him and his cats as well, by the river. They had really nice trees, one time i went, before he got too ill to move. We planted some seeds, did some gardening and one of them really liked to draw. He showed me some of his drawings and some of his friends would regularly come by to bring food, he was able to stay there till the end. Now there is only his friend left and he is gradually no longer able to work to get his needs met, so friends from the other village go there to bring him food every week so they all support each other yes. And he’s not the only one who says he would like to stay where he is. I’ve seen quite a few people now who want to stay where they are, it really becomes a question of who can care for them and some of our friends really do there best to care for each other, but in some cases its just too much to handle or they just feel too uncomfortable asking and then they end up being taken in to hospitals or old peoples homes that the government runs. And sometimes the conditions are really terrible, right now we are really worried about one of our friends because they are not allowing him to communicate with the outside world, they are not even allowing him to pass on letters and there probably doing some horrible things to him. We’re really trying very hard to pressure the authorities to make the shelter give him information and let him be contacted again to see whats going on. It’s a recurring thing that people just get kept silent with medication, turned into zombies. If they don’t go along with everything that gets told to them, i’ve seen it happen as well.

Pretty dire.

How many people do you think there are in the homeless movement?

It really depends, what you mean by the movement, there so many lose networks of mutual aid and support and people who gather, people who gather at the different soup kitchens and give people information and there different groups with different names, hundreds, hundreds , thousands maybe but it very spread out, impossible to say. Its often not a clearly organised thing many people for good reason also don’t appear publicly, at meetings they will sit on the side maybe wearing a mask maybe sunglasses. You know people are very private and thy don’t pry to each others business.

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TANKS FOR READING !!!! i am so indescribably happy to share this with you !!

FUCK THE AUTHORITIES!! NEVER GIVE UP YOUR DREAMS!!! DO NOT CAPITULATE!!! ALL POWER TO THE UNDERCLASS!!!

LAST WEEK - EVERYTHING YOU GET IS WHAT YOU WANT!! This is the first part in the series and gives more context to this conversation!!

NEXT PART - EGGED ON THE DAILY - Part 2 of my Japan Diary talking conglomerates and the ‘squatted’ dormitories of Kyoto university. This may be next week but it might not because i am chaotic. So i am no more making promises about next week!!

PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS ESP OUTLAWS, HOMOS AND PEOPLE WHO WEAR CRASS LOGOS THAT WOULD LET YOU SLEEP ON THERE FLOOR!!!! (why isn’t there a crass emoji?)

ALSO i am still selling these prints !!! you can buy one its a map towards sanity perfect for surviving the time of monsters. I have a few in London or buy them to be posted from here; TWO QUEENS GALLERY SHOP