Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
A number of Tokyo residents, Japan express anger at the organization Olympic which is still ongoing in the midst of a spike in cases Covid-19.
Residents even staged a demonstration in front of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s office recently.
“Life is more important than medals!” shouted the protesters.
One of the residents who participated in the demonstration, Kai Koyama, urged Suga to stop the Olympics and focus on dealing with the Covid pandemic in Japan.
“I’m very angry,” Koyama told AFP, Monday (2/8).
“We are in an emergency situation. People are dying every day, but the Olympics are still going on,” he said.
Koyama admitted that he was shocked by the Olympic organizers and even ignored the public opposition. He then called them “anti-democrats and dictators”.
Even though the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were held under strict health protocols, and banning spectators from the arena, it was not enough to make people comply.
According to Koyama, the Games sent the wrong message and encouraged people to break restrictions and put them at risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Olympic Reject Art Exhibition
Koyama, who is also an artist, channeled his frustration at an art exhibition called “Declaration to End the Olympics.”
The exhibition brings together works by artists who opposed the Olympics.
One of the sculptures in the exhibition is themed “Ruins.” It describes the Olympic rings, olive leaf wreaths and hands covered in pale sand.
“There are athletes who perform with extraordinary skills, and people enjoy watching, and I think that’s great. But people underestimate the threat of the coronavirus,” said another artist, Sachiko Kawamura.
Kawamura considered that the government was not right in spending the budget for the Olympics. “The way money is spent is wrong,” he said.
The government, Kawamura continued, should concentrate on dealing with the virus rather than spending money on the Olympics.
The rise in Covid-19 cases has caused many people to worry about the Olympics, including 55-year-old painter Takatoshi Sakuragawa. He had even opposed Tokyo’s offer to host from the start.
Sakuragawa couldn’t help but think that Japan fought desperately in the International Olympic Committee voting in 2013, when the country was still not fully recovered from the 2011 tsunami.
“I wonder why they put so much energy into something like the Olympics, even after the worst disaster for us,” he said.
At the time, organizers said the Olympics would help rebuild disaster-affected areas through “The Power of Sport.”
Unfortunately, about 61 percent of the population disagrees that the Olympics are capable of reconstructing the affected areas, according to a poll conducted last March.
Demonstrations against the Olympics also took place during the opening ceremony of the quadrennial sport last Friday (23/7).
At that time, Koyama was also involved in the action near the stadium. According to observations, long lines also occur when many people want to take photos at the Olympic rings.
Since the Olympics, Tokyo has recorded the highest daily cases several times.
On Saturday (31/7), Tokyo reported daily cases of 4,058 cases. This figure surpassed the previous record of 3,856 cases as of July 29.
So far, the total number of coronavirus cases in Tokyo has reached 223,000 with 2,293 deaths.
The high number of cases in Tokyo has caused the Japanese government to declare a state of emergency until August 22. The status will be extended again until August 31.
Hospitals and medical personnel in the Japanese capital were also reportedly overwhelmed. Moreover, many health workers who go to sports arenas increasingly overwhelmed health facilities.
Meanwhile, many residents celebrate the four-year sport with great excitement by shopping for merchandise despite the restrictions.
Suga and the organizing committee actually got a lot of pressure from the public to cancel the Olympics. But they insisted on carrying out the sporting event until the end, according to the agreed schedule.
(isa/dea)
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