A short thread about radical leftist Japanese hard hat culture, translated and stolen from German twitter, sorry for the Germanness (Germanity?) of some of the text:
What in the West is the balaclava, in Japan is the hard hat. It is THE symbol of the radical, militant left, especially in the 60s. The Japanese word for it is "Geba-heru," a loanword from German(!) and means Gewalt Helm: "violence helmet."
Trademark of the "Geba-heru": Each group has (had) its own helmet, with the group's inscription and color. They are used uniformly by the group during actions, as can be seen in the pictures.
This was the cheapest helmet you can still buy in any hardware store today and was given out for free, for example, in student dorms (which used to be self-managed left-wing centers) because of earthquakes. It was used as protection against police batons, without any grand worker’s romanticism behind it.
Today, the "Geba-heru" is hardly seen at protests anymore. Although not illegal, it largely represents ossified Communist sects that have survived since the 1960s.
They are most likely to be seen as a museum piece, as here in a museum in the city of Narita. Until the 80s, there were militant protests against the airport construction there.
The Japanese RAF (of which there were a total of 3 splinter groups) also started as a militant campus group and openly appeared with helmets in public before going underground. The German RAF, by the way, took its name from the Japanese one. Kein joke.
(note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction_(Japan))
The "Geba-Heru" has deeply embedded itself in Japan's collective memory. A few years ago, Japan's most famous girl pop band, named "AKB 48," even made a music video in the typical "leftist student" look. It's... bizarre??
But why a German loanword? Well, left-radical scene slang in Japan includes several such loanwords. Parutai (Party), Bunto (Union), Kerun (Core), and more. This comes from the fact that in the 60s, not English, but German was the number one foreign language of the Japanese left. Why?
Well, Uncle Karl (Marx) sends his regards. German left-wing philosophers have had and continue to have a significant influence on left-wing theoretical discourses in Japan. Even today, you meet quite a few leftists who can at least read German to some extent.
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