Miyazaki: The Call of the Revolution

Confronted with the overwhelming scale of industrial society, stifled by an automated daily life devoid of prospects,
more and more people find comfort and strength in the animated films of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. What if his work actually carries a truly revolutionary message? 
 
Born during World War II, Hayao Miyazaki was a direct witness to the horrors of industrialized warfare and the devastation of the atomic bomb. Permanently marked by this experience, his films often warn against technological warfare and its destructive weapons. Conversely, Miyazaki finds an inexhaustible source of inspiration in valleys, mountains, forests, and their inhabitants. His work is permeated by a love for all living things and marked by the memory of peasant ways of life. His worlds are always grappling with the technical power that obsesses humanity and disenchants the world.
 
By immersing us in a threatened natural world, through the eyes of heroes who blur all boundaries and codes, Miyazaki evokes a true sense of nature, which, for the thinker Bernard Charbonneau, is the source of revolutionary strength. This is where we find the reasons to fight against the productivist juggernaut.
 
But while Miyazaki champions a philosophy of struggle, he does not condemn technology or those who use it, nor does he romanticize the animal world and nature. Far from any Manichaeism,
his characters and stories carry a message of universal love. For instance, in Princess Mononoke, Lady Eboshi razes mountains but also defends the community of Iron Town, including prostitutes and lepers. Similarly, the wind in Nausicaä carries the Princess on her white glider just as it carries the heavy Torumekian bombers. Nothing is ever predetermined.
 
While some succumb to the cynicism of an inherently toxic humanity, and others drag the world down a techno-authoritarian path, Miyazaki reminds us that humans and nature are linked by a common destiny. It is by defending the forest, by halting the technocratic system that devastates our world, and by reconnecting with sustainable ways of life that we will pave the way for a true political ecology.
 
But this will not happen without us.
To achieve this, we must move from stories to action.


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