Whatever happened to….??? Following up on stories from Japan’s 3/11 Triple Disaster

Well, hello!  It has been some time since I’ve been able to sit down at my MacBook with a cup of tea and a free afternoon ahead of me.  And that is because I have been true to my last year’s resolution (no more complacency), which has kept me in a state of constant motion.  In re-reading my New Year’s entry from approximately a year ago (December, 2011),  I sound more than a bit pleased with myself and with that year’s achievements:

“… by golly, I did it all and never got sick!  True, it is now the end of the year and I am fighting an exhaustion unlike that of years past…..yet here I am, still able to type out another blog entry, and only slightly more short-tempered than usual.  Must be that my definition of  ”impossible” was far too cautious to begin with. From here on in, I will toss it in the trash bin!  Or better yet, burn it in the January ritual burning ceremony that takes place by the river every year.  Along with amulets and charms from the Year of the Rabbit, my over-cautious nature will go up in flames, with a great whoosh!  And if I do pay the price in the form of a nasty cold brought on by over-exertion, I must grit my teeth, drink hot tea, and forbear any excess whining.”

Most exciting rally in the Tokyo government district: summer, 2012. That’s me in the no-nukes t-shirt, and Jacinta in the sweet little red dress.

That was me, one year ago. Buoyed by my own enthusiasm, I began that New Year of 2012 with a burst of energy, and did my best to sustain it throughout the coming months.  I leaped at opportunities (writing workshop? sure!  wait…what?–it’s in a remote coastal village that’s way off my train line? well, I’ll get there somehow! ), became still more familiar with the streets of the government district in Tokyo (where all the anti-nuke protests take place, of course ), plunged into volunteer activities on my free weekends, and continued reading, networking, and blogging furiously.  And of course, I continued working full-time at my cram school in Hadano.  During the summer vacation, I toured the US by car with my daughter, checking out liberal arts colleges from coast to coast. We couldn’t be happier that she was accepted by and chose to attend the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she will work toward a degree in Human Ecology.  And now, at the start of the New Year of the Snake, I am paying the price that was not demanded of me last year (Year of the Dragon)–the nasty cold that settled in my lungs and knocked me flat.  And what’s worse, it looks like I promised not to whine about it. That’ll teach me to brag, right?

But nasty colds mean a respite from work and from the demands of a hectic schedule; in short, they mean precious down-time.  And down-time means a chance to catch hold of the many loose threads left hanging in the past two years of blogging and tie them together properly. “Whatever happened to the Mayor of Iitate Village? ” you might wonder.  Or Naoto Matsumura,  guardian of the forgotten animals of that same village? Or Yoshizawa-san, the farmer fighting to save his cows from slaughter in Namie Town?  Or Yasuteru Yamada, elderly leader of the “Suicide Squad”?  Or former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who has disappeared from the media spotlight?  I’d like to spend this afternoon and evening catching you up on some of the stories of individuals whose names became known nationwide after the 3/11 disaster that occurred nearly two years ago. In the interest of brevity, I’ll chose three from the list of characters just mentioned, leaving open the possibility of writing about the others in a later post.

The former Prime Minister: hero or villain? (Getty images)

So let’s begin with Naoto Kan, the former Prime Minister.  Since the chaotic first week after the quake, Kan-san had been the object of both admiration and also of anger and outright scorn; there were few fence sitters.  Although some saw Kan-san as a hero who did his best in the face of a crisis of unthinkable proportions, most saw him as a bull in a china shop, whose hot temper and unguarded words made a horrific situation much worse. Because the central government effectively betrayed its own people by not revealing accurate facts and figures and by failing to initiate a swift and comprehensive evacuation (among other things), Kan’s own reputation would never recover, whether or not he personally was to blame.

As Prime Minister, Kan was quick to renounce nuclear power ( “Let’s start from scratch” was his motto), quick to envision the worst and begin formulating drastic evacuation plans ( he admitted to having considered the evacuation of Tokyo in the first few chaotic days ), and quick to display anger and frustration in his public appearances.  He spoke bluntly.  He broke the rules of discretion and polite language. While the ground in Tohoku was still shaking, the former Prime Minister was busy shaking up a system that had not been disturbed for decades, at the cost of his own reputation.  He was (and he would not deny it) attempting to force change.  “I refuse to step down until you pass my bill!”, he declared  (with wild eyes and a grin that appeared almost unhinged) in his last weeks of power, determined to launch a nationwide investment in renewable energy.  The bill finally passed, and he was out of office in a flash.  One of the most important things he did in the short time he hung onto power was to initiate the closing of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, in Shizuoka Prefecture.  The Hamaoka plant was the first domino to fall, causing a chain reaction resulting in–for some months–a nuclear-free Japan.  Two of the 52 power plants are up and running again, but the rest remain on hold.  Before 3/11, this would have been unthinkable.

“Hey, guys, remember me?….no, I guess not.” (Kan-san standing on platform reading “Zero Nuclear Power”)

So where is Kan-san now?  Well, according to a recent Japan Times article, he’s standing on a wooden box on the sidewalks of Tokyo, preaching his anti-nuclear message to the wind.  Are you familiar with the Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park, where anyone can get up on a platform and preach about anything?  If so, you know that the platform alone doesn’t guarantee an audience, and plenty of those long-winded orators look awfully lonesome.  Even their mothers don’t make the effort to come out and listen.  Kan-san did his best this past December, campaigning on the streets of Tokyo for anti-nuclear Mayoral candidate Kenji Utsunomiya and attempting to preserve his own seat in the diet as well.  However, he not only failed to draw a crowd, but many passers-by did not even recognize him.  Some who did shouted rudely, “You are a liar! You failed once, and you won’t get another chance!”

Just days before the national election, Kan-san’s campaign car crashed into a pole; Kan suffered a head injury, but even that failed to dampen his spirits or curtail his schedule. He looked a pitiful figure on public television, campaigning with a brave grin and a white bandage across his forehead.  In the end, his candidate Utsunomiya-san was trounced and Kan-san lost his seat in Tokyo’s number 18 district.  Somehow, he managed to cling to his seat in the diet, though, and continues his career as a politician, representing Japan’s out-of-favor Democratic Party of Japan.

Perhaps that was to be expected of a public figure who lists one of his hobbies as origami, and who is still waiting for the patent for his invention: a machine that calculates points for Mahjong. He’s a nerd, and he’s “kawatte iru” (strange in an unacceptable way).  Japan wasn’t ready for him. But all this means nothing, really, and is a terrible underestimation of an extremely intelligent man, who understood the implications of the Fukushima disaster and was willing to fight the system, tooth and nail.  Could those who taunted him on the street corner even imagine what it must have been like to be in charge of a country spinning out of control?  And to have no blueprint to work from?  How about some respect and appreciation, no?  After his brutal rejection by the Japanese public, the former Prime Minister could have gone abroad to lick his wounds and retired from politics altogether….yet he didn’t.  He’s like the Energizer Bunny in the old battery commercials.  Naoto Kan is on facebook, and I have friended him, figuring he needs all the friends he can get.

Now let’s travel up the coast, from central Tokyo to the rural town of Namie, where Masami Yoshizawa, whose farm lies square in the heart of the evacuation zone, refused to desert his cattle after the hydrogen explosions that rocked Fukushima.  I wrote in some length about this charismatic and determined man in a post called “A Tale of Two Farmers”, back in July of 2011.  At that time, Yoshizawa-san, the former manager of a large and profitable cattle ranch, was struggling to maintain the ranch despite the contamination of the land, the abdication of the ranch’s owner, and a government edict to euthanize his herd.  The cows, worth as much as $13,000 per head before the nuclear disaster, were now worthless in a monetary sense, yet Yoshizawa refused to either cull the herd or abandon them to their own devices.  Obtaining a renewable permit to enter the no-go zone on a weekly basis, he continued to feed them with contaminated hay, picking up stray cows from other ranches along the way and adding them to his herd.  Why?  It was his own private resistance movement; he refused to desert his cows as the central government had deserted the people of Namie Town.  Here’s a video of Yoshizawa-san, taken by Ed Koziarsky and Junko Kajino, two independent filmmakers from Chicago (see more of their work on the Uncanny Terrain site):

 

 

Remains of dead cattle lie untouched near Yoshizawa’s ranch.

At the time the above video was taken, Yoshizawa-san feared that in six months time his cows would have eaten all the available grass on the ranch and would be nearing starvation.  That was the terrible period of time when livestock within Fukushima’s evacuation zone were dying in large numbers on a daily basis, some still locked in their stalls and abandoned, unable to escape and forage for food.  Photos that appeared on the internet were appalling.  Yoshizawa-san was there in person to witness this death by neglect (though he blames the government, rather than the farmers), and he determined that the cows of his own herd would not fall victim as well.  Though they had been contaminated by the wind-born radiation from the initial hydrogen explosions and had been consuming contaminated hay and water, he vowed to let them live out the rest of their natural lives in the evacuation zone.  In doing so, he committed himself to the risk of long-term low-level radiation exposure as well.  For the record, he is unmarried and has no children.

So, let’s fast forward, and see what’s happening at the ranch in Namie these days.  Are the cows still alive?  Has Yoshizawa-san kept his promise?  Well, what do you think?  Yes, and yes.  It only took a bit of poking around to find that he is now somewhat of a celebrity, with his own blog and with a new name for the ranch: “Kibou no Bokujyou”, or “Ranch of Hope”.  The Asahi Daily Newspaper reported last May that he was battling authorities who wished to check and approve of his blog posts and to prevent members of the media from visiting his farm. “Cattle farmer in no-entry zone battles muzzling of information!” read the headline.  Apparently, the muzzling of Yoshizawa-san was unsuccessful, as shortly after that the Uncanny Terrain filmmakers did another brief interview with the loquacious farmer (see the film clip “Four Farmers“…he’s the second one).  Never camera shy, Yoshizawa appears confident and speaks eloquently about fighting radiation, refusing to desert his hometown, and working toward a rebirth of Fukushima. “Nuclear energy and agriculture,” he says, “cannot coexist.”  He is actively promoting renewable energy.

Yoshizawa-san’s blog (written, of course in Japanese, but sometimes with English translations following), however, reveals another side of the farmer.  Along with determination and righteous anger, he carries with him a constant sadness.  As of last October, in spite of his best efforts, cows on his farm were dying at an alarming rate. Diarrhea, runny noses and skin disease suggested compromised immune systems, whether caused by lack of nutrition, the spread of disease, or the effects of radiation.  Yoshizawa blames it on what locals are calling the “Fukuichi Syndrome” (Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Syndrome).  In a particularly disturbing entry from October 10th, he re-names the Ranch of Hope as “Ranch of Despair”.  He describes his feelings of trepidation as he visits the barn each morning: “Yesterday, three died. Four, the day before yesterday. How many would be dead this morning? I don’t want to step foot into the barn.”  Yoshizawa-san also echoes a sentiment that the former Prime Minister could certainly relate to, confessing, “I don’t want to acknowledge my own lack of power.”  If this man could will his cows back to health, there is no doubt that he would.  Because he cannot, he rails against the government, who have not intervened to help, but only to hinder.  And the scientists that he hoped would investigate the effects of radiation on his cattle have not materialized….the potential subjects will die without being studied.

Masami Yoshizawa remains loyal to his herd. (photo by Masakazu Honda)

Fast forward again to the new year, 2013.  A BBC video about the Fukushima 50 was just released that also focuses on Yoshizawa-san, who is still fighting.  As of January 3rd, his herd has increased from 300 to 400, and he continues to care for them with the help of outside donations and support.  Despite setbacks along the way, he’s held true to his original promise of keeping alive the cattle who remain for him a symbol of the nuclear disaster.  For their sake, for the sake of the animals who did not survive, and for the sake of the farmers who whose livelihood has been taken from them, he goes back and forth into the evacuation zone to feed his herd of “worthless” cows.  Where once he saw cattle as profitable assets, he now feels an affinity with the abandoned animals.  And every month without fail, he takes his show on the road, driving his personal megaphone-equipped van to Tokyo to stand on a street corner (again–the former Prime Minister can relate) beside a life sized model cow. “Don’t forget the farmers of Fukushima!” he shouts at passers-by. “We’ve been betrayed, and we need your support!”

Yamada Yasutera, leader of the Skilled Veterans Corps.

Lastly, I’d like to focus on Yasutera Yamada, the internationally-lauded organizer of the “Skilled Veterans Corps”, a group of over-60 men who were ready and willing to assist in the clean up of Fukushima Daiichi. I first wrote about the group in a post entitled “Will You Raise Your Voice?” , in May of 2011.  Not just random volunteers motivated by a spirit of self-sacrifice, these were former civil engineers and builders (one member had assisted in the construction of the plant itself) eager to lend their know-how and assist in speeding up the dangerous and delicate process of decommissioning the crippled reactors.  Work on many areas of the reactors had been delayed by continually high radiation levels; this posed no obstacle to Yamada-san and his colleagues, who argued that they would die of natural causes before radiation-induced cancer had time to develop anyway.  If they could get in to the most dangerous areas and begin working, they reasoned, the whole decommissioning process would move more swiftly.  Yamada, a 72-year-old who had already survived cancer, made news shortly after the nuclear meltdowns for his fearless offer.  The offer was considered, but never accepted.

Yamada-san (center), presenting his case to US officials.

So has all the fuss died down?  Have the members of Yamada-san’s Veterans Corps disbanded and given up on their dream?  Having seen nothing in the news lately, I did a quick search on the net and found an article by former diplomat Akio Matsumura from August, 2012. Clicking on the link, I was surprised and pleased to see a photo of Yamada-san, age 73 at the time, touring the U.S. !  Convinced that Japan’s nuclear contamination issue was affecting the world at large, Yamada attempted, over the summer, to convince officials in the U.S. to put pressure on the Japanese government to support his plan.  His group of skilled veterans is now 700 members strong; they are still ready and willing to jump into most dangerous areas of the nuclear reactors and put their expertise to work for the benefit of the nation and–by extension–the world. “Don’t risk young lives!” (they say) “This is our work!”  They are not motivated by money, but by the desire to be part of a practical solution to a problem they believe to be wildly underestimated by TEPCO, the government, and the people of Japan.  Yamada scoffs at TEPCO’s estimation of 40 years for the completion of the decommissioning process.  Fifty years is more accurate, he claims, and in that time Japan’s food chain will have become thoroughly irradiated, presenting further risks and complications.

Perhaps Yamada-san does not see himself as a hero, but his fans both in Japan and overseas view him as one.  And whether or not the members of the Skilled Veterans Corps are successful in their proposed mission, they have chosen to pursue something that brings meaning and purpose to their lives, rather than taking it easy on the golf course.  I hope their grandchildren are paying attention.  Finally, let’s hope that the former Prime Minister and Namie Town’s Yoshizawa-san continue their good fights as well.  Thank you for reading, and take care in the winter cold. Whatever your good fight is, don’t give up on it.

Restoring Damaged Ethics

The four young hunger strikers finished up their tenth day this Wednesday, just before a typhoon hit Tokyo in full force.

Do these these two look tired and hungry? It’s been nine days….

Miraculously, the first nine days had been mostly sunny, with only a few scattered showers. ” How will they fare in the pouring rain?” I fretted, opening up my laptop and clicking on the link to their live web camera…..and there they were!  Draped in head- to- toe raingear and grinning unconcernedly, they were engaged in spirited conversation with reporters as if this were a normal day.  I concentrated on Masaaki, the young man from Chiba with the stylish hair, who was speaking with a reporter about what had most impressed him during his ten day ordeal (though I tell you, it did not seem like an ordeal at all. Curiosity-seekers wondering what it’s actually like to deny oneself food for a ten day stretch would come away disappointed, as none of the four betrayed obvious signs of hardship.  They did occasionally stretch out and nap at times, but normal Japanese do that, too).  Anyway,  Masaaki’s response to the reporter both startled and touched me, so I will paraphrase it in English for you: ” We were all surprised,” he said, “by the older people who continued to stop by and apologize to us.  Some wept as they apologized for what their generation had done to our generation, and the four of us didn’t know what to say.  We don’t think of the situation that way at all, and felt there was no need for such humility…”

Haruki Murakami

Listening on the live camera, I thought about the depths of sadness and responsibility felt by those older people, and about the gentle spirits of the young people, who were not about shaming and blaming, but about constructive action in the spirit of peace and healing.  I then re-read the fine English translation of Murakami Haruki’s speech (given on June 10th in Barcelona, Spain, at his acceptance of a prestigious literary award), remembering that Haruki had said something that might be of relevance to the situation. Here’s a link to the speech itself,  found on the blog Senrinomichi...http://www.senrinomichi.com/?p=2728  And I’ll follow with a few tidbits from the speech that I want to share.

Speaking of the years following the second World War,  Murakami speaks of Japan’s choice to follow the path of efficiency and convenience, relying on nuclear power generation as a means to rebuild the country, eventually becoming so dependent on it that alternative power sources came to seem unrealistic and impossible. “Those who harbored doubts about nuclear power generation came to be labelled as ‘unrealistic dreamers’ “, says Murakami , reflecting that “We should have been working to develop alternative energy sources to replace nuclear power at a national level, by harvesting all existing technologies, wisdom and social capital. ”

I have written about some of the “unrealistic dreamers” in past blog entries, including a group of  renegade TEPCO stockholders who faithfully attend meetings each year in order to cause trouble for the nuclear power industry. For twenty years they have held onto their TEPCO stock for the sole purpose of submitting a yearly proposal to abolish nuclear power.  It took a crisis the size of Fukushima to get them news coverage, but this year we finally heard their story, and millions read in the daily papers how one emboldened renegade suggested that the President of TEPCO should  “Jump into the reactors and die!” Another suggested hara-kiri, or Japanese ritual disembowelment. Mind you, I am not suggesting that we express our sentiments in this extreme fashion (anyone who knows me well will vouch for this), but the man is an example of just the sort of person Murakami was speaking about. Those stockholders had probably endured decades of being labelled as crazy, embarrassing, or (at the least) unrealistic. Some of them, no doubt, had wives and family who were mortified by their behavior. After the Fukushima disaster, they were finally vindicated, but it was hardly a moment to rejoice.

 

Murakami also speaks of the crime committed against the environment, which has been poisoned beyond our ability to fully comprehend,  stating boldly that, “we are in fact both victims and perpetrators at the same time…Insofar as we are threatened by the force of nuclear power, we are all victims. Moreover, since we unleashed this power and were then unable to prevent ourselves from using it, we are also all perpetrators.”  And here’s the part that hurts: “….we must be critical of ourselves for having tolerated and allowed these corrupted systems to exist until now. This accident cannot be dissociated from our ethics and values.”  In short, people in Fukushima (and across the country as a whole) are angry for precisely this reason. In many ways, both government and TEPCO officials have refused to take any sort of moral responsibility for the disaster, and seem disassociated from the pain and suffering of the victims, and impervious to the plight of the damaged environment itself.

According to Murakami’s standard, these victims are also “perpetrators”, since many of them took a passive stance when nuclear power plants began to spring up in economically depressed coastal cities. They also enjoyed the benefits of wide-screen TVs (digital, of course), dishwashers, clothes dryers, and other luxuries they could not have dreamed of before , all powered by electricity that they gradually began to take for granted.  And now, many of the older generation that invited the nuclear power plants to their towns and

Plenty of older folk waving placards at Monday’s protest in Tokyo…

earned their livings working for the industry itself are sunk in a morass of deep regret. So….. are they wallowing there in the morass, unable to move beyond their own mortification?  Hardly!  Seniors who are physically able are taking themselves to Tokyo (those in nearby prefectures come by train, and those from Fukushima arrive in chartered busses) to protest.  Although Japanese have a paranoia about giving out any sort of personal information or signing petitions, they are signing

everything in sight. They are marching in the streets along with young mothers pushing strollers; they are carrying placards and cheering loudly at rallys.  I cannot say how unusual this all is, and how stunned I was to attend my first “Demo”in Tokyo this past Monday, to find the streets full of old people. They wanted to talk, they wanted to be interviewed.  They visited the hunger strikers in Kasumigaseki, tearful and apologetic for leaving the country in such a mess.

Spotlight on still more senior citizens: In another previous blog post, I had mentioned Yasutera Yamada, the 72 year old leader of a

Yamada-san and his squad are ready and waiting!

squad of hundreds of older men and women who are ready and waiting to be called in to clean up the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Having lived full lives already, they are willing to risk potential exposure to radiation and propose working longer shifts to increase efficiency and spare younger workers. According to recent news reports, Yamada and his team are fully organized and prepared to go in to work at a moment’s notice.

I have nothing by respect for the great majority of older people in this country, my own parents-in-law included.  Many feel duly ashamed, are doing their penance by radically cutting their electricity usage, and are willing–even in their seventies and eighties–to literally stand up for change by marching through the streets of Tokyo. Murakami says, “It is the job of experts to rebuild broken roads and buildings, but it is the duty of each of us to restore our damaged ethics and values.”  These old folks might know little of Murakami besides the name, and most are probably not aware that he made the Barcelona speech. Yet they’re on the right track with his value system, are they not?

Okay, skip back to the central government and the TEPCO officials. During Monday’s demonstration in Tokyo, I was asked by an Italian man toting a heavy video camera if I “trusted the Japanese government”?  I thought back to the first days of the nuclear crisis , when the hydrogen explosions were described on television as “a big booming noise” (What? Are we in Nursery School here?).  I remembered assuring friends in America that we hadn’t experienced a meltdown (because that’s what we were told), only to cringe in embarrassment weeks later when it was revealed that my friends were right.  I recalled watching the video of Shunichi Yamashita, the advisor to Fukushima Prefecture on health risk management during the nuclear crisis…..and maybe I’ll share that particular video with you, since this is what really influenced my ultimate mistrust and sense of outrage. The video was taken at a meeting held this Spring, when residents of Fukushima Prefecture were confused and anxious:  should they still be wearing masks?  Should they be hanging their laundry outside?  The current safe standard of radiation dosage per year had recently been “raised”, and what did that mean? And most pressing of all, were their children really safe?

Well, take a look at the “answer” they got. Yamashita-san, a graduate school professor from Nagasaki University,  began the session with what is known as “Ojisan-Gag” here in Japan. In other words, a very bad joke told by an old guy who thinks he’s funny. “Hey, Fukushima is famous, you guys! ” he chortles. “Even more famous than Chernobyl!” (He gets a bit of nervous laughter) Then comes the gag that fell flat as a pancake. “If you’re laughing right now, you won’t experience any effects from radiation. That’s scientifically proven!” he says with a smarmy smile…..followed by dead silence.  The video’s English subtitles are (again) not the best, but please be understanding.  You’ll definitely get the gist.

The meeting that was made famous in Japan by  Yamashita Senseii’s patronizing and unscientific speech took place in the Spring. There are more and longer videos of his advice to Fukushima residents,  always given with a smile (to ensure he won’t have any effects from the radiation?). When residents voiced their concern over government standards for a “safe” level of radiation (the standards had just been raised),  Yamashita-san deferred, “I don’t set the radiation standard. The government sets the standard. I have to follow the government as a Japanese citizen……Our country decided this, and we are its citizens. I think it’s better to think it’s safe and live a normal life than to worry too much about the future.”

Before the nuclear disaster, that kind of pat answer might have worked for some people.

Cesium-tainted topsoil being scraped from the grounds of an elementary school in Fukushima Prefecture.

For many people, even. But the stakes were too high, and parents were not satisfied with Yamashita-san’s answer. When schoolyards, tap water, milk, vegetables, and even sewage were regularly tested and found to contain high levels of cesium, parents became furious. Some had believed the advisor’s words, trusted that they would be safe, and chosen not to evacuate the prefecture.  And most incredibly, although other government officials have been fired because of callous remarks regarding Fukushima, Yamashita-san is still on the job. Mothers in Fukushima want him OUT, and there is currently a petition circulating with his dismissal listed as one of the conditions.

Lastly, let me mention a page I follow on facebook called “Embrace Transition”, dedicated to publishing articles and essays about post-3/11 Japan and the changes and choices that will shape its future.  This week’s offerings featured a moving- and yet ominous- essay by Angela Jeffs, a former London editor who has worked as a journalist and writer in Japan since 1986.  In her essay “Treasure”, Jeffs asks why, in the age of internet and cell phones, Japan’s central government did not move swiftly to evacuate the children of Fukushima, contrasting today’s situation with that of another era, when  230,000 children (including my father-in-law) were evacuted from Tokyo during the US bombings of 1944, with “Only the radio and community spirit and will” to facilitate the process. She makes the point that if such an evacuation had been instigated six months ago, Japan as a country would have rallied to the cause and welcomed the refugees.  Now, she fears, it may be more difficult for those wishing to leave, as discrimination and fears of ‘catching’ radiation sickness could prevent Fukushima evacuees from finding a warm and welcoming community. Although children are constantly referred to as “takara-mono”, or “treasure” in Japan,

Japan’s children: are they really treasures? (photo from Asahi Shinbun)

Jeffs believes the government has not treated them accordingly; in fact, she says, it has betrayed them. Here is her powerful closing: “It is my belief that the Japanese government, hand in hand with the nuclear industry, has committed a crime against humanity. And not only against the children of Fukushima and the north east but-in an ever-widening zone of suspicion and alarm-the children of Japan and the world at large.” Here’s the link to the “Embrace Transition” page on facebook, where you can find more of Angela’s writing and other thought-provoking pieces of writing: http://www.facebook.com/eTransition?sk=app_11007063052

Many people are angry these days.  Many people are worried, anxious, even paranoid about their own health.  Just yesterday, a blogger living in the relative safety of Yokohama posted about his planned “escape”/evacuation to France.  Mothers in Fukushima are moving to Tokyo.  Mothers in Tokyo are moving farther south, west, or even abroad. The population in the big city has already shown a slight decrease.  The anger and anxiety are justifiable, and we all feel a bit of both, to some degree. Yet we must not be overcome by either.  As Murakami said in his speech, we must begin the process of restoring our damaged ethics.

Although the hunger strikers in front of the Economics, Trade and Industy building did not make headlines, they affected individuals, gave people pause to think, and undoubtably made the government officials working inside extremely uncomfortable. Would you want to be feeding your face at noontime when the view from your window is rail-thin students (nice students! not the dirty, foul-mouthed, rough-looking kind), protesting the policies you represent?  Not me, thanks. The hunger strikers had an agenda (bringing an end to reliance on nuclear energy), a well-written and specific petition (asking for, among other things, the immediate halt to the construction of a new nuclear plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture), and infinite reserves of stamina, patience, and goodwill.

 They were pros, who did not slip up once, and saw their project through till the final press conference on the tenth day. They’ve already done their part in repairing damaged ethics as far as I’m concerned, and their generation had nothing to do with the building of nuclear reactors. For them, it’s not about repentance, but about preserving the future for their own children. The path of efficiency and easy living?  They’ve already proved they’re not interested. Flee the country out of fear for their own health?  No, they’re not that type either; there’s work to be done, and my guess is that they’re staying put. Friends of mine have mixed reactions to the hunger strikers, especially since they have already rejected the traditional Japanese path to adulthood. But Murakami would certainly salute them as just the kind of dreamers the country needs. I’ll end with his closing words, since I couldn’t hope to be more eloquent myself.

“We must not be afraid to dream. We should never allow the crazed dogs named ‘efficiency’ and ‘convenience’ to catch up with us. We must be ‘unrealistic dreamers’, who stride forward vigorously. Human beings will die and disappear, but humanity will prevail and will be constantly regenerated.  Above all, we must believe in this force.”

Good night; the air is cool and clear since the last typhoon, and the cicadas have finally ceased their shrilling. I will miss them, till the next summer. Thank you once again for reading.