Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the
Wake of Fukushima
Brian Earl
Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
Course Reader no. 6
2013

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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VOLUME EDITORBRIAN EARL
Northwestern University

SERIES EDITORLAURA HEIN
Northwestern University

EDITORIAL BOARD
Mark Caprio
Lonny Carlile
Parks Coble
Sabine Frühstück
Tom Grunfeld
Laura HeinJames Huffman
Jeffrey Kingston
Susan Long
Laura Miller
Mark Ravina
Mark Selden
Stephen Vlastos

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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The copyright of all material in this course reader is held by the respective authors, except whereotherwise noted.

The volume editor can be contacted at BrianEarl2014@u.northwestern.edu.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima
Introduction

5

Hiroshi ONITSUKA

8

Hiroshi Onitsuka, “Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local
Relations and the Vicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence,” The Asia-Pacific
Journal 10.3.1, January 16, 2012.
Satoko Oka NORIMATSU

21

Satoko Oka Norimatsu, “Fukushima and Okinawa – the ‘Abandoned
People,’ and Civic Empowerment,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 9.47.3,
November 21, 2011.
Justin Aukema

29

Justin Aukema, “A Problem for all Humanity: Nagasaki Writer Hayashi
Kyoko Probes the Dangers of Nuclear Energy,” The Asia-Pacific Journal
9.52.3, December 26, 2011.
Christopher S. Thompson

42

Christopher S. Thompson, “Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster:
Untold Stories From the Sanriku Coast,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 10.10.5,
March 5, 2012.
Gayle Greene

52

Gayle Greene, “Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After
Chernobyl and Fukushima,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 10.1.3, January 2,
2012.
Chris Busby
Chris Busby, “Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease,” The AsiaPacific Journal 9.39.4, September 26, 2011.

69

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima
Timothy S. George

476Timothy S. George, “Fukushima in Light of Minamata,” The Asia-Pacific
Journal 10.11.5, March 12, 2012.
Shoko YONEYAMA

84

Shoko Yoneyama, “Life-world: Beyond Fukushima and Minamata,” The
Asia-Pacific Journal 10.42.2, October 15, 2012.
Recommended for Further Reading111

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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Introduction
This course reader concerns Japan’s “abandoned people” in the wake of theearthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011 in northeast Japan. The term“abandoned people” refers here to groups who have been neglected by both thegovernment and the larger society in which they live. This label can of course be applied toneglected groups throughout history and around the world; some of the authors included
here connect the experience of the people harmed by the 2011 disaster to other“abandoned people” in Japan, such as the citizens of Okinawa, victims of mercury poisoningat Minamata, and survivors of the nuclear bombings. In the context of Fukushima, the term
highlights the Japanese government’s neglect of Japan’s rural citizens living near nuclear
power plants, for they are exposed to nuclear dangers while Japan’s urbanites live in
relative safety—although the city dwellers may also be overestimating the extent to which
they are safe. Some authors, like Satoko Oka Norimatsu, contend that the mistreatment
goes beyond neglect—it is outright discrimination. The “abandoned people” sacrifice
much, particularly their safety and perhaps their long-term health, for the sake of others.
The experience of the “abandoned people” of Fukushima is particularly relevant at atime when both Japan and other nations, such as the United States, operate or consider
building nuclear power plants. Such projects raise myriad questions. Where should theplants be built? What risks will people living near the plants face? How much oversightshould the government have? How much say should local residents have on whether agenerator will be built? In the event of a disaster, who should take responsibility? Whoshould pay for the staggering costs of remediation and can they actually do so, if needed?
Moreover, why do governments, corporations, and individuals so often underestimate
risks?
Despite the huge risks associated with nuclear power plants, it is not easy to replace
nuclear energy. Reliance on imported oil or coal is problematic, and nuclear power
proponents in Japan generally doubt that it is possible to build cost-effective renewablesources on a large enough scale to meet even one-third of Japan’s energy needs.
Conservation efforts would help shrink those needs, but it is not clear by how much.
Nevertheless, examining the mistakes made in the past, as the articles in this course readerdo, can surely help avoid future disasters.
One of the most important questions that remains unanswered is: When the worst
happens, as in Fukushima, how should the government protect its citizens? Given that the
responses of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese national
government were and are clearly failures, what can we learn from their mistakes toprevent “abandoning” more people? It is easy to think, “Something like that could never
happen in America,” but the failures of the U.S. city, state, and national governments after
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 do not inspire confidence on this point. And while the response
to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was more effective, the hurricane showed the continued andinescapable vulnerability of the United States to natural disasters. Opponents of nuclear
power argue that nuclear power plants intensify the destruction caused by such disasters,
and the result is that they will leave larger groups of citizens “abandoned.”
The March 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear disaster brought the plight of Japan’s “abandoned people” into sharper
focus. Three reactors melted down, contaminating a wide area around the plant with

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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radiation. This unquestionably endangered rural citizens, as it becomes clear that they
were (and probably still are) exposed to levels of radiation that have been associated withcancer and other diseases in the past. Without accurate information, citizens do not knowwhether to evacuate, and may even distribute contaminated materials—such as crops—toother parts of Japan. In addition, citizens who want to evacuate often cannot afford to
because they are not given relocation support.
Following the Fukushima disaster, there is evidence that the national government
and TEPCO, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, deliberately concealed
information about radiation levels and other dangers from the public. For example, theJapanese government ordered that residents evacuate their homes only where levels ofradiation were twenty times higher than the levels that triggered evacuation following the1986 Chernobyl disaster, and incorrectly insisted that all lower levels of radiation were
perfectly safe. For this reason, many citizens and scientists are accusing the Japanese
government of what Aileen Mioko Smith describes as “a strategy of reassurance over one ofprotection”—that is, the government is more concerned with making sure citizens feel safe
than making sure they are safe.1 However, empty reassurances to citizens when harm
exists is not only extremely dangerous to their health, it also has failed to reassure them;this is why many people think the Japanese government has deliberately “abandoned” thepeople near Fukushima and other reactors. There is no true investment in their physical oremotional well-being.
Opponents of nuclear power see the abandonment of rural people as fundamental toreliance on nuclear energy itself. Currently, in Japan as in other countries, all nuclear
reactors are situated in less-populated areas in order to make it possible to evacuate thepeople who live nearby should a disaster occur. Opponents of nuclear power criticize thispolicy on the grounds that it makes not only power companies and their regulators but also
Japan’s urbanites careless about the welfare of the nuclear power plant’s neighbors, theirrural compatriots. This situation, in which the people who enjoy the benefits of something
are different from those who incur the risks, is what economists call a “moral hazard.”
Nuclear power opponents assume that if urbanites were more at risk from nuclear
generators, the urbanites would be willing to pay more for alternative energy and try
harder to cut their use of energy in all forms.
The botched evacuation policy and ongoing radiation leakage into the air and wateraround the Fukushima plant is particularly disturbing because it makes it clear that local
people were not protected from the disaster, challenging the underlying rationale forputting nuclear plants in rural areas anywhere. And so, many view Fukushima not as anaccident but as a failure of both the whole system of nuclear power and government
procedures to protect its citizens. The government did not institute tough enough safety
regulations to prevent a predicable disaster in earthquake-prone Japan, it did not provide
adequate support after the catastrophe, and it is not demanding that TEPCO immediately
move the spent fuel rods from the cooling pools at the stricken reactors, even though they
are no longer strong enough to withstand another powerful earthquake. The Fukushimadisaster demonstrated to the world that the standard safeguards at nuclear power plants
today are inadequate to protect citizens from terrible accidents. The authors of these
1 Aileen Mioko Smith and Mark Selden, “Bringing the Plight of Fukushima Children to the UN, Washington andthe World,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 9.41.4, October 10, 2011.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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articles agree that the only way to move forward is to phase out nuclear power in Japanand around the world, or at the very least, significantly improve the safety of nuclear power
plants.
The authors gathered here explain the “abandoned people” as the result of twoparallel domestic relationships in Japan: first, the dynamic between Japan’s urban centerand rural periphery; and second, the interactions between Japan’s national government
and local governments. In each of these relationships, the “abandoned people” have very
little power, politically or otherwise. Onitsuka, Norimatsu, and Aukema explore Japan’s
political atmosphere to illustrate this relationship. Next, Thompson explains the difficulties
Japanese locals face in coordinating their disaster-relief efforts, even with well-intentioned
volunteer organizations. Greene and Busby use data from the 1945 Hiroshima bomb blastand the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster to predict the serious health impacts from theradiation that are likely to develop among “abandoned people” in the years ahead. Whileother scientists have challenged Busby’s assessments, these predictions nonetheless raise
important concerns. Finally, George and Yoneyama place the Fukushima disaster in ahistorical context, drawing comparisons with the contamination of Minamata Bay in the
mid-twentieth century, which until 2011 was Japan’s most notorious environmental
disaster.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

8“Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of
Nuclear Dependence”
Hiroshi ONITSUKA
January 16, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Hiroshi-Onitsuka/3677
This article presents three separate problems with Japan’s system of nuclear power,
which combined to create the political and policy environment that led to the“abandonment” of Japan’s rural citizens. The first is that nuclear power is backed by
Japan’s “nuclear village,” a metaphor for the cooperation between, as Onitsuka describes,“politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, scholars, and local governments that promote
nuclear power generation.” This stance did not change after Fukushima. When the Liberal
Democratic Party regained power early in 2013, it immediately began pressing to restart
Japan’s idled reactors. These groups almost uniformly support nuclear power, anddissenting voices were routinely ignored in the past. The Fukushima disaster, however,has given new life to Japan’s anti-nuclear movement.
Second, Japan’s local governments receive almost all their funds in the form ofsubsidies from the national government, rather than from such sources as the property tax
or sales tax. This means local governments face heavy pressure to strictly conform towhatever policy the national government chooses. Because the pro-nuclear lobby has somuch influence in the national government, local governments have been powerless to do
anything but actively pursue nuclear power. Any other decision on energy would mean
being constricted to an unreasonably small budget.
The third problem is the geographic concentration of nuclear power plants inspecific parts of Japan’s periphery. This augments the negative impact on these areas whennatural disasters strike. For example, the Fukushima coastline has twelve nuclear reactors
clustered in two sets of six. This dense grouping of nuclear power plants placed the area ingreater risk, which proved disastrous when the March 11 earthquake struck.
In addition to showing how a Fukushima-style disaster could occur, thiscombination of factors also explains the concept of Japan’s “abandoned people.” Locals
have little political power because policies are so dominated by Tokyo. Onitsuka writes, forinstance, that “local residents [of the town of Ōkuma] were completely excluded from thedecision to build a nuclear power plant in the area.” Even though a few powerful local
officials were involved in negotiations, the negotiations were not transparent and theseofficials often did not hold opinions representative of the majority of local citizens.

Onitsuka: Hooked on Nuclear Power

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Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of
Nuclear Dependence
Hiroshi Onitsuka
Abstract
This article examines the problems associated with the fact that Japanese nuclear power plants
have multiple reactors within one plant and are concentrated in specific regions. It analyzes thesituation from international, domestic, and local perspectives, revealing features of Japanesestate-local relations.
The crisis of the crippled nuclear power
plant Fukushima Daiichi has continued
for nine months and will continue forsome time to come. One of the reasonsthat this has been such a protracted crisis
is that four nuclear reactors within close
proximity of each other were damaged
simultaneously, making efforts to repair
any one of them extremely difficult.
Fukushima Daiichi was equipped with
six reactors (operation had beensuspended at two of its reactors on
March 11, 2011), and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company (TEPCO), together with Signboard of Futaba Town Saying “Nuclear Power: Energy
the local government of Futaba Town,
for Bright Future” (genshiryoku akarui mirai no enerugī),March 29, 2011.
where the fifth and sixth reactors are
SOURCE:Nihon
engan
ryokōki (accessed April 8, 2011).
located, had been planning to add two
more reactors. Japanese nuclear power
plants are characterized by having multiple reactors within one plant, and being concentrated in
specific regions. The concentration of plants on the coastline of Fukushima Prefecture (twoplants and ten reactors) and the Wakasa Gulf Coast of Fukui Prefecture (four plants and 13
reactors) has earned the two regions the nickname “Genpatsu [nuclear power plant] Ginza.”1 At
the site located between Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, Niigata Prefecture, TEPCO has
what is, with seven reactors, the world’s largest nuclear power plant complex (See Map). This
geographic concentration of nuclear reactors significantly increases the probability of a crisis
occurring when any of those regions are struck by natural disasters. Given the risks that theypresent, why do Japanese nuclear power plants have these features?

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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The answer to this question lies in the makeup of Japanese local governments and their relations
with the state. Since March 11, the term “nuclear village” (genshiryoku-mura) has become wellknown amongst the Japanese population. This term refers to the powerful and exclusive complex
of politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, scholars, and local governments that promote nuclear
power generation. Local governments and their constituents, such as the mayor, officials andassemblypersons, are the final decision-makers in the process of constructing a nuclear power
plant. Local residents are essentially excluded from the process. It was not until 1997 that thefirst local referendum on the construction of a nuclear power plant was squeezed through: theholding of local referenda to decide not only this kind of issue, but any issue that affects local
communities, has been very rare in Japan.
Although local governments have played a significant role in the politics and economics ofJapan, Anglo-American studies on Japan have paid them little attention. Among developedOnitsuka: Hooked on Nuclear Power

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countries, the size of Japanese local government budgets is strikingly large, as is the amount ofbudget transfer from central government to local governments. The subsidies and grants thatcome from the central government make up a large proportion of the income of local
governments, and many of these come with strings attached (himotsuki).2 It is through thisbudget transfer that central government controls local governments, and local governments court
the patronage of central government. The autonomy of Japanese local governments iscompromised by this budget transfer system, which is referred to as “30 percent autonomy” (sanwari jichi), as on average 70 percent of the income of a local government is from the central
government, which ultimately controls the way in which the funds are spent. In short, the central
government and local governments are politically and economically inseparable, meaning that
local governments represent an element that cannot be overlooked in any attempt to understandthe country’s politics and economy. The Japanese government and electric power companies
have capitalized on this system in order to construct nuclear power plants, giving rise to a vicious
cycle of economic dependency that has ultimately resulted in the present crisis. This paper
investigates the reasons for the geographic concentration of nuclear reactors in Fukushima,focusing on its local governments and their relationship with the state.
I. The Dawn of Japanese Nuclear PowerFirstly, let us look at the background of nuclear power development in Japan. The beginning of
the Japanese nuclear power industry was political rather than economic. In 1954, a Japanesefishing vessel, Daigo Fukuryu-maru (Lucky Dragon # 5), was exposed to nuclear fallout fromthe US hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Atoll. All crew members suffered radiation sickness andone of the crew died of radiation poisoning. This gave rise to anti-nuclear movements and antiUS sentiment amongst Japanese people. The US government, concerned about this situation,
launched “Atoms for Peace,” which aimed to overcome Japanese anti-nuclear sentiment by
stressing the “peaceful use” of nuclear power. The program sought to reverse the awareness of
nuclear power amongst Japanese people, who understood the power of nuclear technology
through the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US contacted Shōriki Matsutaro, theowner of the Yomiuri shinbun and the president of the Nippon Television Network Service.
Shōriki had political ambitions: he dreamed of leading the way in the development of Japanese
nuclear power, and at the same time acquiring fame and power. To promote the “peaceful use of
nuclear power” he used his powerful media empire.3 In 1955, Shōriki was elected to the Houseof Representatives from a district in Toyama Prefecture, promising to promote nuclear power
and a merger of two conservative parties.
Nakasone Yasuhiro, a member of the House of Representatives from Gunma Prefecture and later
prime minister, also became interested in nuclear power. He started to promote Japanese nuclear
power policies, soliciting the involvement of politicians from the Socialist Party of Japan. At thattime, Japanese scientists were skeptical about the “peaceful use” of nuclear power.4 However, asa result of his efforts, the first budget for nuclear power was included in the national budget in
1954, and the Atomic Energy Basic Law was passed in 1955.5 The law stipulated that nuclear
power policies must be promoted “democratically” and “independently”, and that their results be“made public.”
Japanese electricity companies became interested in nuclear power generation around that time.
In 1955, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) established a Nuclear Power Generation
Department, and started to examine the future of nuclear power. However, due to the decline inJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

12

the price of oil, the cost of thermal power generation also declined, which slowed the pace ofdevelopment of nuclear power plants by Japanese companies. Rather than carrying out
development independently, Japanese electric power companies cooperated in the building of thefirst commercial nuclear power plant in Tokai Village, Ibaraki Prefecture in 1960 (it started
operation in 1967).6 During construction planning in 1959, the Science and Technology Agency(Kagaku gijutsu-chō), a governmental office for the administration of science and technology
policies, calculated the costs that would be incurred in the event of an accident at the Tokai
Nuclear Power Plant. The agency estimated that the amount would be twice as large as theJapanese national budget at that time. However, the agency concealed this report, and denied its
existence for 40 years.7 In failing to publicly disclose this information and continuing to promote
nuclear power in full awareness of the risks it posed, the government violated the Atomic Energy
Law from the very outset.
II. Dreams of Economic Revitalization and Secret Negotiations
Fukushima Daiichi is the second commercial nuclear power plant in Japan. In 1958, the governorof Fukushima Prefecture, Sato Zenichirō, who had been ambitious in promoting the industry of
the prefecture, sounded TEPCO out on constructing a nuclear power plant in Fukushima. He
ordered the prefectural office to investigate the possibility of nuclear power generation, andhimself joined the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (Nihon genshiryoku sangyō kaigi) in 1960.
Kimura Morie, a member of the Upper House from Fukushima, was also considering thepromotion of industry in Futaba County, which was part of his electoral district. His idea was toinvite a nuclear power plant to the county. Sato died in 1964, and Kimura was elected governor,
inheriting his nuclear industry policy. Fukushima Prefectural Office kept its eye on Futaba
County on the coast of Fukushima, an underdeveloped and sparsely populated district referred toas the “Tibet of Fukushima.” Ultimately, the prefectural office selected a site on the border
between the towns of Futaba and Ōkuma as the potential construction location, and approachedTEPCO, the Tōhoku Electric Power Company, and the Japan Nuclear Industry Conference withthis proposal.8
The Fukushima Prefectural Office and TEPCO contacted the mayors and assembly members ofŌkuma and Futaba in February 1961. The leaders of the two towns leapt at the proposal, hopingthat it would contribute to local economic revitalization. In the case of Ōkuma, the town had
fallen into financial distress, a fact which pushed the town to seek the construction of a nuclear
power plant. During the mid-1950s, there were serious question marks over the way in which thetown’s budget was being spent, with budget demand seeming out of proportion compared withactual expenditure. This issue came to the surface when the building of the power plant was
being discussed (the audit committee of the town conducted an investigation, but ultimately
failed to explain the disparities).9 The assemblies of Okuma and Futaba decided to invite theconstruction of a nuclear power plant in the fall of 1961. Anticipating potential public resistanceto the construction of the plant, one member of the assembly of Ōkuma proposed a motion for“the establishment of a powerful special committee” for the purposes of preventing information
related to the project becoming public knowledge, based on the reasoning that “confidential
matters will arise and negotiations will be necessary”. The motion carried. In a further move to
avoid public opposition, a pledge to TEPCO was submitted and signed by the mayor and 16
assemblypersons, stating that the town (as opposed to the energy companies) would takecomplete responsibility for acquiring the lands necessary for the site from local residents in an‘amicable’ manner.10 Local residents were completely excluded from the decision to build aOnitsuka: Hooked on Nuclear Power

13

nuclear power plant in the area, and the process was dominated by a small number of locally
influential people; transparency was totally lacking. The prefectural office and TEPCO wereequally complicit in concealing the plan, even going to the extent of having young female
TEPCO workers accompany engineers on inspections of potential locations so as to give theimpression of being simply vacationers on a hiking trip. The prefectural office and TEPCO did
not reveal the plan either, and secretly investigated potential locations.11
Fukushima Prefecture employed the “Fukushima Prefecture Development Public Corporation(Fukushima-ken kaihatsu kōsha) as the agency through which to purchase lands for TEPCO, andthe local governments of Futaba and Ōkuma encouraged residents to relocate.12 Local residents
knew nothing of the project to construct a nuclear power plant until it was revealed to them two
years after the decision had been made by the towns’ assemblies.13 The corporation, the local
governments, and TEPCO negotiated only with land owners and fishery right holders for thepurchase of the lands, keeping other residents totally in the dark.14 The officials of those local
governments became agents for the purchase of land. Hashimoto Tetsujirō, a farmer fromŌkuma, stated that prefectural and town officials visited him to ask him to lead a movement topromote the construction of a nuclear power plant. They offered a deal “to ensure Mr.
Hashimoto’s livelihood.” He accepted, and was hired by TEPCO as a full-time worker.15
The purchase of land for the building site went smoothly. One of the reasons for this was that 30
percent of the site was owned by Tsutsumi Yasujiro, the president of the real estate corporation
Kokudo Keikaku, and was not in use. Another reason lay in the weak ties within the community,
together with the firm control that was wielded over the hamlets of the site by the towns
administering them. The site covered much of the First District, Ottozawa Hamlet, Ōkuma Town
and Hosoya Hamlet, Futaba Town. The First District of Ottozawa was unique in that it was
divided into two very distinct parts: the northern part was home to long-established former
samurai families who continued to exert a powerful influence in the community, having seized
the majority of positions of local authority. The then mayor of Ōkuma, who promoted the plant,
was from this district and a member of one of the former samurai families. The Southern part on
the other hand was home to tenants and branch families (bunke) of main family households(honke) in the northern part. Hosoya Hamlet also had a similar feature: many of its residents
were newcomers that had arrived from neighboring hamlets or other prefectures after the Meiji
Restoration. The agricultural productivity of these communities was low, and those communities
were not so much independent from as subject to the administrative town.16
Another factor that contributed to the smooth purchase was that people were not yet aware of thedanger of nuclear power plants (the Japanese anti-nuclear power movement was not significant
until the 1970s). TEPCO completed the purchase of lands for the site by 1968. Yet, according to
the investigation report by the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, about 30 percent of the residentsof Ottozawa and Hosoya answered ‘no’ to the survey question ‘Do you trust the statement“Accidents will definitely not occur at a nuclear power plant”?’17 It was clear that residents had avague sense of malaise regarding the safety of nuclear power plants.
III. Subsidies, Rivalry among Local Governments and Proliferation of Plants
In order to promote the construction of nuclear power plants, the central government
implemented the Three Laws for Electric Power Resource Sites (dengen sanpō) in 1974, andNakasone and Tanaka Kakuei strove hard to get the bill passed. These laws ensure national
subsidies for local governments which accept an electric power plant, and were especiallyJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

14

designed to promote the construction of nuclear power plants. With these laws, constructing
nuclear power plants became even more connected to rural development than before. The
amount of the subsidies was considerable (for detail see below, part IV), and in addition to thesesubsidies, the local government was also guaranteed receipt of local property taxes for the plant.
In the case of Ōkuma, in 1978 the town had a total of 1.92 billion yen in tax revenues, of which
income related to the nuclear power plant amounted to 1.7 million yen (88.5 percent). The town
became economically dependent on the plant, and by 1979, the size of Ōkuma’s budget hadsoared to 26.6 times the amount in 1965.18
The construction of the Fukushima Daiichi plant
was initiated by Ōkuma. In order to start receiving
local property tax as soon as possible, however,Futaba requested TEPCO to start construction on areactor immediately and complete it as quickly as
possible. As a result, the number five reactor
located in Futaba started operation in April 1978,
six months before reactor number four, which was
located in Ōkuma.19 Before the construction of theplant, Futaba had enjoyed greater prosperity thanŌkuma. However, after a road from Ōkuma to
Fukushima Daiichi was constructed, companies
related to the power plant became concentrated inŌkuma.20 Since Ōkuma had more reactors than
Futaba, its budget revenue was greater than that of
Futaba. Residents of Futaba demanded public
services at the same level as those of Ōkuma.
Ōkuma had a sports center, which had a gym (thesize of three basketball courts), a multi-purpose
sports ground, a baseball field, a tennis court, aswimming pool, a martial arts dojo, and a Japanesearchery dojo.21 Futaba built an athletic park in order Front Cover of the Guidance Pamphlet of theThree Laws for Electric Power Resource Sites
to respond to its residents’ demands of “[We] want
Depicting Their Utilization for Local
22
it in Futaba too.” It is estimated that the total cost
Revitalization (dengen sanpō katsuyō jireishū)of the project (which is yet to be completed) will
SOURCE: Shigen enerugī-chō, ed., 2000, front
cover.
amount to four or five billion yen. Futaba also built
a health care center (cost: 17 billion yen) and a hot
spring center (cost: 160 million yen). Backed by abundant subsidies and property tax, the town’sbudget expanded.23
The chain-reaction spread to neighboring towns. Soon after the construction of Fukushima
Daiichi began, proposals for the construction of the Fukushima Daini [Number Two] nuclear
power plant gained momentum. This plant was to be built in Tomioka and Naraha towns, which
are located to the south of Ōkuma and Futaba towns. In November 1967, Tomioka and Naraha
established the Alliance for General Development of Southern Futaba (Nansō-chiku sōgōkaihatsu kisei-kai), and lobbied the governor to attract enterprises to the region. As the name of
the alliance stressed “southern,” this alliance was established in rivalry with the northern part ofFutaba County, where Ōkuma and Futaba towns were located.24 As with the local governments

Onitsuka: Hooked on Nuclear Power15of Ōkuma and Futaba, the local governments of Tomioka and Naraha had not informed residentsof the project. The officials of those local governments examined the site in December 1967, but
told residents simply that they were “planning to invite a huge factory” and they did “not knowwhat kind of factory would come.” At the end of December, the officials of Tomioka and Naraha
gathered headmen of the hamlets of the towns, saying that, “In order to promote theindustrialization of this under-developed area, [we] have established the Alliance for General
Development of Southern Futaba. To promote this plan, [we] would like to hold a meeting.” At
that meeting, they revealed the project to invite the construction of a nuclear power plant for the
first time. Headmen of the hamlet answered that they had to consult with other residents.
However, the next day, officials of the towns visited the headmen, and pressured them with thefollowing comments:“There is no time because it will soon be the last business day of the year, and the governor has
to announce [the construction of a nuclear power plant] as a policy on January 4th. [We] musthave the name seals of the hamlet headmen by any means possible. If the hamlet decides against
inviting [the plant], [we] will repeal this signing. [We] promise this will happen at any cost.”25
The local governments, planning to invite a nuclear power plant without public disclosure,forced the project through, completely disregarding the wishes of the residents.
In January 1968, the Fukushima Prefectural Office announced that they had invited a TEPCO
nuclear power plant.26 However, many residents opposed the project, refusing to sell their lands.
The governor himself took the lead in pressuring the opposing residents, offering “special
sympathy payments” (tokubetsu hairyokin) of one hundred million yen to overcome the protest.27
When the construction was finally decided upon, Naraha and Tomioka competed to be the first to
start receiving property tax from the plant by demanding that the initial construction take place intheir towns. The construction started in Naraha, a decision which generated a sense of resentment
in Tomioka. Just with Ōkuma and Futaba, a fierce rivalry had taken root between these two
towns.
IV. Financial Crisis in Local Governments, US-Japan Relations, and Additional Reactors
However, the affluence generated by the subsidies did not last. This was partially due to a uniquefeature of the Three Laws for Electric Power Resource Sites: local governments are provided
with heavy government subsidies for the first five years after the start of construction, but oncethe plant begins operation, the amount of the subsidies plummets to a quarter of the initialamount (see Graph). In addition, the statutory life of the local property tax on a nuclear power
plant is defined as 15 years, and the tax revenue are reduced by half from the first year to thefifth year.28 In short, a local government hosting a nuclear power plant receives a substantial
infusion of money only during the period of construction.
Although Futaba Town had rich subsidies, its public finances deteriorated in the 1990s. The town
built a large number of facilities, but thei operating costs exhausted its budget. In order toincrease its income, the assembly of Futaba invite the construction of two more reactors in 1991
(however, after it was revealed in 2002 that TEPCO had concealed problems that werediscovered at Fukushima Daiichi two years earlier, the town withdrew its invitation). Once a
community accepts a nuclear power plant, it develops a dependency on it and begins to demand
more reactors. Naraha and Tomioka towns also had deteriorating finances after the initialinfusion of subsidies: in the case of Tomioka, the town constructed Rifure Tomioka, a healthJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

16

care center with a swimming pool, hot spring, and accommodations. Its annual operating costs
amounted to 170 million yen. Endō Katsuya, the mayor of Tomioka informed the town assemblyin 2009 that “[We] have constructed too many facilities, spending a vast amount of money. It istruly an administration-generated bubble.”29 In Japan, this situation is known as “nuclear power
plant addiction” (genpatsu izon-shō).
US-Japan relations also
contributed to theemergence of this situationin the 1990s. In the USJapan Structural
Impediment Initiative, theUS demanded that Japan
spend ten percent of its
GNP on public investment(items that do notcontribute to the
productivity of Japaneseindustry). The Japanese
government committed
430 trillion yen to
domestic public investment
Graph amount of annual subsidies provided for a local government whichholds a nuclear power plant (model case of a plant with 1,350,000kW output). over the ten-year period
starting from 1991. When
Source: Shigen energi-cho, pp.3-4. Calculated by the Agency for Natural
Resources and Energy.
the US insisted that thislevel of spending wasinsufficient, Japan declared in 1994 that it would commit a further 200 trillion yen in spendingby 2008. In short, the Japanese government promised to spend 630 trillion yen on theconstruction of public facilities. The US aim was to confine the influence of the Japanese yen toits domestic market, preventing the devaluation of the US dollar. Together with the necessity ofstimulating an economy that was struggling as a result of the recession, this commitment to the
US led the Japanese government to try to expand public investment. However, in the name ofmaintaining the fiscal discipline of the central government, the Japanese government forced
prefectural and local governments, rather than the central government, to expand public
investment.30
Under these circumstances prefectural governments encouraged local governments to expand
their budgets. Owing to their abundant income, it was the local governments in areas with
nuclear power plants that were targeted by the Fukushima Prefectural Office for budget
expansion. Futaba Town officials reported that the prefectural office repeatedly approached thetown with projects as it had been overwhelmed by all the projects that had been allocated to it by
the central government, saying that they “could not reject them”. They were told, “There is afavorable local bond issue. Please take it. The prefecture will take care of you later.” The town
accepted the proposals. Town officials said, “Expanding on nuclear power will bring subsidies
and increased local property taxes. […] Local residents also thought there was money in it, andstarted demanding more and more [projects].”31

Onitsuka: Hooked on Nuclear Power17

In 2007, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released the actual ratios of bondredemption (jisshitsu kōsai hiritsu)32 of all local governments. Futaba Town ranked tenth fromthe bottom nationwide. In an effort to resolve the town’s poor finances, Idogawa Katsutaka, the
new mayor of Futaba, cut his salary to virtually nothing in 2008.33 He also cut projects andexpenditures within the town budget. However even these measures were able to contribute little.
In response to this situation, Idogawa said, “There are still people who cannot change theirattitudes.”34 Finally in June 2007, the assembly of Futaba Town, desperate to obtain revenue,
reinstated the invitation of the new plant.
After March 11, 2011, when Futaba and Ōkuma were struck by the magnitude 6 earthquake, theadministrative center of Futaba was relocated to Saitama Prefecture. Even then, on April 4, 2011,
the mayor of Futaba, together with delegates from the seven local governments of the areas with
nuclear power plants, petitioned the prime minister not to change the national policy of
increasing the number of nuclear power plants.35 This seemingly baffling response in the wake ofnatural disaster exposes the reality of Japan’s policy on the construction of nuclear power plants:
once a town welcomes a nuclear plant, it becomes incapable of existing without it. On April 7,
2011, the same day in which it raised the crisis level of Fukushima Daiichi from 5 to 7, theJapanese government reported that it would raise the amount of subsidies for local governmentswith nuclear power plants. This statement was not made public through a press conference, but
merely appears in print in an official gazette.36
V. Conclusion
This article has traced the process that facilitated the construction and proliferation of nuclear
power plants in Fukushima through analysis of the structure of national, prefectural and local
financial politics: the planning of the projects to construct nuclear power plants was carried out
by the prefectural office and local governments by means of secret negotiations with no public
disclosure being made to residents until the final stages. Then, once local governments agreed tothe construction of a plant, the community developed a dependency on it and became eager toinvite the construction of further reactors. These are the reasons for the heavy concentration ofJapanese nuclear power plants within a few specific regions, all of them impoverished rural
areas. In addition to these domestic factors, US-Japan relations played a significant role inencouraging Japan to invest in nuclear power generation.
The writer Kamata Satoshi has investigated this invitation process, visiting every nuclear power
plant in Japan. The reports that he produces from each of these visits mirror the process that we
see in Fukushima Daiichi and Daini: negotiations being conducted between the prefectural officeand the government with a total lack of public disclosure; the decision to invite plants being
made unilaterally by local government or local leaders; local government pressuring opponents
into accepting the project; the acquiescence of local leaders and residents bought with promisesof money.37 Yoshioka Hitoshi, the vice-president of Kyūshū University, has pointed out thatelectric power companies exploit the hierarchical network of local politics, bringing those at the
top of this hierarchy such as local and prefectural officials and assemblypersons into their camp
before the construction begins.38 Even in cases where residents have succeeded in rejecting theconstruction, the central, prefectural, and local governments, as well as the electric powercompanies employ the tactics of coercion discussed above, making residents’ protests extremely
difficult.39 In short, specific circumstances that characterize communities and local governments
in Japan (a firmly hierarchical social structure, a lack of transparency, rivalry between

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

18

communities, poverty of peripheral areas) make this method of coercion effective. As such, thepresent crisis arising from the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant can be seen
to be the direct result of deeply-entrenched problems that lie at the root of Japanese local
government and state-local relations.
Hiroshi Onitsuka is an independent scholar who specializes in the history of modern Japan,
especially local public finance, and in Japanese emigration to Manchuria.
Sources
Arima Tetsuo. 2008. Genpatsu Shōriki CIA. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
Asahi shinbun. asahi.com, December 7, 2010.
Fukui shinbun. Fukui shinbun online, April 5, 2011.
Kamata Satoshi. 2001. Genpatsu rettō wo iku. Tokyo: Shūeisha.
______. 2011. Nihon no genpatsu kiken chitai. Tokyo: Seishisha.
Kaneko Masaru, Takahata Masayuki, and Hagami Tarō. 2008. “Genpatsu no tsugi ha genpatsu”
in Chiiki kirisute: ikite ikenai genjitsu, ed. Kaneko Masaru and Takahata Masayuki. Tokyo:
Iwanami shoten. pp. 95-115.
Ōkuma-cho shi hensan iinkai, ed. 1985. Ōkuma-chō shi daiikkan tsūshi. Ōkuma-chō: Ōkumachō.
Mainichi shinbun, morning ed.. June 16, 1999.
Miyamoto Kenichi. 2005. Nihon no chihō jichi: sono rekishi to mirai. Tokyo: Jichitai kenkyūsha.
Nakajima Hisato. “Fukushima-ken ni genpatsu ga tōrai shita hi: Fukushima Daiichi genshiryoku
hatsudensho ricchi katei to chiiki shakai,” Gendai shisō (June 2011), pp. 190-207.
______. Tokyo no genzai kara rekishi=kako wo yomitoku, link.
Nakasone Yasuhiro. 2004. Jiseiroku. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
Nihon engan ryokōki. Link.
Nihon genshiryoku sangyō kaigi, ed.. 1970. Genshiryoku hatsudensho to chiiki shakai: chiikichōsa senmon iinkai hōkokusho (kakuron). Available online.
Shigen enerugī-chō, ed.. 2000. Dengen sanpō no katsuyō jireishū. Tokyo: Dengen chiiki shinkō
sentā. Available online.
______. 2009. Dengen ricchi seido no gaiyō. Tokyo: Dengen chiiki shinkō sentā. Available
online.
______. 2010. Enerugī hakusho. Tokyo: keizai sangyō-shō.
Supōtsu no sato Futaba annai sentā. http://spo-sato.jp/2006/03/04-040538.php.
Tokyo shinbun. Tokyo web, August 17, 2011.

Onitsuka: Hooked on Nuclear Power19

Uzawa Hirofumi and Uchihashi Katsuto. 2009. Hajimatteiru mirai: atarashii keizaigaku ha kanō
ka. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.
Yamakawa Mitsuo. “Genpatsu ricchi suishin to chiiki seisaku no tenkai, 2” in Shōgaku ronshū55, no. 3 (1977), ed. Fukushima University. pp. 133-162.
Yoshioka Hitoshi. 1995. “Genshiryoku ricchi funsō no gekika” in Tsūshi Nihon no kagaku
gijutsu Vol. 4, ed. Nakayama Shigeru, Gotō Kunio, and Yoshioka Hitoshi. 1995. Tokyo: Gakuyō
shobō. pp. 157-174.
______. 1999. Genshiryoku no shakaishi. Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha.
Notes
1“Ginza” is a bustling amusement district of Tokyo. The word is also used to describe an areathat has a concentration of a specific thing.
2

Miyamoto, pp. 238-239.

3

Arima Tetsuo found documents concerning this US psychological strategy targeted at theJapanese public in the Library of the Congress, and investigated its relation with Shōriki.
4

Yoshioka 1999, pp. 64-65.

5For Nakasone’s efforts for the promotion of the Japanese nuclear industry, see his
autobiography, Jiseiroku (Nakasone).
6

Nakajima 2011, p. 192.

7

Mainichi shinbun, morning ed., June 16, 1999, p. 3.

8For the process of inviting the plant at the prefectural level, see Nakajima 2011, p. 193.

9Ōkuma-chō shi hensan iinkai, ed., pp. 410-411.

10

For the process of inviting the plant at the local level, see Yamakawa, p. 153.

11

Nakajima 2011, p. 194.

12

Ibid., pp. 197-198.

13

Kamata 2011, p. 103.

14

Nakajima 2011, p. 200.

15

Ibid., p. 105.

16

For the process of the land purchase, see ibid., pp. 196-197, p. 200.

17

Ibid., pp. 203-204. Calculated by Nakajima based on the survey by the Japan Atomic
Industrial Forum, p. 30, Table 24.
18

Kamata 2011, pp. 113-114.

19

Nakajima 2011, p. 206.

20

Kaneko et al., p. 107.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima
21

Supōtsu no sato Futaba annai sentā.

22

Kaneko et al., p. 108.

23

Ibid., p. 101.

20

24

Nakajima Hisato, “Nakiotoshi de Fukushima Daini genpatsu kensetsu dōi wo semaru
Tomioka-chō tōkyoku” in Tokyo no genzai kara rekishi=kako wo yomitoku, June 2, 2011,(accessed August 19, 2011).
25

Kamata 2011, p. 94.

26

Ibid., p. 92.

27

Yamakawa, p. 159.

28

Kaneko et al., pp. 104-106.

29

Asahi shinbun, “Fuwaku no genpatsu ginza (4): Kyogaku no shikin seigyo dekizu,” asahi.com,
December 7, 2010 (accessed August 19, 2011).
30

Uzawa and Uchihashi, pp. 41-45.

31

Kaneko et al., .p. 108.

32

The ratio of the amount of bond-redemption against the amount of income. It is employed as
an indicator of the financial circumstances of a local government.
33

Asahi shinbun, “Fuwaku no genpatsu ginza (4): Kyogaku no shikin seigyo dekizu,” asahi.com,
December 7, 2010 (accessed August 19, 2011).
34

Kaneko et al., p. 110.

35

Fukui shinbun, “Genpatsu zōsetsu minaoshi jikishōsō,” Fukui shinbun online, April 5, 2011
(accessed August 19, 2011).
36

Tokyo shinbun, “Kōfukin de genpatsu atooshi: reberu 7 yokujitsu ‘Shinsetsu ha zogaku,’”
Tokyo Web, August 17, 2011 (accessed August 20, 2011). This information was not uncovered
until it was reported by the Tokyo shinbun on August 17, 2011.
37

See Kamata 2001; Kamata 2011.

38

Yoshioka, pp. 160-162.

39

See Kamata 2001, Chapter 3, Chapter 15. They report the cases of Kaminoseki and Maki
towns, respectively.

Norimatsu: Fukushima and Okinawa

21“Fukushima and Okinawa – the ‘Abandoned People,’ and Civic Empowerment”
Satoko Oka NORIMATSU
November 21, 2011
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Satoko-NORIMATSU/3651
While Onitsuka explains the political elements that created Japan’s “abandoned
people,” Norimatsu formally introduces the term and links two separate groups of people,
each of whom was abandoned in order to pursue a specific government priority. She
compares the Fukushima disaster to the ongoing U.S. military occupation of the island of
Okinawa. Both of these topics demonstrate tensions in Japan’s center-periphery relations,and in both instances, Norimatsu argues that the Japanese government is discriminating
against citizens who live in distant regions in order to make life better for those living in
the large cities. Specifically, Japan allows the U.S. to maintain military bases on nearly 20
percent of the main island of Okinawa, which many locals resent. The Americans are notalways good neighbors. To give three examples: stray bullets have wounded people anddamaged property; in 2004 a helicopter crashed into a building at Okinawa International
University (luckily no one was injured); and in 1995, three US personnel raped a 12-yearold girl. In the same way, Norimatsu argues, the risk from living near nuclear power plants
is unfairly assigned to people living in Japan’s rural periphery, only temporarily alleviatedby enormous subsidies granted while the plants are under construction.
Norimatsu says that as many as 10 percent of Japanese have protested against thepresence of U.S. bases in Okinawa, and in Okinawa itself anti-base sentiment is felt by wellover 50 percent. Meanwhile, the anti-nuclear power movement continues to grow as
people in areas that resemble Fukushima have come to resent nuclear power plants near
their homes; they are beginning to demand a drastic changes in policy from theirgovernment. Even so, Norimatsu points out that they do not at present have enoughpolitical power to enact change without support from inhabitants of Japan’s metropolises.
Indeed, Norimatsu hopes that Fukushima could be the event that sparks a broad change inJapan’s center-periphery relations.
The article also highlights other failures of the Japanese government in handling
nuclear energy. For instance, following the Fukushima disaster, the government andTEPCO grossly underestimated the amount of radiation present at Fukushima, one reason
why local residents did not evacuate immediately. In addition, as Onitsuka explains, thecomplete fiscal dependence of local governments on the national government seemingly
perpetuates the dangerous cycle of building more nuclear reactors rather than carefully
weighing alternative energy strategies. These failures both came at the expense of the“abandoned people.”

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

22

Fukushima and Okinawa – the “Abandoned People,” and Civic Empowerment
Satoko Oka Norimatsu
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami along the Pacific coastline of Northeastern Japanbrought devastation reminiscent of the 1945 atomic and incendiary bombing that devastatedwhole towns, littering them with the bodies of victims and posing a continuing threat tosurvivors. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear reactor meltdown and explosion at four
reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was the third large-scale nuclear disaster to
hit Japan. This time, however, Japan inflicted it on itself.
Two weeks after the disaster, author Oe Kenzaburo wrote,
The Japanese should not be thinking of nuclear energy in terms of industrial productivity . . . To
repeat the error by exhibiting, through the construction of nuclear reactors, the same disrespectfor human life is the worst possible betrayal of the memory of Hiroshima’s victims.1
The New Yorker, which published Oe’s essay, was the magazine that in 1946 published John
Hersey’s Hiroshima,2 where, for the first time through the narratives of bomb victims, American
readers were confronted with the human consequences of the events that had unfolded under themushroom cloud. Now Japan, the “pacifist nation sheltering under the American nuclear
umbrella,” as Oe puts it, had allowed itself to buy into the illusion of a dichotomy between
nuclear weapons and nuclear power, the former evil and the latter peaceful.
Anti-nuclear sentiment had grown rapidly in post-1945 Japan, especially after the crew of theJapanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon #5 was subjected to radiation from a US hydrogen bomb
test at Bikini Atoll in 1954,3 touching off Japan’s powerful anti-nuclear weapons movement. Butthat sentiment would be largely eclipsed by the Eisenhower administration’s “atoms for peace
program” leading Japan to invest heavily in nuclear power. In 2011, Japan would pay a heavy
price for ignoring the risks, and building fifty-four nuclear power plants around the coastline ofits earthquake- and tsunami-prone islands.4 The two forms of the nuclear were in factcomparable in their potential to inflict devastation.
In the immediate aftermath of the March 11 Level 7 earthquake tsunami disaster, the troubled
power plants at Fukushima Daiichi released radioactive material that was 15 per cent of that
released at Chernobyl (770,000 tera-becquerels), and radioactive fallout of Cesium 137 (half-life
30 years) that is 168.5 times that released by the Hiroshima atomic-bomb.5 Some 600 square
kilometres of land (an area ten times that of Manhattan) has Cesium deposit levels equivalent tothe uninhabitable land around Chernobyl even 25 years after the accident. There is an additional
700 square kilometres of land with radiation levels that made evacuation mandatory after
Chernobyl,6 yet tens of thousands of people, including radiation-susceptible children andpregnant women, remain in the area. What particularly distinguishes Fukushima from Chernobyl
is the large amount of radioactive material (3,500 tera-becquerels7) released into the ocean,levels unprecedented among all past nuclear attacks, accidents and tests, raising concern about
the effect on marine life and seafood. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and theJapanese government, in explaining the failure to prevent such a disaster insist that the scale ofthe tsunami was “beyond the scope of the imaginable.” Mounting historical evidence points tothe contrary, however: a tsunami of Fukushima scale was indeed to be expected, but government
and TEPCO chose to ignore it.8

Norimatsu: Fukushima and Okinawa

23

Much of the above contamination was unavoidable even after the nuclear meltdown occurred,
but the government’s attempts to minimize liability and to prioritize economy over people,
supported by industry, exposed people to further, avoidable contamination.9 Sato Eisaku, former
Fukushima Governor (1988-2006) reflects on what happened to people who trusted their
Government:
People of Namie Town stayed up all night, looking for missing people, but evacuation wasordered, so they went to Tsushima District [to the Northwest]. For three days from then, 6,000
people, one third of the town’s population, drank water, and ate food served there. When we
looked at the contamination map released by the government much later, Tsushima was painted
blazing red, indicating the highest contamination level. The [Namie] mayor had tears in his eyes
as he told me the story.10
The mainstream media, for which the electric power companies are major sponsors, havecooperated with the government in downplaying radiation risks, even promoting produce fromradiation-affected regions in the name of “supporting tsunami-hit areas.” The government has
raised allowable radiation exposure levels for ordinary people by twenty times (1 to 20
millisieverts per year), and for nuclear workers by two and half times (from 100 to 250
millisieverts in 5 years), it has set “provisional” [i.e. relaxed] standards for food and drinking
water contamination, and labelled any food with radioactive material under those standards“safe.” Voices raised to question the safety of products from affected areas were dismissed as“harmful rumours” (fuhyo higai).
Okinawan historian Tonaki Morita saw such policies as indicative of the government’s readinessin case of emergencies to “give up protecting people, mobilizing people for national interest, andmaking people accept death”, much as the Japanese government did to Okinawa during WWII
by sacrificing the islands and their people, then by accepting Okinawa’s status as a US militarycolony between 1945 and 1972, and finally by imposition of military bases after the war and to
this day. They promote such consciousness by evoking nationalism and glorifying the sacrificeof nuclear workers just as they once they glorified Kamikaze pilots.11
The media extensively covered the US military’s “Operation Tomodachi,” presenting the US as asavior in the wake of the 3.11 disaster while ignoring the US role in promoting nuclear powerover the last half century and ignoring the fact that the cost of the operation was only
approximately one percent of the expenses that the Japanese government annually bears for US
troops in Japan.12

Operation Tomodachi

Japan, having spread massive
contamination through air and the sea
throughout the world, portrayed itself in
the international community as a victim ofprejudice toward Japanese products, andpleaded for the purchase of Japanese foodand products. They reported planning tomeet goals early, such as declaring “coldshutdown” of the troubled reactors, evenwhen they did not even know where thefuel was after it melted down and throughthe containment vessels.13 The

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

24

government, moreover, sought to return evacuees as quickly as possible to areas still highly
contaminated and with little prospect of successful decontamination. Radioactive Cesium has
been found in urine samples of children not just in directly affected areas of the Northeast, but inTokyo and other locations more than two hundred kilometres from the reactors,14 andabnormalities have been observed in thyroids of children in Fukushima.15
If the government’s job is to protect people and the environment, it was necessary to evacuate
everyone who was at high risk, above all the most vulnerable—infants, children and pregnant
women—and to contain radiation to the extent possible. What the government did was exactly
the opposite: leaving far too many people in risk-affected areas, and spreading contamination
throughout and beyond Japan through food, sludge, rubble, garden soil, and landfill. Okinawan
author Urashima Etsuko, reflecting on the aftermath of 3.11, lamented,
What kind of world have we created? Water, air, and soil, nurturers of life, now have become athreat to life. It makes me shiver, thinking about the crime we have committed against futurechildren.16
The people of Fukushima and the people of Okinawa may both be described, as Okinawan peace
activist and writer Nishioka Nobuyuki does describe them, as kimin, or “abandoned people.”
Nuclear power plants in poverty stricken rural areas and US military bases concentrated in
Okinawa are both rooted in the discriminatory policies of the national government. Eachdiscriminates against the periphery to assure the protection of the state and guarantee the energy
needs of the metropolis. In the backdrop of the fifty-seven year long Japanese nuclear power
policy is the corrupt structure of “politics, bureaucracy, industry, labour organizations, academia,
and media,” what critics have labeled the “nuclear village.”17 The central government targets
vulnerable rural municipalities, already suffering from depopulation and economic degradation,to accept nuclear reactors or military bases, flashing subsidies, “white-elephant” projects, andjobs. But neither US bases nor nuclear reactors brought prosperity. Former (1998-2006)
Fukushima Governor Sato Eisaku says,
From now on, I want to think of Okinawa’s hardship as if it were my own…. Subsidies
associated with hosting nuclear reactors were never the “candy” they were thought to be. One
town which invited a nuclear power plant suffered from financial difficulties even in the absenceof accidents, and after 30 years, the town cannot even pay the mayor’s salary….We need to thinkfrom the perspective of future generations, and learn from the hardship that Okinawa has gone
through.18
This realization is shared by Inamine Susumu, Mayor of Nago City.
….[Half of the subsidy] funds just went for accelerated public works projects and you can hardly
claim that these projects benefited the northern-district municipalities with weak financial
capability.19
Subsidy funds, which are not “earned by the sweat of the people,” never cover 100% of the costof the public projects; local municipalities are left to bear part of the expenses, and above all theyfind themselves saddled with post-construction maintenance, which in the long term becomes afinancial burden for small municipalities, which have little need for so many community centres
and sports stadiums. Since Mayor Inamine’s refusal to host a new base, Nago City no longer
receives the “realignment subsidy,” which is granted to base-hosting municipalities, despite theNorimatsu: Fukushima and Okinawa

25

fact that Nago continues to host the Henoko base. Inamine, with local support,
remainscommitted to creating a city that does not rely on subsidies or the US military.20
Nor is the problem limited exclusively to Okinawa. For fiscal year 2012, four out of the fortyfour nuclear-hosting municipalities in Japan have declined subsidy funds. Sakurai Nobukatsu,
mayor of Minamisoma City (about 25 kilometres from Fukushima Daiichi), said,
We have stated that we will no longer co-exist with nuclear power plants, and we have written
the phrase “departure from nuclear power” in our reconstruction plan. None of the problems [thatwe now face] can possibly be solved
with the level of subsidies we receive.21
As in the case of Okinawa, the responseto the 3.11 crisis has been to pit Tokyoagainst local governments and citizens.
On October 20, 2011, the Fukushima
Prefectural Assembly adopted aresolution calling on the government toclose all ten nuclear reactors in theprefecture. It became the first of thethirteen prefectures hosting nuclear
power facilities to do so.22 While thecentral government is eager to maintainits current pro-nuclear power policy by“ensuring the highest standard of safety,”and even plans to export nuclear power
technology,23 polls indicate that over 80
per cent of Japanese now favor nuclear
phase-out24 and 66 per cent of prefectural
Nuclear power plants in Japan’s peripheries, March 2011and municipal leaders oppose
construction of new nuclear reactors.25
Okinawa, the prefecture farthest away from Fukushima Daiichi, has no nuclear power plant.
However, the Okinawan power company has been conducting research on introducing small- to
mid-size nuclear reactors. On September 25, Ryukyu shimpo, one of the two main Okinawan
newspapers, called attention to a 1980’s plan to build a high-level radioactive waste disposal site
in one of the prefecture’s remote islands.26
Will people of the periphery choose to remain abandoned? Certainly not all. In NortheasternJapan, many people have stood up, taking safety into their own hands. Citizen groups conduct
independent radiation measurements and publish their own radiation protection guides. Antinuclear power demonstrations spread, with a scale and intensity not seen in mainland Japan sincethe 1960s anti-Anpo (Japan-US Security Treaty) movement. As seen in Sato Eisaku’s words
quoted above, perceptions of commonality between Okinawa and Fukushima – the state
imposition of military bases or nuclear reactors on the basis of discrimination against marginaland vulnerable areas at the expense of well-being of those living there — seems to be growing inJapan, awakening some with sympathy with the Okinawan situation on a level not seen before
3.11.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

26

Though the scale of current anti-nuclear demonstrations in Japan are not comparable to those ofanti-base movements in Okinawa for the past six decades that mobilize as much as ten per centof the population, it is notable that some mainlanders seem to emulate the Okinawan movement,using the same symbolic colour yellow, and slogans like “life is precious” (“Nuchi du Takara” inOkinawan). As in the “Arab’s Spring” movements of 2011, civic voices spread through newly
emerging social media such as Facebook and Twitter, integrating existing movements,
connecting different generations, and merging anti-nuclear, anti-base, anti-neoliberal and theburgeoning “Occupy” movements, suggesting a broader possible social base for movements
throughout Japan.
Because of increasing public distrust in the government and mainstream media’s information
concerning the crippled nuclear reactors and radiation risks, internet media have attracted a surgeof new users in post-3.11 Japan. There is an emerging crop of internet journalists, such as
Iwakami Yasumi, Uesugi Takashi, Kinoshita Kota, and Shiraishi Hajime, and many others, aswell as widely read bloggers and Twitterers29 Their influence threatens the monopoly on
information of the Japanese government and major media, leading the government to call on
telecommunication companies to “take appropriate measures to prevent groundless rumours on
the internet,”[30 giving rise to plans to monitor “inaccurate and inappropriate information” onblogs and Twitter,31 and inviting influential overseas bloggers to Japan in order to get them topromote Japan as a safe place to travel to and buy from.32 These manipulative plans were met
with much contempt and scorn on the internet, where they were derided as desperate propaganda
by the government.
With Okinawa’s all-island determination to refuse construction of another military base on theirland in the face of unremitting pressure form the Japanese and US governments, and with people
across the nation awakening to new dimensions of citizenry and autonomy through alternative
media and direct action, are we living in “a global Gandhian moment,”33 as international law
scholar Richard Falk suggests, in which the “abandoned people” are empowered and engaged in
non-violent confrontations with established powers, making the impossible possible?
An answer is in each of us, and how we capture this critical historical moment.
Satoko Oka Norimatsu is a writer and educator based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is
Director of Peace Philosophy Centre and a Coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan
Focus. Her upcoming book co-authored with Gavan McCormack, “NO! Okinawa’s Message toJapan and the United States” will be published in spring 2012 by Rowman and Littlefield.
Notes
1

Oe Kenzaburo, “History Repeats,” The New Yorker, March 28, 2011.

2

John Hersey, Hiroshima, Vintage, 1989

3

Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick, “Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the “Peaceful Uses of Nuclear
Power,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 9, Issue 18 No. 1, May 2, 2011
4

Gavan McCormack, Hubris Punished: Japan As a Nuclear State, The Asia-Pacific Journal:
Japan Focus Vol. 9, Issue 16 No 3, April 18, 2011.

Norimatsu: Fukushima and Okinawa

27

5“Fukushima accident released far more cesium than Hiroshima bombing,” Asahi shimbun, 28
August 2011. Fukushima nuclear accident emitted 15,000 terabecquerels, while the Hiroshima
atomic bomb released 89 terabecquerels.
6“Some Fukushima soil same as Chernobyl ‘dead zone,’” The Japan Times, 1 June 2011.

7“Radioactive cesium from Fukushima on tour of Pacific Ocean,” The Daily Telegraph, 15 Sep
2011.
8“TEPCO failed to act on 10% probability assessment for worst-case tsunami,” Mainichi
shimbun, 10 Oct 2011.
9

Say-Peace Project and Satoko Norimatsu, “Protecting Children Against Radiation: Japanese
Citizens Take Radiation Protection into Their Own Hands,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan
Focus, Volume 9, Issue 25, No.1, June 20, 2011.
10

Sato Eisaku, “Nihon wa ima kanshi kokka,” Ryukyu shimpo, 25 Sep 2011.

11

Tonaki Morita, “3/11 igo ni kansuru kosatsu,” Ishihara Masaie Ed., Peace Now Okinawasen
musen no tameno saiteii, Horitsu Bunkasha, 2011., pp. 132-133.
12

Roxana Tiron, “U.S. Defense Department Will Spend as Much as 80 Million on Aid to Japan,”Bloomberg, 29 Mar 2011. “So-called ‘Sympathy Budget’ is only 28% of the total expenses Japanis paying for US bases,” Peace Philosophy Centre, 2 Oct 2010, link.
13“Criteria for ‘cold shutdown’ of Fukushima nuclear plant remain vague and ambiguous,”
Mainichi shimbun, 18 Oct 2011.
14

For example, “Saitama ken kawaguchi shi 10 sai no onnna no ko no nyo kara seshiumu
kenshutu,” Kodomo o mamoro Save Child, link.
15“Kojosen no kino 10 nin ga henka fukushima no kodomo shinshu dai byoin chosa,” Sankei
shimbun, 4 October 2011, link.
16“Taiki chu to kaisui no hoshasen ni tsuiteno futatsu no gimon,” Peace Philosophy Centre,
April 4, 2011, link.
17

Nishioka Nobuyuki, “genshiryoku ‘kaku’ no nai musen shakai o,” Ishihara Masaie Ed., Peace
Now Okinawasen musen no tameno saiteii, Horitsu Bunkasha, 2011, p. 179.
18

Sato, ibid.

19

Inamine Susumu and Miyagi Yasuhiro, “‘Unacceptable and Unendurable,” Local Okinawa
Mayor Says NO to US Marine Base Plan,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol 9. Issue
42 No 2, October 17, 2011.
20“Saihen kofukin keijou sezu 11nendo yosan nago shi ga hoshin,” Ryukyu shimpo, 12 Decemer
2010, link.
21
22

Sakurai Nobukatsu interviewed in NHK News 7, 19 October 2011.

“Zen genpatsu ‘hairo’ no seigan saitaku fukushima ken gikai, ricchi do ken de hatsu,” Tokyo
shimbun, 20 Oct 2011.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima
23

28“Genpatsu yushutsu o keizoku,” Ryukyu shimpo, 19 Oct 2011.

24“Majority of Japanese want to scrap nuclear plants: poll,” The China Post (AFP), 19 Jun 2011,
link.
25

“Genpatsu shin zosetsu hantai 66%,” Ryukyu shimpo, 11 Sep 2011.

26“Yaeyama de hoshasei haikibutsu shobunjo mosaku nihon gennen komon ga chosa,” Ryukyu
shimpo, 25 September 2011, link.
27

Say-Peace Project and Satoko Norimatsu, Protecting Children Against Radiation: Japanese
Citizens Take Radiation Protection into Own Hands,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 20
June 2011.
28

Hase Michiko, “We want genpatsu in Tokyo!” – The new sarcastic edge of Japan’s antinuclear demos,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 11 Oct 2011.
29

See Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus complete coverage and guide sources on the 3.11
earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown, link.
30“Somusho ni yoru ‘intanetto jo no ryugen higo’ o torishimaru yosei ni tsuite,” Peace
Philosophy Centre, link.
31“Seifu ni yoru burogu tsuittaa kanshi shiyo sho,” Peace Philosophy Centre, 15 July 2011, link.

32

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly budgeted 400 million yen (approx. 5 million US
dollars) to invite influential bloggers outside of Japan to visit Japan, starting in November 2011.
“Kaigi broggaa shotai de 4 oku en gaimusho,” Okinawa Times, 11 Oct 2011, link.
33

Richard Falk, “Is This a Global Gandhian Moment?”, Citizen Pilgrimage (Richard Falk’s
blog), 10 Oct 2011.

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity

29“A Problem for all Humanity: Nagasaki Writer Hayashi Kyoko Probes the Dangers of
Nuclear Energy”
Justin Aukema
December 26, 2011
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Justin-Aukema/3670
As explained above, the term “abandoned people” does not refer exclusively to poor
citizens living near power plants. The following two articles compare their plight to two
other groups of “abandoned people.” This article by Justin Aukema examines atomic-bomb
victims, while Christopher Thompson recounts the recent struggles of people affected by
the earthquake and tsunami—but not the nuclear disaster—north of Fukushima
Prefecture.
Aukema explains that renowned author and atomic-bomb survivor HAYASHI Kyoko
is expanding her long-time criticism of nuclear weapons to include nuclear power.
Survivors of the atomic bombs are known as hibakusha; they are “abandoned” because theyoften had to struggle to obtain assistance, or even recognition, from the government for
their radiation-induced suffering. Hayashi sees the dangers of radiation as something that
affects all humanity, regardless of its source. To her and many others, atomic weapons areclearly too destructive ever to use, and because nuclear power plants have the potential tocreate the same kind of destruction, such energy should be avoided as well. Her central
message is that building nuclear power plants in Japan’s periphery is far from an adequate
solution, and is certainly not a moral one.
Aukema provides a literary analysis of Hayashi’s texts, illustrating the ways in which
the atomic bombings and nuclear power are connected in her mind. Her stories depict
various reasons why nuclear power should not be Japan’s primary source of energy. For
example, a 2002 work, Harvest, is eerily prescient of the Fukushima crisis. The main
character in the story is misinformed by higher authorities about the dangers of radiation
following a nuclear accident and has inadequate information to decide what action heshould take. The story warns that when nuclear power plants fail, the government does
not keep Japan’s citizens safe. Hayashi represents the growing number of Japanese whoare calling for the reduction, if not elimination, of dependence on nuclear power. Her 1945
experience in Hiroshima and her long career as an activist give her statements moral
authority.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

30

A Problem for all Humanity: Nagasaki Writer Hayashi Kyoko Probes the Dangers of
Nuclear Energy
Justin Aukema
Recent works have found renowned author Hayashi Kyoko and A-bomb survivor expanding her
criticism of nuclear weapons to include nuclear power. This article looks at her criticisms of thenuclear disasters at Tokaimura in 1999 and Fukushima (ongoing), and her emphasis on thedangers of radiation as one which affects all humanity.
Hayashi Kyoko (1930 - ) was fourteen and working at the Mitsubishi arms factory in Nagasaki –less than a kilometer and a half from the epicenter – when the atomic bomb struck. The
experience would forever change her life and, eventually provide the central theme during herlater career as a writer. Although wishing to sever her ties with what she has called “the worst offates,” Hayashi has also stressed the impact of the bombing on her, writing “there was no way tolive, other than by confronting August 9th.”1 Since the publication of Matsuri no Ba (The Site of
Rituals) in 1975, Hayashi has striven to encourage later generations to think of problems of thelegacy of the bomb as their own.2 One important way in which she has done this, is to highlightthe lingering effects of radiation. For Hayashi, the problem of radiation damage does not end
with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rather, it has consequences that affect all
humanity.
Writers of atomic bomb literature including Hayashi have long focused on the dangers of nuclear
weapons, including the ongoing suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hibakusha. Few havedirectly criticized nuclear power. American propaganda efforts such as the Atoms for Peace
program during the Eisenhower administration were highly successful in winning support for
nuclear power in Japan, and even many hibakusha actively supported its “peaceful” uses.
Because of this, many hibakusha including, until recently, Nippon Hidankyō (the Japan A-Bomb
Victims Association) have been reluctant to speak out concerning disasters at nuclear power
plants and the emergence of new waves of radiation victims.3
While Hayashi was no exception to this, her attention to the lingering dangers of radiation as aproblem that can affect people and the environment for generations to come, is applicable toproblems of nuclear power as well. Furthermore, in more recent works Hayashi has turned her
attention to nuclear power. In linking nuclear power with nuclear weapons she has created a
powerful critique of all forms of atomic energy. Her words in 2011, after the disaster at
Fukushima, that “radiation damage is not just the individual experiences of hibakusha, it’s a
problem for all humanity,” reflect the two new insights in her work – an emphasis on the dangers
of all forms of atomic energy and the realization that we are all now potential hibakusha.4
From Trinity To Trinity (1999 -2000)
While the disaster at the Fukushima TEPCO nuclear power plant in March 2011 put the dangers
of nuclear power in the world spotlight, Japanese nuclear plants had experienced earlier disasters
including the 1999 accident at a JCO nuclear fuel conversion plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki, an
incident which had a large impact on Hayashi. While she was writing From Trinity to Trinity5, amishandled nuclear fuel conversion procedure at a JCO processing plant for nuclear fuel exposed
three workers to deadly amounts of radiation and made more than 100 other workers hibakusha.
Approximately 310,000 residents over a 10 kilometer radius were told to remain in their homes

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity

31

after radioactive particles, as well as neutron and gamma rays, leaked out of the plant. Ultimately
at least 667 people were dangerously exposed to radiation.6 In Trinity Hayashi writes that she
saw the news of this incident on television during her visit to the Trinity Site in New Mexico.
This prompts her to write a letter to her friend Rui,
Just about an hour ago when I returned to my hotel room, I overheard news of the Tokaimura
incident on television. I’m very anxious to know how big the accident was. Tomorrow I departfor Trinity. I can’t seem to relax with all the time I have, so I’m writing this letter to you.7
Tsukui Nobuko, a writer and interpreter who traveled with Hayashi to New Mexico, notes theimpact of the event on Hayashi’s work, writing “of course the terrible amazement that we, in the
midst of a trip to the very origin of the bomb, felt over the accident at the nuclear plant – a
byproduct of nuclear weapons – is dealt
with in Trinity.”8
From Trinity to Trinity, written in 1999
and published in the compilation Nagai
Jikan o Kaketa Ningen no Keiken(Human Experiences Over a Long Time)(2000), is based on Hayashi’s trip to the
Trinity Site where the first atomic bomb
was tested on July 16th, 1945. The
narrator of the story mentions that she
had wanted to visit the site for some timeand, elaborating on her motivations,writes “Trinity is the departure point for
my August 9th. It is also the terminus forme as a hibakusha – from Trinity to
Trinity.”9 In other words, the path of theatomic bomb that affected the rest of
Figure 1: One of the three workers exposed to high-level
Hayashi’s life, started at Trinity. The trip
radiation is carried by stretcher from the JCO plant.
also serves to give a sense of closure to(9.30. 1999)
her constant wish to “cut her ties toAugust 9th.”10 Thus, by coming fullcircle, Hayashi comes face to face with the tragic history which has resided in her for more thanhalf a century.
In the story, the narrator describes a number of places in New Mexico, including The National
Atomic Museum, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and finally the Trinity Site at the White
Sands missile test site. The narrator reflects on American attitudes toward the atomic bombingsand nuclear power, and atomic power’s relationship with nature. The narrative is broken at many
points as she recalls stories from the past, or reflects on things she has read. Much of the story is
written as a letter to Rui, who is described as a younger, female friend.
Hayashi expands her focus in Trinity to include nuclear power in her criticism of nuclear
weapons, and to move beyond the experiences of atomic bomb victims to include victims ofother nuclear disasters. While in the past she often used more literal descriptions, such as glass
shards embedded in a survivor’s body, to describe the lingering effects of radiation, HayashiJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

32

approaches her critique of atomic energy in Trinity more subtly and through a greater use of
linguistic techniques, metaphor and parable.
One example of this occurs in the language with which Hayashi frames nuclear weapons andnuclear power. In Japanese, the word typically used for atomic bomb is genshibakudan (原子爆弾) and for nuclear power genshiryoku (原子力). Eschewing these terms however, in Human
Experiences Over a Long Time, Hayashi often opts for the third term, kaku (核) which implies an“atom” or “nucleus” and is best translated into English as nuclear or atomic energy. In Trinity
when Hayashi stands at Ground Zero of the Trinity Site in New Mexico, she reflects on atomic
energy’s lasting effects and extends the concept of hibakusha to the natural world, including
plants and animals, writing “until I had stood at the Trinity Site, I had thought that the first
victims of nuclear energy (kaku) had been humans. This was not the case though, the firsthibakusha had been right here.” It is not just the nuclear bomb that has the potential to create
hibakusha, but all nuclear energy.11
Additionally, there is the use of the word hibaku. This can be written two ways, 被爆 or 被曝.
The first refers to being bombed, especially by an atomic bomb, and contains the nuance ofreceiving radiation damage. Similarly, hibakusha (被爆者) refers to victims of bombings,
especially the atomic bombings, and is occasionally defined as one who holds certification fromthe government as having been exposed to radiation in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The second
writing, 被曝 is defined as being exposed to radiation and includes all victims of radiation
damage whether of bombing or radiation associated with nuclear power.12 In Human
Experiences Over a Long Time, Hayashi uses this second writing when she talks about internalradiation exposure (naibu hibaku) from inhaling radioactive particles. The issue of internalradiation exposure has been of the greatest concern for Hayashi. Many of her works were written
as victims of the atomic bombs suffering from radiation sickness were attempting to gain
recognition from the government. Ultimately, Hayashi writes, the Japanese government refused
to recognize the link between radiation sickness from internal exposure and the atomic bombs.13
Hayashi’s final example of language in Trinity to emphasize the threat of radiation from nuclear
energy is through the character Rui. The name Rui is written in katakana (ルイ), the Japanesescript used mostly for foreign words or when the author wishes to direct emphasis toward aparticular term. Katakana can also be used when the writer wishes to delineate certain boundaries
or insert ambiguity around a meaning which might otherwise be implied were the word to be
written with Chinese characters. In the case of Rui, it would be apparent to a Japanese reader thatthe sound “rui” could also be expressed by the character 類, the same character used in the word
jinrui (人類), or “humanity.”14 In his introduction to Vol. 6 of The Complete Works of Hayashi
Kyoko, Prof. Kuroko Kazuo of Tsukuba University highlights Hayashi’s use of the character“Rui” as symbolic of the larger themes dealt with in Trinity and Human Experiences Over aLong Time.
The novel depicts the character Rui as a younger friend, however, it is natural to think that theauthor also implies that Rui represents humanity. When the story is read in this way, the link
between Hayashi Kyoko’s visit to the Trinity Site and the critical incident that occurred at the
JCO nuclear processing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki on Sept. 30th, 1999 becomes clear. One
strongly thinks that atomic energy versus human beings and the earth is a larger theme than that

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity

33

dealt with in her previous works, which were based on personal experiences as an A-bomb
victim.15
Read in this way, Hayashi’s message becomes clearer. In the beginning of the story, the narrator
recalls a time when she inquired about Rui’s age. Avoiding the question, however, Rui
responded “I want to be just like you when I grow up.”16 This line could be understood as
humanity’s fascination with atomic energy – a fascination which threatens the danger of
becoming a hibakusha like the narrator or even our own destruction. Later, Rui questions thenarrator’s intent in visiting the Trinity site, asking if she is “an atomic bomb maniac,” astatement reminiscent of criticism that Hayashi has faced throughout her writing career forfocusing so single-mindedly on the atomic bombings.17 Ending both Trinity and her letter to Rui,the narrator says, “the world needs not your tests,” in reference to the atomic bombs. Then in thevery last line, the narrator asks, “what are your thoughts, Rui?”18 The effect of this line is toforce readers to break whatever sense of objectivity might have been felt toward the story and tocontemplate Hayashi’s message as their own problem.
In Human Experiences Over a Long Time Hayashi illustrates the danger of radiation with anincreased sense of urgency, reflective of the magnitude of a problem such as nuclear energy
versus human beings, a danger illustrated in a number of different scenes in Trinity. This everpresent danger is wonderfully illustrated through the metaphor of the intruder. Just after a visit to
the Science Museum in Los Alamos, the narrator relates an “incident” that occurred shortly
before she left Japan. Awakened by a sound during the night, she glimpses the outline of a man
outside the door to her garden. The man walks away, but the narrator is terrified and checks to
see that all of the doors are locked. In the morning, she is unsure of whether she really saw him,
but when she finds something the man had left behind, she is sure. She mentions that, after thisevent, she installed a security system and was more careful to lock the doors. However, she isunable to regain her previous sense of safety and mentions that the incident made her realize her“own loss of the sense of crisis.”
I had been embracing a groundless sense of security, thinking that our daily peace was protected.
On hot summer nights, I would leave the glass door in the hallway open a crack to let the windblow in and sometimes would forget to lock the door. Danger is always within close proximity.
…I don’t want an innocent child that I’ve raised to be touched by violence. When I repeatedly
cautioned thus, Kei said, ‘If we take appropriate measures and there’s still a break in, then that’sthat.’ Yes, yes. But somehow it sounded wrong. Was it alright to be so complacent?19
The metaphor of the attempted break in again reflects Hayashi’s feeling that, by being exposed tothe bomb, a crime had been perpetrated against, not just her, but her children as well, and all who
could be susceptible to the effects of radiation. “There are particles of radiation from the atomic
bombing in my body,” she stated. “That’s not just a problem that ends after the bombings ofHiroshima and Nagasaki, that’s a problem of genes.”20 In addition, Hayashi speaks of society’s
complacency in the face of the dangers of radiation. While some of this is addressed to the false
sense of security that many are lulled into in presuming that they are safe from attack by nuclear
weapons, Hayashi’s incorporation of the Tokaimura incident into the story suggests that thissame complacency can be displayed toward nuclear power as well.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

34

Harvest (2002)
Two years after writing Trinity, Hayashi again returned to the Tōkaimura disaster with Shūkaku
(Harvest) (2002). This short story depicts an elderly farmer and his son who live right next to the
nuclear processing plant. In scenes that eerily anticipate the tragic events later to unfold at
Fukushima, the reader witnesses a nuclear disaster unfolding only meters away through the eyesof the main character. Uninformed about the details of the plant next door to his farm, the main
character – 74 year old Yamada – goes about his day in typical fashion until the faint sound ofsirens within the plant walls begins to sound. Learning about the accident only after watching thenews on television, Yamada is eventually told to evacuate along with the rest of the surroundingarea. However, unwilling to leave his farm right before the harvest, he decides to stay.
Harvest is significant for Hayashi’s writing in that it is one of the first instances in which she
focuses in detail on victims of radiation not from the atomic bomb but from nuclear power
disasters. What is both striking and tragic in the story is the lack of knowledge of the charactersabout nuclear power – so much so that the nature of the accident is almost completely beyond
their comprehension. Coupled with this is the fact that the language used by the characters could
equally be addressing an atomic bomb explosion as another form of nuclear disaster. Here again,
Hayashi breaks through the boundaries between nuclear weapons and nuclear power. “Whatshould we do if it’s a nuclear explosion,” Yamada asks his son in desperation. “A nuclear
explosion,” his son replies incredulously, “you make it sound as if they’re making bombs overthere.”21
Later, however, Yamada’s son displays the same desperation and concern when he attempts toconvince his father to evacuate with him.
Suppose they’re dealing with nuclear fuel over there, then any kind of accident has got to meanthat there’s radiation involved. And if it’s anything like a nuclear explosion, then we’re being
pierced by radiation stronger than an x-ray.22
Yamada and his son’s lack of information about nuclear power is in no small part the product ofthe plant’s failure to educate the surrounding populace of its dangers. Near the beginning of thestory, Yamada reflects on the wall which was erected right next to his field, to block off theplant.
Although he couldn’t see through the wall which blocked one side of the road, it was apparently
a plant which manufactured nuclear fuel. At least that’s the explanation he had been given before
the plant was built. …Since none of his land had been bought up [by the plant] for use though, he
hadn’t been given any other information. All he knew was that, after the wall had been put up,
one part of his potato field had been cut off from sunlight.23
After the disaster, Yamada and his son are in danger. Although they hear sirens inside the plant,
they receive no warning and are forced to get their information from the television news. This,
however, proves to be of little help as. . .each station simply repeated the same information in a calm, orderly fashion. There was noroom for groundless rumors or gossip and no materials with which to compare how things really
were.24

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity

35

Eventually, Yamada chooses to remain in his home and complete the harvest of his sweet
potatoes. After most of the surrounding area has been voluntarily evacuated, news crews begin to
move in right next to his home and scientists come to monitor the level of radiation in his fields.
Here again though, Yamada is given conflicting information about the levels of radiation.
Radioactive particles are detected in 33 different soil samples from the surrounding area, but heis told that the levels are much lower than normally found in nature. Salt – an indicator ofradioactivity – is taken from his house, but the results of this test are never returned to him. One
week after the accident, Yamada and his son harvest the potatoes, unaware of whether the fields
have been contaminated by radiation. Yamada states that he, “didn’t want to ask” if any of the 33
soil samples were taken from his field. Even if it was contaminated, he “couldn’t just leave
potatoes that were ripe to be harvested” and the 30,000 yen (around $285USD in 1999)
compensation being offered “wouldn’t make up for anything.”25 At the end of the story Yamada
is confronted by a succession of reporters, all of whom convey a sense of disbelief that he had
not evacuated. It is this disbelief that strikes a nerve with Yamada, who had never been informedthat he was in danger.
The nuclear disaster that Hayashi depictsin Harvest through the Tokaimura
incident of 1999 takes on new meaning
following the 2011 nuclear meltdown at
the TEPCO-operated nuclear power plantin Fukushima. The dangers of nuclear
power and people’s complacency inassuming that it is safe, as well as
authorities and the media withholding
information, are directly confronted in
From Trinity to Trinity, Harvest andother works in Human Experience Overa Long Time.
Hayashi’s linking of radiation poisoning Figure 2: Officials monitor radiation levels at a radish field,
1km away from the Tokaimura plant (12.2.1999)
associated both with the bomb and with
nuclear power alerts readers to nuclear
dangers. Unfortunately however, as American University History Prof. Peter Kuznick has noted
in discussing the relationship between the atomic bomb and nuclear power, “the public allowed
itself to be convinced that nuclear power was safe and clean. It had forgotten the lessons ofHiroshima and Nagasaki.”26
Hayashi addresses the crisis at Fukushima
Genbaku o Ikite: Sakuhin to Shogai ga Kataru (Living the Bomb: Speaking from a Life andWorks) was published in July 2011 as a booklet by Iwanami Shoten and is written as aninterview between Hayashi and Ferris University professor Shimamura Teru. Reflecting on her
wartime experiences and career as a writer, Hayashi elaborates on the background behind From
Trinity to Trinity, and ties together the dangers of radiation from bombs and nuclear power,
especially in light of the disaster at Fukushima.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

36

Hayashi again confronts nuclear energy as the combined danger of nuclear weapons and nuclear
power through her use of the word kaku. In speaking of her trip to the Trinity site, she reflects on
the problem of radiation for the modern age.
The Ground Zero monument that stands at the Trinity site is the warning sign that humans haveplunged into the nuclear (kaku) age. Damage from radiation isn’t just a special right of victims of
the atomic bombings, but is a problem for all those with an awareness of the dangers of nuclear
energy (kaku).27
Later, she reflects further on how her visit to the Trinity site was intended to bring closure to her
personal journey fighting against nuclear weapons, and to break away from August 9th. However,seeing the damage that nuclear power caused to the animals and environment at the test site, andobserving the lingering effects of radiation, she was led to think of the effects of radiation onhumanity and nature in larger terms than before. This led her to state in Living the Bomb that “asone hibakusha, I clearly came to understand that humans and nuclear energy cannot coexist.”28
Linking her criticism of nuclear energy (kaku) to the March disaster at Fukushima, Hayashi
states:People today think of nuclear energy only as a fuel source. There are still many hibakusha from
August 6th and 9th alive in Japan. Although it comes in different forms, we’re supposed to havelearned what kind of effect atomic energy (kaku) has on humanity. At least politicians andexperts are supposed to understand this. I’m simply astounded that this country still hasn’t
learned from our experiences. Why don’t such intelligent people understand that, no matter what
the situation, atomic energy (kaku) is never beneficial?29
Hayashi also uses both writings of hibaku and refers to all victims of radiation damage as
hibakusha (被曝者) as well. Interviewer Shimamura states that “nuclear power plants are, by
their very nature, a structure that produces hibakusha (被曝者). Even if there are no more
incidents with explosions, in order to continue maintaining the plants, the workers will continue
to be exposed to radiation (被曝).”30
Once again, it is internal exposure (naibu hibaku) that concerns Hayashi. “For me,” she writes,“the issue of the ‘internal’ has been much more important. The ‘internal’ can cause all sorts ofillness.”31 After Fukushima, internal radiation damage became a great concern amongst the
public, and the terms hibaku and hibakusha to refer to all victims of radiation damage came intomuch greater use. In August 2011 Japanese author Oe Kenzaburo quoted Hida Shuntaro, a
Hiroshima hibakusha and doctor also often quoted by Hayashi, urging the government to conduct
research into treatment for “victims of internal radiation damage” (naibu hibakusha) as well as“establish a system to deal with the possibility of new hibakusha (ヒバクシャ).32 Oe took theuniversality of “hibakusha” even further, by writing the word in Japanese katakana script,
without any Chinese characters. This removes the previous linguistic boundary that distinguishedA-bomb victims and victims of other radiation damage.
After Fukushima, Hayashi spoke with renewed urgency, and at times abandoned metaphor to
speak more directly. In a June, 2011 interview with Japan’s leading business newspaper, theNihon Keizai Shinbun, she addressed the connection of nuclear weapons and nuclear power asfollows:

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity

37

Atomic bombs are different from what powers nuclear plants. Yet, at their core, they are thesame nuclear matter. When you carry this line of thought to connect August 9th and Fukushima,
it is apparent that both pose problems of how one thinks about human life.33
The value of human life is fundamental for Hayashi and it runs through all of the works
examined here. As an atomic bomb victim, she has witnessed and shared the history ofhibakusha, from their struggle to gain recognition from the government, to their discrimination insociety and lifelong suffering from radiation. In 2011’s Living the Bomb Hayashi further explainssome of the metaphors used in From Trinity to Trinity and Harvest, tying them to the concept ofthe value of human life, and its relation to the disaster at Fukushima. Through these examples,
we see that some of Hayashi’s most pointed criticisms of nuclear power were made as early as
1999, well before Fukushima.
One of these examples is the metaphor of the Spanish conquistadores in Trinity. The narrator
uses the story to transition between her time just after visiting the National Atomic Museum andjust before traveling by car through the New Mexico countryside. “It’s written in the History ofWorld Exploration” she begins, “that Spaniards began colonizing New Mexico in 1598.” And
she continues,
Santa Fe is interesting in the history of conquest. Any land that people set their eyes on seems tohave an enticing charm before it has ever been trodden… Enticed by the native American legend,
exploration parties passed through Santa Fe as they made their way east and west in search of thecity of treasure and gold. … Most of the explorations ended in failure. The explorers either
suffered from internal divisions or became entangled in local disputes that ended in bloodshed.34
Beneath the surface of this critique of European expansion, these words touch on a more
fundamental issue for Hayashi – the concept of center versus periphery. The nuclear power
plants in Japan, such as those at Tokaimura and at Fukushima are located far from the hub of
empire – Tokyo. When accidents happened, it was not the people of Tokyo who were threatened,but the people who lived near the plants – the farmers, and members of other rural communities.
This is something that Shimamura, in his discussion with Hayashi, elaborates on in Living theBomb where he exposes the harsh reality of the power politics involved in the Japanese nuclear
industry. Speaking first to the origin and connection of the Trinity Site with the European
colonizers, he points out,
The European colonizers chased the Native Americans out one after another and snatched up
increasingly large portions of their land. It was on that land that they conducted the nuclear test.
In other words, it was built upon the plunder and cheap purchase of lives. I think that nuclear
power plants are the same – they are founded upon lives which are looked down upon andcheaply bargained for. Whether in Fukushima or Aomori or Fukui, nuclear power plants arelocated where there is a bounty of nature. In other words, none are located in urban areas orindustrialized areas.35
The issue of discrimination of center against periphery, central to both Trinity and Harvest, is
one on which Hayashi elaborates on in Living the Bomb. Relating a story of a conversation withher friend, a doctor who had worked with hibakusha since the end of the war, Hayashi asks why
the United States would set an 80 kilometer evacuation zone, while the Japanese Government
only set a mandatory 20km evacuation zone around the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima38“It’s a matter of human life,” the doctor explains, “a difference of the extent to which basic
human rights are recognized.”36
Hayashi states that only from one other person – a doctor who had worked with patients of theChernobyl disaster and urged mandatory evacuation 30km around the plant at Fukushima – did
she hear similar words used in the mainstream media. “It was only from this one doctor,”
Hayashi says, “from whom I heard the words ‘human life.’” This leads her to conclude that “inthis country, the weak are discarded.”37
In return for accepting nuclear reactors, struggling rural economies like those in Fukushimareceived subsidies from the central government, and the promise of jobs and prosperity. Like
nuclear power plants, U.S. military bases in Japan are also located in the periphery, with an
overwhelming amount in Okinawa. Vancouver Peace Philosophy Centre director Satoko Oka
Norimatsu has noted that the national government’s positioning of nuclear power plants and U.S.
military bases far from Tokyo is rooted in policies which discriminate “against the periphery toassure the protection of the state and guarantee the energy needs of the metropolis.”38 Norimatsu
cites the use of the word kimin, or “abandoned people,” to describe the plights of the people in
Fukushima and Okinawa.
When Hayashi speaks of discrimination and the value of human life to lament the actions of thegovernment after the disaster at Fukushima, she speaks from a lifetime of living with thedamaging effects of radiation as a hibakusha, and out of concern for future generations.
Recalling the struggles of Nagasaki and Hiroshima hibakusha to gain recognition from thegovernment, she worries about how the long term human effects of radiation from Fukushima
will be dealt with, stating:Amongst my hibakusha friends, many have repeatedly been in and out of the hospital. However,even if they submitted the forms to gain recognition as suffering from radiation sickness, theirclaims were continually rejected on the grounds that there was no connection between the atomic
bomb and their sickness, or that the cause was unclear.39
Recognition based on the often invisible effects of internal radiation damage, the issue that has
been most important for Hayashi, was repeatedly denied by the government. After the disaster at
Fukushima, however, the issue of internal radiation damage (naibu hibaku) was raised publicallyfor the first time. “As soon as I heard these words, I broke into tears,” Hayashi said. “So they had
known about internal radiation damage all along.”40
Through metaphor and language in From Trinity to Trinity, Harvest, and other stories in Human
Experience Over a Long Time, Hayashi directs her lifelong message about the dangers ofradiation and the struggles of hibakusha to encompass atomic power in general. In this way, sheeffectively directs comment and criticism that speaks to contemporary issues of nuclear power—both the atomic bomb and nuclear energy. Hayashi has long sought to shake readers out ofcomplacency over the dangers of atomic energy and, as John Whittier Treat has written in hiscomprehensive study of atomic bomb writers, endeavored to “make the bombing a present-day
problem for a world that only looks as if it is at peace.”41 Drawing on her lifelong experienceswith the atomic bomb, Hayashi seeks to assure that humanity will no longer have to have to facetragedy at the hand of the atom, whether atomic bombs or atomic power.

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity

39

Sources“Criticality accident at Tokai nuclear fuel plant (Japan).” World Information Service on Energy.
14 December 2010.
Hayashi Kyoko. Nagai Jikan o Kaketa Ningen no Keiken (Human Experience Over a Long
Time). Tokyo: Kodansha, 2000.
Hayashi Kyoko. Hayashi Kyoko Zenshū (The Complete Works of Hayashi Kyoko), v.6. Tokyo:
Nihon Tosho Sentā, 2005.
Hayashi Kyoko. Hibaku o Ikite: Sakuhin to Shōgai wo Kataru (Living the Bomb: Speaking froma Life and Works). Transcribed by Shimamura Teru. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2011.
Hayashi Kyoko. “From Trinity to Trinity.” Translated by Kyoko Selden. The Asia-Pacific
Journal, 2008.
Satoko Oka Norimatsu. “Fukushima and Okinawa – the ‘Abandoned People’ and Civic
Empowerment.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 47, No. 3 (21 Nov. 2011)
Shiraki Midori. “Nagasaki Hibakusha ga mita ‘Fukushima’ – Sakka Hayashi Kyoko san(‘Fukushima’ as seen by Nagasaki hibakusha Hayashi Kyoko).” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 22 June
2011.
Treat, John Whittier. Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Tsukui Nobuko. “Genten e no tabi: Hayashi Kyoko sakuhinkō,” Meisei Daigaku Kenkyū Kiyō –Jinbun Gakubu, v. 39. (March, 2003).
Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick. “Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the ‘Peaceful Uses of Nuclear
Power.’” The Asia – Pacific Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 18, No. 1, (2 May, 2011).

ImagesImage 1: Shimizu Shuji and Noguchi Kunikazu. Rinkai Hibaku no Shougeki: Ima aratamete tō
genshiryoku. (Tokyo: Liberta, 2000),13.
Image 2: Rinkai Jiko no Taiken wo Kiroku Suru Kai. Tokaimura Rinkai Jiko no Machi kara:
1999nen 9gatsu 30nichi Jiko Taiken no Shōgen. (Tokyo: Morimoto, 2001), 51.

Justin Aukema is a graduate student at Sophia University in Tokyo. His current research is
focused on the Japan air raids, as well as anti-war authors and films in Japan. Previous work
has included a study of the Smithsonian – Enola Gay Controversy titled The Smithsonian –Enola Gay Controversy: Including Wisconsin Perspectives on the Atomic Bombings.
For further information on and works by Hayashi Kyoko in English, please see Kyoko Selden’s
excellent translations.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

40

Notes
1

Hayashi Kyoko, Hayashi Kyoko Zenshū, (The Complete Works of Hayashi Kyoko) Vol.6.
(Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 2005), 9, 64.
2

Hibakusha (被爆者) refers to a person who was exposed to the atomic bombing and suffersfrom radiation poisoning and other effects. More on the uses of the word will be discussed later.
3

Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick. “Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the ‘Peaceful Uses of Nuclear
Power.’” The Asia – Pacific Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 18, No. 1, (2 May, 2011)
4

Hayashi Kyoko. Hibaku o Ikite: Sakuhin to Shōgai o Kataru. (Living the Bomb: Speaking froma Life and Works) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2011), 26.
5“From Trinity to Trinity” (Torinitī kara Torinitī e) is the second of the two novellas in Human
Experiences Over a Long Time (Nagai jikan wo kaketa ningen no keiken, 2000, Noma Literary
Prize). Translation by Kyoko Selden, The Asia-Pacific Journal, link.
6

Figures were taken from Hayashi, Living the Bomb, 51 and can also be found in “Criticality
accident at Tokai nuclear fuel plant (Japan).” World Information Service on Energy. 14
December 2010, link. The Tokaimura incident occurred on September 30th, 1999. JCO is a
subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining. For more in depth analysis see, for example, Nanasawa
Kiyoshi. Tokaimura Rinkaijiko e no Michi (The Road to the Tokaimura Criticality Accident).
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2005).
7

Hayashi Kyoko. Human Experiences Over a Long Time. (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2000), 156.

8

Tsukui Nobuko. “Genten e no tabi: Hayashi Kyoko sakuhinkō,” (Journey to the Source: A
Look at one of Hayashi Kyoko’s works). Meisei Daigaku Kenkyū Kiyō – Jinbun Gakubu, v. 39.
(March, 2003), 61.
9Hayashi Kyoko. Human Experiences Over a Long Time. 136.

10

Ibid., 134.

11

Hayashi, Human Experiences Over a Long Time, 171.

12

Definitions based on a survey of five dictionaries: Nihongo Daijiten, Vol. 2. Shogakukan,(1972, 2001); Nihongo Daijiten, Vol. 2. Kodansha (1995); Gakken Kokugo Daijiten.
Gakushūkenkyūsha, (1998); Nihongo Daijiten, Seisen ban. Shogakukan, (2006); Kojien.
Iwanami Shoten, (1998). The two writings of hibaku are often confused, and some dictionaries
list them under the same heading.
13

Hayashi, Human Experiences Over a Long Time, 16-17 as well as Hayashi, Living the Bomb,
43-44.
14

Other critics who have discussed this include Kuroko Kazuo in Hayashi Kyoko, The Complete
Works of Hayashi Kyoko v.6, 494 and Tsukui Nobuko “Genten he no Tabi: Hayashi Kyoko
Sakuhinkou,” 63 – 64.
15

Hayashi, The Complete Works of Hayashi Kyoko, Vol. .6. (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 2005),
494.

Aukema: A Problem for all Humanity
16

41

Hayashi, Human Experiences Over a Long Time, 129.

17

Ibid., 133. For more criticism of Hayashi see Nakagami Kenji and other critics in John
Whittier Treat, Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995), 107 – 120 as well as Hayashi, Living the Bomb, 24 – 27.
18

Hayashi, Human Experiences Over a Long Time, 179.

19

Ibid., 161.

20

Hayashi, Living the Bomb, 28.

21

Hayashi, The Complete Works of Hayashi Kyoko, v.6, 266-267.

22

Ibid., 267.

23

Ibid., 265.

24

Ibid., 268-69.

25

Ibid., 274-75

26

Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick. “Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the ‘Peaceful Uses of Nuclear
Power.’”
27

Hayashi, Living the Bomb, 32.

28

Ibid., 41.

29

Ibid., 42.

30

Ibid., 45

31

Ibid., 28

33

Shiraki Midori. “Nagasaki Hibakusha ga mita ‘Fukushima’ – Sakka Hayashi Kyoko san(‘Fukushima’ as seen by Nagasaki hibakusha Hayashi Kyoko).” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 22 June
2011.
34

Hayashi, Human Experience Over a Long Time, 146 – 148.

35

Hayashi, Living the Bomb, 45.

36

Ibid., 42.

37

Ibid., 43.

38

Satoko Oka Norimatsu. “Fukushima and Okinawa – the ‘Abandoned People’ and Civic
Empowerment.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 47, No. 3 (21 Nov. 2011)
39

Ibid., 43.

40

Ibid., 43

41

Treat, John Whittier. Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 321.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

42“Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster: Untold Stories From the Sanriku Coast”
Christopher S. Thompson
March 5, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Christopher-Thompson/3706
This article strives to give a voice to survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake
who suffered from the tsunami but not the nuclear disaster; their invisibility makes thecase that these survivors are a separate group of Japan’s “abandoned people.” They havebeen poorly represented in discussions on Japan’s future energy policy; Thompson uses
individual accounts to explain the residents’ “short and long-term needs, the full social,
cultural, and economic impact of the tsunami disaster, and the future prospects of theregion.”In September 2011, Christopher Thompson made a volunteer trip to Northeast
Japan, learning firsthand the needs and opinions of these “abandoned people.” Thompson
encountered the complaint that smaller communities are ignored by the government andinternational aid groups. Citizens in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures believe that while
Fukushima’s citizens are receiving aid they deserve and need, people in the northern
regions are “left to fend for themselves.” Thompson’s own experiences suggest that theircomplaint is justified; when he visited the area six months after the disaster, many coastal
communities had not yet cleaned up the mountains of refuse left by the tsunami. One year
after the disaster, when Thompson’s article was published, the situation still had notchanged.
In addition, locals are not consulted about “the planning and implementation of
their own recovery efforts.” Many major volunteer organizations, headquarteredelsewhere, do not solicit local opinions about what work needs to be done, instead trying toorganize all recovery efforts remotely. Therefore, many volunteers end up doing work thatis not essential. To remedy this problem, local coordinators of the volunteers often ask
volunteers to change their activities, even though such switching of tasks is technicallyagainst the rules of most volunteer organizations. Thompson was told that his whole groupwould scrub out a school, but when he arrived, the local volunteer coordinator asked half of
his group to clean up a river instead.
A final common theme among the locals was a desire to return to normalcy: thismeans not only clearing away the earthquake and tsunami damage, but also continuing
activities such as celebrating annual festivals, which provide a welcome distraction fromthe reconstruction work and a comforting link to the past. Thompson argues for threechanges that would be beneficial for Northeast Japan’s “abandoned people.” First, theyneed more aid than they are receiving. Next, they want more independent authority over
the activities of volunteers. Finally, they want their choices to be respected. Unfortunately,Thompson concludes, even these simple desires may not be met, given the misunderstanding, disrespect, and discrimination that caused the authors gathered here to conclude
that these rural citizens have also become “abandoned people.”Thompson: Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster

43

Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster: Untold Stories From the Sanriku Coast
Christopher S. Thompson
Introduction
On the Sanriku coast of Tōhoku (Northeast) Japan, almost one year after the Great East Japan
Earthquake on March 11th, 2011, as tsunami recovery efforts shift from local, short term relief
initiatives to long-term regional revitalization strategies, an accurate understanding of how
affected residents perceive the disaster and are responding to it is crucial for implementing
solutions to existing hardships and those to come. However, local perspectives on the tsunami
disaster and relief-related issues, particularly from the dozens of small and medium-sized coastal
municipalities in Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi prefectures (collectively probably the single
largest block of tsunami survivors), are still greatly underrepresented in the ongoing discussion
about tsunami recovery (Ito and Mifune 2011: 52-90; Takahashi 2011: 110-122). Without thislocal perspective, our understanding of coastal survivors’ current lives, their short and long-term
needs, the full social, cultural, and economic impact of the tsunami disaster, and the future
prospects of the region are woefully incomplete.
Built on a foundation of long-term fieldwork in Iwate and ethnographic insights gleaned during
participation in a disaster relief trip to the prefecture in late September of 2011, this accountprovides access to the voices of a small group of Iwate coastal locals who are among those whohave typically gone unrepresented in tsunami-related news stories, policy making, and research.
Bus Trip To Otsuchi
On the morning of September 25th, 2011 at approximately 9 a.m., I sat in a fold-out jump seat in
the front row aisle of a fully loaded 50 passenger tour bus nearing the Port of Kamaishi on the
Sanriku coast in Iwate reviewing the day’s plan with Kishida Kachō1 a top administrator at
Iwate Prefectural University (IPU), who was kindly acting as our guide for the day. On the bus
were 26 students and several staff members from IPU and 16 students and faculty from myinstitution, Ohio University (OU). This was our first fieldtrip together.
Nobody really knew what to expect. Ten members of our OU group were undergraduates basedin Japan for the semester in study abroad programs at OU’s partner institutions in Nagoya andTokyo. I, their program director, had brought these students with representatives visiting Japan
from our Dean’s Office to Iwate for this three-day holiday weekend to be “tsunami volunteers.”
We had just met our IPU friends face-to-face for the first time the previous day, but we shared acommon objective that had been discussed often over e-mail and Skype during the last several
months: while participating in this disaster relief trip, to explore possibilities for a joint service
learning project that could more effectively mobilize the students, faculty, and administratorsfrom both of our institutions to listen and react to the needs of local tsunami survivors on theirown terms. With this ambitious goal in mind, together, we were about to embark on our firsttsunami “fukko shien,” (recovery support) experience.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima
We were headed to the town of Otsuchichō, North of Kamaishi. Looking out thebus window, damage from the tsunami
on 3.11 was still apparent everywhere.
As we turned left off of the Kamaishi
Highway (Route 283) onto Coastal Route45 at the Matsubara intersection to headNorth to Otsuchi, we began to see live,
the shocking after scenes of decimationeach of us had witnessed with the rest of
the world on TV or via video replay fordays afterward.

44

Kamaishi, before and after March 11, 2011

Buildings reduced to rubble, yet to be cleared. Hundreds of wrecked cars piled three stories
high, awaiting removal. The first and second floors of three and four-story buildings in the
harbor district gutted to the core by rushing seawater that was reportedly 9 meters high at thislocation (Asahi Shimbun 2011a: 74). We even saw the fishing boats like those in the news - one
half buried in beach sand, another still resting on the coastal Yamada Line train station
platform, and a third crushing the roof of a small house.
Local Opinions On Disaster Relief
One of the many locally based Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) leading the tsunami disaster
relief effort in Iwate is Ginga Net, housed within the campus of IPU, located two bus hours
inland in Takizawa-mura, Northwestern Iwate, near Morioka, the prefectural capital. It was
through Ginga Net and IPU, and in particular thanks to a connection with Fujino sensei, aprofessor in the Welfare Department at IPU (which operates Ginga Net), that our OU group wasable to organize this trip. Through Fujino sensei, I had also arranged for my OU group to participate in several planned activities in Otsuchi-chō with IPU students, first at a kindergarten, thennearby at the local junior high to help restore the facility.
As I worked from the U.S. to coordinate this project in April of 2011, I quickly realized that amajority of those in Iwate organizing relief efforts - civil servants, NPO staff members,
volunteers from outside and well meaning Iwate citizens - shared a similar view. They believedthat while the high profile disaster sites to the South (places such as Minami Sanriku [Miyagi]
Onagwa-chō [Miyagi], and Sendai [Miyagi] continued, deservedly, to receive international attention and regular and predictable on-the-ground support for relief efforts there, many of thesmaller coastal communities the size of Otsuchi-chō (population 15,277 [Otsuchi-chō 2011]) andsmaller on the Sanriku Coast North of Kamaishi (towns like Yamada, Miyako, Tanohata, andKuji) have been left to fend for themselves. During the day in Otsuchi-chō, I encountered plentyof anecdotal evidence to justify this opinion.
Otsuchi-chō
The bus pulled into Otsuchi-chō just before 10 a.m. By the time we arrived at the Volunteer
Station just off of Route 45 onto Route 280 in the Kamichō district, all aboard our bus weresilent - thoroughly shell shocked by the view. We parked on the street just past a public bus stop.
To our West (inland) was a wooded area where a five-story elementary school had burned down
after its lower floors had been stripped by waves of everything but the columns holding up theThompson: Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster45

upper floors, which at this location had been 8.5 meters high. Looking East (toward the sea), wewere at the edge of what had been an expansive ocean-side residential neighborhood (maybe
100 residences) on what looked to be a coastal plain adjacent to Otsuchi Harbor. However, no
houses were left. All that remained were empty water-saturated lots and slabs of concrete andrectangular remnants of block, marking the foundations of what was once there.
Everyone waited on the bus while Kishida Kachō, Fujino sensei, and two other IPU staff
members took me and another OU colleague to check in at the Kamichō Volunteer Station. This
turned out to be a prefabricated building built in an empty lot about a ten-minute hike throughthe woods up a hill into another residential area, where all the houses were in perfect order. It
was quite a contrast to the area we had viewed on the bus. The administrator, a woman from
Morioka, explained to us that the station had been built in the hills so that in the event of anotherlarge earthquake or tsunami, Otsuchi wouldn’t lose its disaster relief hub.
We signed in as a joint work team from IPU and OU for our volunteer assignment, but it wasnecessary to change plans. Instead of all of us going to the kindergarten and school to clean up,
as was the original plan, we were asked to split up into two groups. “This is what the hamlet
coordinator in Sakuragi-chō (where the kindergarten is located) wants you to do,” explained theadministrator. “We don’t have much oversight and local opinion is not often solicited so we areforced to make adjustments like this locally,” she added. Wanting to be flexible and to adapt tolocal needs, we quickly agreed to the change. The administrator seemed relieved.
As we left the prefab, the administrator handed me a packet of registration stickers that eachmember in our group was supposed to wear on an outer garment in approximately the sameplace. “We need to keep track of who is official,” she said, then reminded that if Otsuchi-chō
could get enough participants together, an Aki Matsuri (Fall Festival) procession was planned
for the afternoon. “Whether you are at the kindergarten or at the school cleanup, you might beasked to drop everything and participate. Will you be able to agree to that?”“No problem,” I replied, wondering why she was trying so hard to gauge our willingness to beflexible. Then Kishida Kachō explained:
This district has had bad experiences with relief volunteers before. Some volunteers like to comeonly to help with what they planned to help with. Really, what these locals need more thananything are people to share their pain and who will help give them a sense of normalcy. To
outsiders, the matsuri is an exotic attraction. To locals, it symbolizes normalcy, as this is what
we do every year in late September. Not celebrating the fall festival would be like not having
Christmas! (Kishida 2011)
Yoiko Kindergarten
I led the kindergarten group. My first impression of Yoiko Kindergarten2 was that it was
immaculate – untouched by the tsunami. It was located in a residential neighborhood about 10
minutes by car from Kamichō in a district, further inland to the West. The district was protectedfrom the harbor by a retaining wall, so all the residences looked to be in pretty good shape. Until
seen up close. Examined carefully, still visible were watermarks on the outside of the houses, justunder the rooflines. Cracks in walls, uneven ground, broken roofs, and crooked foundations
were also apparent. However, the log cabin-style kindergarten building looked almost brandnew, except for the water mark stains they couldn’t remove from high on the inside walls. We

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

46

later learned that this was the first building the neighborhood association had decided tocollectively repair because Sakuragi-chō was a working-class borough with many young nuclear
families whose natal households were related to the fisheries, which are located closer to theharbor in the Kamichō area. To participate fully in local relief and reconstruction efforts, theyoung parents needed a safe place to leave preschool children.
For the first 45 minutes after our arrival, we danced with the 25 children, 2-6 years of age. Then,
we played games with them. Finally, we read them stories in English, a tradition started by the
Enchō sensei (director) to internationalize their curriculum, and to stimulate young minds aspart of the postwar Montessori tradition in which she had been trained. At her request, webrought with us a suitcase full of English language storybooks to replace the collection that had
been washed away. Since everything seemed so normal, we wondered for the first hour-and-ahalf why this kindergarten had been chosen by Fujino sensei for us to visit. But as soon as thefive teachers put the kids down for their afternoon naps, we learned from the 78 year-old
director the rest of the story. Not all was as it appeared.
I was born in the year of the last great tsunami here, caused by the Showa Sanriku Earthquake on
March 3rd, 1933. Maybe that's why I felt so strongly, unlike some others on our street, that weneeded to get all of the children and teachers to higher ground on the hill behind our kindergarten
when we heard on the radio that the tsunami was coming - even though we didn't hear any sirens.
After all, I am a product of tsunami tendenko.3 My biggest regret about that day is in notconvincing a grandparent who arrived here right at that moment to pick up her granddaughter tostay with us instead of going home to get her daughter and husband before finding higher
ground. She drove down our street, up over the retaining wall, and turned the corner toward theharbor. Up on the hill, moments later, we watched as the tsunami formed in the distance androared toward us over the roads on which she had just passed, crushing everything up to thesecond floor of everything in its path. I still wake up at night thinking about it.
Some volunteer visitors often ask us why we stay here in town instead of moving further inland
or to some other city. These are good questions. But, the answers are simple. We don’t movefurther inland because it’s too expensive. We don’t move away because this is our home. There
have been tsunami here before. In fact, three others before this one since 1896.4 And one mightcome again. If we left the area just because we were scared, then we would lose out. Lose out on
a wonderful life by the sea, with the people (family and friends) who are near and dear to us. Partof our heritage is finding a way to survive these disasters, which are always a possibility here.
But we can’t recover alone. We need your help. Thank you for coming today. You made thechildren happy. This makes my teachers and me happy, and gives us courage to go on. We’dlove to see you again. Can you stay for the matsuri? We rarely see our relief visitors more thanonce. Please come back, if you can. (Tsukamoto 2011).
In conversations with the kindergarten staff during our visit, we also learned that many of thechildren we had interacted with had lost a sibling, parents, other relatives, or friends in thetsunami. Most of them were still suffering symptoms of post-traumatic shock. The director alsomentioned that several of the children had developed abnormal attachments to their teachers,
and were having trouble going home at the end of their day. This is how we met Fujino sensei,
she said. Through her job at IPU, she is helping us find the help we need.

Thompson: Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster47

Our final activity at the kindergarten was
sharing lunch with the teachers. We all sataround a table and got to know each other. I
noticed that not everyone took an obentō (boxlunch). “Why?” I asked one of the youngteachers who wasn’t eating. “Those of us noteating are fasting for lunch to honor relatives welost,” she said. The lunch contains saba
(mackerel). In March, we all lost family members
who worked in the local saba fisheries.”
School Clean-up/ River Clean-up:
A mural that depicts the poem "Ame ni mo
Makezu" and fairy tale "Ginga-Tetsudo no Yoru"(Night on the galactic railroad), both by Kenji
Miyazawa, on a wall at Okawa Elementary School
in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture(Photo by Shinichi Iizuka)

After lunch, our kindergarten group joined theothers at Otsuchi Junior High School, where therest of our OU-IPU group were not cleaning up
the school, but the river next to it instead. The
stream was about 6-8 meters wide, and ran downfrom a wooded hillside, adjacent to the school.
According to members of the neighborhood association who were working with the group, thisjob was the local priority, not the school clean-up. So the larger volunteer group from Tokyo wewere scheduled to work with, intent on cleaning the school or some other facility, left for anotherproject. But two IPU students, whose relatives live in Otsuchi, asked Kishida Kachō if our group
could stay. They knew the local neighborhood association had experienced a lot of difficulty inattracting any volunteer groups to this river project until Matsubara-san from an ecologicalcleanup company in Nagano (central Japan) had agreed to take on the project. The reps told us
he is originally from Namiita Kaigan just North of Otsuchi, so could relate to the importance ofsalmon in Otsuchi and to this project for locals. This particular week he had brought a highschool group with him from Nagano to work in the stream. He was more than happy for ourgreen-shirted volunteers to join his team.
As those of us from the kindergarten joined the effort, everyone pointed out the dozens of salmon,
swimming up the stream through the debris to spawn! The purpose of this job was to clean thestream so the salmon could lay their eggs successfully and return the next year. Cleaning
involved the removal of the top layer of oily sludge from the riverbed by shovel, carting it bywheelbarrow to a location where it would be put into plastic bags to be discarded. The debris
had to be taken out and thrown away as well. By 3 p.m., most of the work was finished. It wasthen time for the closing meeting, led by Matsubara-san. As everyone gathered around him, hebegan to speak.
I hope you all learned something today about biology and about compassion for life. It is
important to understand what different forms of life need to survive whether it be fish or animals
or humans. I believe that if we could understand this better there would be fewer conflicts in theworld such as wars, and we could make the earth a better place for both humans and animals. I
am sorry that this region experienced a tsunami, but this devastating event didn’t just hurt thepeople, it hurt the wildlife too. I hope you will remember from now on that where there arepeople, there is wildlife and both are important. I had a good time working with you today, I

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

48

hope you enjoyed yourselves too! I will be back to Otsuchi next week to work on another ecoproject, so please join me if you can! (Matsudaira 2011).
At the conclusion of the talk, everyone clapped, as much for Matsubara-san as for all theparticipants. Then the local neighborhood association representative thanked everyone forcoming, and working so hard. “As you know,” the representative said, “Cleaning the stream was
our priority in this neighborhood today, not working on the school. Thank you for helping us
achieve our goal.” Before saying goodbye, he invited any of us who could to stop by Kozuchi
Jinja (Shrine) on Route 280 near the former Otsuchi Elementary School to enjoy the matsuri inprogress on the way home, adding that he and the other association representatives were headed
there next for a long awaited folk performance ritual (dentō geinō gishiki). We were invited tojoin them there if we had time. Unfortunately, our group by now was in a little bit of a hurry, so
politely bid farewell to everyone, then boarded our bus for the two-hour trip up the coastal
mountain pass to Hanamaki, where we were scheduled to spend the night.
Departing Otsuchi-chō
It took a moment for me to make the connection, but Otsuchi Elementary was the school acrossthe street from the bus stop where we had begun the day. As we passed Otsuchi Elementary, I
could see Kozuchi Jinja to the left of the school building built quite a way back up into thehillside. As I squinted to try to see the structure as we passed by, Hasegawa sensei, another IPU
professor on the trip, who I had happened to sit next to, said, “It was built far enough up on thehill so that the tsunami didn’t touch it,” as if he knew what I was thinking. I hadn’t even noticed
the shrine earlier that morning, but now the entire compound was lit up with colorful lights, andthere were many, many food stalls set up. Flute and drum music could be heard faintly outside,even from inside the bus, and a large crowd was beginning to gather. “Next time, you definitely
must go, sensei,” he told me, judging from the look on my face how badly I wished we could
stop.
“I’d like to,” I said. And not wanting to waste the opportunity, decided to ask Hasegawa sensei,
a history professor, if he knew anything about the folk performance ritual alluded to earlier by
the neighborhood association representative. Knowing of my interest in Iwate folk culture, hethen proceeded to give me quite a detailed explanation:
Within the local hamlet culture of the Iwate coast, there is a traditional folk performance(minzoku geinō) called Mawari Kagura, in which the area’s Shinto shamanic dance troupes visit
specially selected kominkan (citizens halls) and minka (traditional [thatched roof] farm houses)
along the coast during the early months of a new year, to perform special rites that bless local
residents, protect them from misfortune, and help them pray for bountiful harvests both on land
and at sea. Kuromori Kagura and Unotori Kagura from Miyako are the most famous. Other more
local troupes also exist.
According to my relatives on the coast, since the tsunami on 3.11, special performances of
Mawari Kagura have been commissioned in many coastal communities to help the inhabitants
pray for healing and to console the spirits of the dead. Other folk traditions that contain prayer
rituals have experienced a similar resurgence as well. This is how Iwate-jin (Iwate residents bornand raised in the prefecture) traditionally responded to large-scale tragedy of all types. They lookto the indigenous folk expressions of their ancestors for comfort and the strength to move on.
Then they take this wisdom from the past and apply it to the present and pray for the future. For

Thompson: Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster49

anyone interested in how the communities on the Sanriku coast will deal with the tsunami
disaster, I recommend paying careful attention to the way expressions of traditional culture that
may have faded away in recent years begin to reappear and become reintegrated back into daily
life within these coastal communities. (Hasegawa 2011)
Final Thoughts
This was only one day spent on the Sanriku coast. Nevertheless, by interacting with the residentsof Kamichō and Sakuragi-chō in the town of Otsuchi, several patterns useful for beginning tounderstand local, small town coastal perspectives on the tsunami disaster and its aftermath began
to emerge. First, both relief workers familiar with the small towns on Iwate’s Sanriku coast andthe local residents we encountered in Otsuchi perceived that support efforts have been slower toreach this area and less refined than in other high profile parts of the disaster zone. Based on myobservations in Otsuchi, there seemed to be some truth to this critique. Second, local residents
both at the kindergarten and the stream cleanup demonstrated a strong desire to be active in theplanning and implementation of their own recovery efforts, yet don’t seem to be adequately
consulted. A third pattern that emerged is that local residents we met in these two districts also
sensed that local priorities are not clearly understood or valued by outsiders who come to help.
This is why partnering with relief workers and volunteers familiar with (or at least sensitive to)small town coastal life (such as the IPU faculty, staff, and students, and Matsudaira-san) is so
crucial in the long-term recovery effort, because they can advocate for local needs and help therest of us to tune into local priorities. In this vein, relief volunteers might also consider making
longer term commitments to the communities they work in so they can build in return visits,
another local wish that seemed often to go unfulfilled.
Finally, Hasegawa sensei gives us some good advice about what is important to coastal locals
when dealing with the tsunami or any major human disaster. In rural communities both in inlandand coastal Japan, solidarity, unity, and trust among its members has historically been maintained in good times and in bad through collective participation in the rituals and festivities
associated with a local guardian deity. What the locals residents we met in Otsuchi wanted mostwas not to be given a new future or a one-size-fits-all solution to the tsunami related problems
they faced, but outside input to help them re-imagine (through a long-term relationship built on
participation in their traditional culture) a way in which their local wisdom from the past can be
combined with good ideas from the present and applied going forward for use over the long haul.
As Hasegawa sensei said to me later that night as we soaked in an onsen in Hanamaki, “This is
the Iwate-way, the Tōhoku-way, and perhaps the only way we know how to build a future, one
day at a time.” (Hasegawa 2011)
The next day, on the Shinkansen ride Southwest to Tokyo, we knew what we had to do. We would
have to find a way to get back to Iwate. In order to make the kind of difference most meaningful
and long lasting to both Otsuchi residents and to ourselves, we will have to participate inbuilding their future, with our IPU friends, one visit at a time.5
See the video Curtains of Love for Otsuchi.
Christopher S. Thompson is Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Culture and Chairof the Department of Linguistics at Ohio University. He is co-editor of Wearing Cultural Styles
In Japan: Concepts of Tradition and Modernity in Practice and numerous articles on Tōhoku
culture and traditions.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

50

Notes
1

Kishida is a Japanese surname. Kachô is an administrative job title, which means, division
chief. In this text, all Japanese surnames are pseudonyms and titles are disguised in order toprotect the individual and collective privacy of everyone cited.
2

Yoiko Kindergarten is a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the institution.

3

Tsunami Tendenko is a Tōhoku folk phrase that represents local wisdom pertaining to tsunamithat evolved in the Sanriku coastal communities after the Show Sanriku Earthquake in 1933.
Tsunami tendenko is an abbreviation of a concept that suggests, “When a tsunami is coming,
don't try to look for your relatives. Don't try to help the elderly, your grandparents or yourparents. Don't try to call your wife or your husband. Don't think about your children or yourgrandchildren” (Corkill 2011). It is best for the family, for the neighborhood, for the school, andthe community, to escape to higher ground (even if by yourself) as soon as possible no matter
what when a tsunami is thought to be coming, in order to cut down on the loss of life. In thetsunami that resulted from the 1933 and 1960 quakes that led up to the latest on March 11, 2011,
many lives were lost unnecessarily by individuals who went looking for or waited for others they
were with instead of escaping alone when the tsunami was known to be coming (Yamashita2008).
4

Three tsunami have hit Otsuchi since the late 19th century. They were produced by the Meiji
Sanriku Earthquake in 1896, the Showa Sanriku Earthquake in 1933, and the Chile Earthquake in
1960. A fourth tsunami, larger than any of these, is thought to have struck the Iwate coast in theyear 869 following an earthquake estimated to be a magnitude 8.6 (Mainichi Shimbun 2011)5

For further information about the OU – IPU Tsunami Relief Initiative, see Appendix.

Bibliography
Asahi Shimbun Publishing, 2011a. Higashi Nihon Daisinsai: All Media Photos from 3.11 – 4/11.
Asahi Shimbun Publishing: Tokyo. pg. 74.
Corkill, Eden. 2011. Fumio Yamashita: May His Epitaph Be Tendenko. Japan Times On-line,
December 18th, 2011.
Fujino M. (Pseudonym) Interview in Otsuchi-chō. 25 September 2011. Iwate, Japan.
Hasegawa J. (Pseudonym) Interview in Otsuchi-chō. 25 September 2011. Iwate, Japan.
Ito, Shigeru and Mifune Yasumichi. 2011. Higashi Nihon Daishinsai kara no Fukkou Oboegaki(The Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery Memoir). Manraisha: Tokyo.
Kishida M. (Pseudonym) Interview in Otsuchi-chō. 25 September 2011. Iwate, Japan.
Matsudaira H. (Pseudonym) Interview in Otsuchi-chō. 25 September 2011. Iwate, Japan.
Otsuchi-chô 2011: Population of Otsuchi: January 25, 2011, link.
Tsukamoto Y. (Pseudonym) Interview in Otsuchi-chō. 25 September 2011. Iwate, Japan.
Yamashita, F. 2008. Tsunami Tendenko: Kindai Nihon no Tsunami-shi (History of Modern
Tsunami). Shin Nihon Suppansha. Tokyo.

Thompson: Local Perspectives On the Tsunami Disaster
Appendix
Link 1. OU Media story on this tsunami relief trip published September 21st, 2011.
Link 2. OU Senior Brandon Donor’s original video about this tsunami relief trip made on
September 27th, 2011.
Link 3. IUP Information Page report on the OU – IUP joint Tsunami Relief Project.

51

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

52“Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima”
Gayle Greene
January 2, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gayle-Greene/3672
Greene’s article explores more deeply the health dangers facing people exposed tolong-term low dosages of radiation, as is inevitable for those near the Fukushima plant. An
English professor, Greene developed interested in the health effects of low-level radiation
when she authored a biography of the late epidemiologist Alice Stewart, who pioneered
research in that field. Greene contends that the global media is downplaying these dangers,
and she presents alternate studies that show that exposure to radiation following theChernobyl disaster caused many medical problems. These extend beyond cancer; every
human body system is harmed. She argues the pro-nuclear media in Japan is reluctant toconnect Fukushima to Chernobyl because doing so would dampen enthusiasm for building
new nuclear plants. The misinformation will exacerbate the dangers for Fukushimaresidents who may follow their government’s lead and conclude that it is medically safe tostay there. Most at risk are fetuses and children, on whom the effects of radiation are much
more severe.
One problem is the shortage of research on low-level radiation. Greene argues thatthe global media is too reliant on studies of radiation from Hiroshima, such as those
conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF). The RERF studies foundlittle danger from being exposed to low levels of radiation. Greene is skeptical of thesereports because later studies of radiation in other settings do suggest dangers from lowlevel exposure. Further, the Hiroshima exposure was a one-time, high-dosage blast ofradiation, and so the results may not even be comparable. While there are problems withall of these studies, Greene argues that the Japanese government and media is ignoring theabundance of newer research. Studies of the Chernobyl disaster are much more relevant topredicting the results of Fukushima, she contends.
The article draws heavily upon the research of Alice Stewart, who studied therelationship between exposure to radiation and childhood cancer; her findings in the 1940s
and 1950s clashed with the then-accepted idea that there were no long-term healthimpacts from exposure to low levels of radiation. Like Norimatsu, Greene explores theprobability that the media, both in Japan and globally, and the Japanese government havespread misinformation about not only the levels of radiation from Fukushima, but also therisk of health damage from exposure to a given level. Greene shows that there is a historyof downplaying the health damage following nuclear disasters, and the resulting “safety
myth” made Japan (and the rest of the world) unprepared for another nuclear disaster,even after Chernobyl.

Greene: Science with a Skew

53

Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima
Gayle Greene
It is one of the marvels of our time that the nuclear industry managed to resurrect itself from its
ruins at the end of the last century, when it crumbled under its costs, inefficiencies, and megaaccidents. Chernobyl released hundreds of times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
bombs combined, contaminating more than 40% of Europe and the entire Northern Hemisphere.1
But along came the nuclear lobby to breathe new life into the industry, passing off as “clean” thisenergy source that polluted half the globe. The “fresh look at nuclear”—in the words of a New
York Times makeover piece (May 13, 2006)2—paved the way to a “nuclear Renaissance” in the
United States that Fukushima has by no means brought to a halt.
That mainstream media have been powerful advocates for nuclear power comes as no surprise.
“The media are saturated with a skilled, intensive, and effective advocacy campaign by the
nuclear industry, resulting in disinformation” and “wholly counterfactual accounts…widelybelieved by otherwise sensible people,” states the 2010-2011 World Nuclear Industry Status
Report by Worldwatch Institute.3 What is less well understood is the nature of the “evidence”
that gives the nuclear industry its mandate, Cold War science which, with its reassurances about
low-dose radiation risk, is being used to quiet alarms about Fukushima and to stonewall new
evidence that would call a halt to the industry.
Consider these damage control pieces from major media:• The “miniscule quantities” of radiation in the radioactive plume spreading across the U.S. pose“no health hazard,” assures the Department of Energy (William Broad, “Radiation over U.S. isHarmless, Officials Say,” NYT, March 22, 2011).
• “The risk of cancer is quite low, lower than what the public might expect,” explains Evan
Douple, head of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), which has studied the Abomb survivors and found that “at very low doses, the risk was also very low” (Denise Grady,“Radiation is everywhere, but how to rate harm?” NYT, April 5, 2011).
• An NPR story a few days after the Daiichi reactors destabilized quotes this same Evan Douple
saying that radiation levels around the plant “should be reassuring. At these levels so far I don’t
think a study would be able to measure that there would be any health effects, even in the
future.” (“Early radiation data from near plant ease health fears,” Richard Knox and Andrew
Prince,” March 18, 2011) The NPR story, like Grady’s piece (above), stresses that the Radiation
Effects Research Foundation has had six decades experience studying the health effects ofradiation, so it ought to know.
• British journalist George Monbiot, environmentalist turned nuclear advocate, in a much
publicized debate with Helen Caldicott on television and in the Guardian, refers to the RERF
data as “scientific consensus,” citing, again, their reassurances that low dose radiation incurs low
cancer risk.4
Everyone knows that radiation at high dose is harmful, but the Hiroshima studies reassure thatrisk diminishes as dose diminishes until it becomes negligible. This is a necessary belief if thenuclear industry is to exist, because reactors release radioactive emissions not only in accidents,
but in their routine, day-to-day operations and in the waste they produce. If low-dose radiation isJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima54

not negligible, workers in the industry are at risk, as are people who live in the vicinity ofreactors or accidents—as is all life on this planet . The waste produced by reactors does not“dilute and disperse” and disappear, as industry advocates would have us believe, but is blownby the winds, carried by the tides, seeps into earth and groundwater, and makes its way into thefood chain and into us, adding to the sum total of cancers and birth defects throughout the world.
Its legacy is for longer than civilization has existed; plutonium, with its half life of 24,000 years,
is, in human terms, forever.
What is this Radiation Effects Research Foundation, and on what “science” does it base its
reassuring claims?
*******The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), as it was originally called, began its studiesof the survivors five years after the bombings. (It was renamed the Radiation Effects Research
Foundation in the mid seventies, to get the “atomic bomb” out, at around the same time theAtomic Energy Commission (AEC) was renamed the Department of Energy (DOE). Japan,
which has the distinction of being twice nuked, first as our wartime enemy then in 2011 as ourally and the recipient of our GE reactors, has also been the population most closely studied forradiation-related effects, for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings created a large, ready-madepopulation of radiation-exposed humans. “Ah, but the Americans—they are wonderful,”
exclaimed Japan’s radiation expert Tsuzuki Masao, who lamented that he’d had only rabbits towork on: “It has remained for them to conduct the human experiment!”5
The ABCC studied but did not treat radiation effects, and many survivors were reluctant to
identify themselves as survivors, having no wish to bare their health problems to US
investigators and become mired in bureaucracy and social stigma. But sufficient numbers did
voluntarily come forth to make this the largest—and longest—study of radiation-related healtheffects ever. No medical study has had such resources lavished on it, teams of scientists, state of
the art equipment: this was Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) funding. Since it is assumed inepidemiology that the larger the sample, the greater the statistical accuracy, there has been atendency to accept these data as the gold
standard of radiation risk.
The Japanese physicians and scientists
who’d been on the scene told horrificstories of people who’d seemedunharmed, but then began bleeding fromears, nose, and throat, hair falling out by
the handful, bluish spots appearing on
the skin, muscles contracting, leaving
limbs and hands deformed. When they
tried to publish their observations, they
were ordered to hand over their reports to
US authorities. Throughout theoccupation years (1945-52) Japanese
medical journals were heavily censoredon nuclear matters. In late 1945, US
Army surgeons issued a statement that all

ABCC examination of Hiroshima victim

Greene: Science with a Skew

55

people expected to die from the radiation effects of the bomb had already died and no further
physiological effects due to radiation were expected.6 When Tokyo radio announced that evenpeople who entered the cities after the bombings were dying of mysterious causes and decried
the weapons as “illegal” and “inhumane,” American officials dismissed these allegations asJapanese propaganda.7
The issue of radiation poisoning was particularly sensitive, since it carried a taint of banned
weaponry, like poison gas. The A-bomb was not “an inhumane weapon,” declared General
Leslie Groves, who had headed the Manhattan project.8 The first western scientists allowed in to
the devastated cities were under military escort, ordered in by Groves. The first westernjournalists allowed in were similarly under military escort. Australian journalist Wilfred
Burchett, who managed to get in to Hiroshima on his own, got a story out to a British paper,describing people who were dying “mysteriously and horribly” from “an unknown somethingwhich I can only describe as the atomic plague… dying at the rate of 100 a day,” General
MacArthur ordered him out of Japan; his camera, with film shot in Hiroshima, mysteriously
disappeared.9“No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin,” proclaimed a New York Times headline, Sept 13, 1945.
“Survey Rules out Nagasaki Dangers,” stated another headline: “Radioactivity after atomic bombis only 1000th of that from luminous dial watch,” Oct 7, 1945.10 There were powerful politicalincentives to downplay radiation risk. As State Department Attorney William H. Taft asserted,
the “mistaken impression” that low-level radiation is hazardous has the “potential to be seriously
damaging to every aspect of the Department of Defense’s nuclear weapons and nuclear
propulsion programs…it could impact the civilian nuclear industry… and it could raise questions
regarding the use of radioactive substances in medical diagnosis and treatment.”11 A pamphlet
issued by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1953 “insisted that low-level exposure to radiation‘can be continued indefinitely without any detectable bodily change.’”12 The AEC was paying
the salaries of the ABCC scientists and monitoring them “closely—some felt too closely,” writes
Susan Lindee in Suffering Made Real, which documents the political pressures that shaped
radiation science.13 (Other good sources on the making of this science are Sue Rabbit Roff’s
Hotspots, Monica Braw’s The Atomic Bomb Suppressed, and Robert Lifton and Greg Mitchell’s,
Hiroshima in America). The New York Times “joined the government in suppressing
information on the radiation sickness of survivors” and consistently downplayed or omitted
radioactivity from its reportage, as Beverly Ann Deepe Keever demonstrates in The New YorkTimes and the Bomb.14 Keever, a veteran journalist herself, writes that “from the dawn of theatomic-bomb age,…the Times almost single-handedly shaped the news of this epoch and helped
birth the acceptance of the most destructive force ever created,” aiding the “Cold War cover-up”
in minimizing and denying the health and environmental consequences of the a-bomb and its
testing.
The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission scientists calculated that by 1950, when thecommission began its investigations, the death rate from all causes except cancer had returned to“normal” and the cancer deaths were too few to cause alarm.15*******“It’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” protested epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart, an early critic—andvictim—of the Hiroshima studies.16 Stewart discovered, in 1956, that x-raying pregnant women
doubled the chance of a childhood cancer: this put her on a collision course with ABCC/RERF

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

56

data, which found no excess of cancer in children exposed in utero to the blasts. Nobody in the
1950s wanted to hear that a fraction of the radiation dose “known” to be safe could kill a child.
During the Cold War, officials were assuring us we could survive all-out nuclear war by ducking
and covering under desks and the U.S. and U.K. governments were pouring lavish subsidies into
“the friendly atom.” Stewart was defunded and defamed.
She persisted in her criticisms of theHiroshima data which were repeatedly
invoked to discredit her findings,
pointing out that there was no way thesurvivors could have returned to“normal” a mere five years after theatomic blasts. This was not a normal or
representative population: it was a
population of healthy survivors, since theweakest had died off. Her studies ofchildhood cancer had found that children
incubating cancer became 300 times
more infection sensitive than normalchildren. Children so immunecompromised would not have survived
Alice Stewart
the harsh winters that followed thebombings, when food and water were contaminated, medical services ground to a halt, andantibiotics were scarce—but their deaths would not have been recorded as radiation-related
cancer deaths. Nor would the numerous stillbirths, spontaneous abortions, and miscarriages(known effects of radiation exposure) have been so recorded. Stewart maintained that were many
more deaths from radiation exposure than official figures indicated.
Besides, the survivors had been exposed to a single, external blast of radiation, often at very highdose (depending on their distance from the bombs), rather than the long, slow, low-dose
exposure that is experienced by people living near reactors or workers in the nuclear industry.
Stewart’s studies of the Hanford nuclear workers were turning up cancer at doses “known to be
too low” to produce cancer, too low as defined by the Hiroshima data: “This is the population
you ought to be studying to find out the effects of low-dose radiation,” she maintained, not only
because the workers have been subjected to the kind of exposure more likely to be experienced
by downwinders to reactors and accidents, but also because records were kept of their exposures(the nuclear industry requires such records).
In the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies, by contrast
radiation exposure was estimated on the flimsiest ofguesswork. The radiation emitted by the bombs wascalculated according to tests done in the Nevada desert
and was recalculated several times in subsequent
decades. Researchers asked such questions as, where
were you standing in relation to the blast, what was
between you and it, what had you had for breakfast thatmorning, assuming that the survivors would give

Worker with radioactive waste at Hanford

Greene: Science with a Skew

57

reliable accounts five years after the event.
“Bible arithmetic!” Stewart called the Hiroshima data: “it has skewed subsequent calculations
about the cancer effect of radiation, and not only the cancer effect, but many other effects –immune system damage, lowered resistance to disease, infection, heart disease, genetic damage.
These are serious misrepresentations because they suggest it’s safe to increase levels of
background radiation.” In fact, as the Hiroshima studies went on, they turned up numerous
radiation effects besides cancer17—cardiovascular and gastrointestinal damage, eye diseases, andother health problems—which bore out her prediction. Stewart was also proved right on the issueof fetal X-rays, though it took her two decades to convince official bodies to recommend against
the practice, during which time doctors went right on X-raying pregnant women. It took her
another two decades to build a case strong enough to persuade the US government, in 1999, togrant compensation to nuclear workers for cancer incurred on the job.18 (It helps, in this area, tobe long-lived, as she commented wryly).
Twice, she has demonstrated that radiation exposures assumed “too low” to be dangerous carryhigh risk—two major blows at the Hiroshima data. Yet this 60-year old RERF data set continues
to be invoked to dismiss new evidence—evidence of cancer clusters in the vicinity of nuclear
reactors and findings from Chernobyl.
*******
More than 40 studies have turned up clusters of childhood leukemia in the vicinity of nuclear
facilities, reckons Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment anda former member of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (aninvestigatory commission established by the U.K. government but disbanded in 2004). Fairlie
describes this as a “mass of evidence difficult to contradict”19—yet it continues to becontradicted, on the basis of the Hiroshima studies. Generally when a cancer cluster is detectedin the neighborhood of a reactor, the matter gets referred to a government committee thatdismisses the findings on the grounds that radioactive emissions from facilities are “too low” toproduce a cancer effect—“too low, according to RERF risk estimates.20
But in 2007, something extraordinary happened, when a government-appointed committee
formed in response to the pressure of concerned citizens turned up increased rates of childhood
leukemia in the vicinity of all 16 nuclear power plants in Germany. The Kinderkrebs in der
Umgebung von Kernkraftwerken study, known by its acronym KiKK, was a large, well-designed
study with a case-control format (1592 cancer cases and 4735 controls). The investigators—who
were not opposed to nuclear power—anticipated they’d find “no effect... on the basis of the usualmodels for the effects of low levels of radiation.”21 But they found, to their surprise, that children
who lived less than 5 km from a plant were more than twice as likely to develop leukemia as
children who lived more than 5 km away. This was inexplicable within current models of
estimating radiation risk:22 emissions would have had to have been orders of magnitude higher
than those released by the power stations to account for the rise in leukemia. So the investigatorsconcluded that the rise in leukemia couldn’t have been caused by radiation.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

58

The findings are not inexplicable, explains Fairlie,
when you understand that the data on which risk is
calculated, the Hiroshima studies, are“unsatisfactory.”23 Fairlie’s criticism of these data
echoes Stewart’s: “risk estimates from an
instantaneous external blast of high energy neutrons
and gamma rays are not really applicable to thechronic, slow, internal exposures from the low-rangealpha and beta radiation from most environmental
releases.”24 (my emphasis) Fairlie points out a further
problem with the Hiroshima data: its failure to take
into account the dangers of internal radiation. As
Sawada Shoji, emeritus professor of physics at
Nagoya University and a Hiroshima survivor,
confirms, the Hiroshima studies never looked at
fallout: they looked at “gamma rays and neutrons
emitted within a minute of the explosion,” but did notconsider the effects of residual radiation over time,effects from inhalation or ingestion that “are more
severe.”25 The distinction between external andinternal radiation is important to keep clear. A bomb
blast gives off radiation in the form of high-energy subatomic particles and materials that remain
as fallout in the form of radioactive elements such as strontium 90 and cesium. Most of this is
likely to remain on the ground, where it will radiate the body from without, but some may beingested or inhaled and lodge in a lung or other organ, where it will continue to emit
radioactivity at close range. Nuclear proponents cite background radiation to argue that low-doseradiation is relatively harmless, asserting (as Monbiot argued against Caldicott) that we’re daily
exposed to background radiation and survive. But this argument misses the fact that backgroundradiation is from an external source and so is a more finite exposure than radioactive substances
ingested or inhaled, which go on irradiating tissues, “giving very high doses to small volumes ofcells,” as Helen Caldicott says. (Caldicott explains, when physicists talk about “permissible
doses,” “[t]hey consistently ignore internal emitters — radioactive elements from nuclear power
plants or weapons tests that are ingested or inhaled into the body,… They focus instead on
generally less harmful external radiation from sources outside the body.”26)
The KiKK study “commands attention,” Fairlie insists.27 But it got no mention in mainstream
media in the U.S. or the U.K.—until The Guardian, in early May of 2011, gave this spin to it:“Plants have been cleared of causing childhood cancers,” declared the headline.28 “Government’s
advisory committee says it is time to look elsewhere for causes of leukaemia clusters.” What“elsewhere,” what other causes are cited for cancer clusters in the vicinity of reactors? Infection,a virus, a mosquito, socioeconomics, chance say the experts quoted in The Guardian. The U.K.
government is now moving ahead with plans to build eight new reactors.
When new evidence comes into conflict with old models, reinvoke the old models rather thanlooking at the new evidence. The world is flat. So is it flat in Chernobyl.
*******

Greene: Science with a Skew

59

“There is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two
decades after the accident at Chernobyl,” announced the New York Times, a few days after the
Fukushima reactors began to destabilize (Denise Grady, “Precautions should limit healthproblems from nuclear plant’s radiation,” March 15, 2011) The Times bases this claim on a 2005
World Health Organization (WHO) study that found “minimal health effects” and estimated that
only 4000 deaths “will probably be attributable to the accident ultimately.” The worst effect of
the accident is a “paralyzing fatalism,” an expert tells the Times, which leads people to “drug andalcohol use, and unprotected sex and unemployment” (Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Experts findreduced effects of Chernobyl,”Sept 6, 2005). “Radiophobia,” this is called—an attitude problem.
The Times did not mention that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which ismandated with the promotion of nuclear energy, has an agreement with WHO that gives it final
say over what it reports, an entangling alliance much decried by independent scientists.29 Nor did
it mention two other studies that came out in 2006, “The Other Report on Chernobyl” and “TheChernobyl Catastrophe” by Greenpeace, both of which gave much higher casualty estimates than
the widely publicized WHO/IAEA report.30 Nor did it breathe a word about Chernobyl:
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, by Alexey Yablokov et al.,translated into English and published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009—which
estimates casualties at 985,000, orders of magnitude more than the WHO/IAEA report.31
Yablokov et al. draw on “data generated by many thousands of scientists, doctors, and otherexperts who directly observed the suffering of millions affected by radioactive fallout in Belarus,
Ukraine, and Russia,” and incorporate more than 5000 studies, mostly in Slavic languages(compared with the 350 mentioned in the 2005 report, most of which were in English). The
authors are impeccably credentialed: Dr. Alexey Yablokov was environmental advisor to Yeltsin
and Gorbachev; Dr. Vassily Nesterenko was former director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy in
Belarus. Nesterenko, together with Andrei Sakharov, founded the independent Belarusian
Institute of Radiation Safety BELRAD, which studies –as well as treats—the Chernobyl
children. When he died in 2008 as a result of radiation exposure incurred flying over the burning
reactor (which gave us the only measurement of radionuclides released by the accident), his son
Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, third author of this study, took over as director and senior scientist at
BELRAD. Dr. Janette Sherman, consulting editor, is a physician and toxicologist.
Comparing contaminated areas of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia with the so-called “clean areas,”
the studies document significant increases in morbidity and mortality in contaminated regions:
not only more cancer, especially thyroid cancer, but a wide array of noncancer effects — ulcers,
chronic pulmonary diseases, diabetes mellitus, eye problems, severe mental retardation inchildren, and a higher incidence and greater severity of infectious and viral diseases. Everysystem in the body is adversely affected: cardiovascular, reproductive, neurological, hormonal,
respiratory, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and immune systems. The children are notthriving: “Prior to 1985 more than 80% of children in the Chernobyl territories of Belarus,
Ukraine, and European Russia were healthy; today fewer than 20% are well.” In animals, too,
there are “significant increases in morbidity and mortality… increased occurrence of tumor andimmunodeficiencies, decreased life expectancy, early aging, changes in blood and the circulatory
system, malformations.”Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

60

Parallels between Chernobyl and Hiroshima
are striking: data collection was delayed,
information withheld, reports of on-the-spot
observers were discounted, independentscientists were denied access “The USSR
authorities officially forbade doctors fromconnecting diseases with radiation and, likethe Japanese experience, all data wereclassified.” With the “liquidators,” as they’recalled, the 830,000 men and women
conscripted from all over the Soviet Union to
put out the fire, deactivate the reactor, andclean up the sites, “It was officiallyforbidden to associate the diseases they were
suffering from with radiation.” “The official
secrecy that the USSR imposed on
Chernobyl’s public health data the first days
After Chernobyl. Photo by Paul Fusco
after the meltdown… continued for morethan three years,” during which time “secrecy was the norm not only in the USSR, but in othercountries as well.”But the parallels are political, not biological, for the Hiroshima data have proven to be an“outdated” and useless model, as Stewart said, for predicting health effects from low-dose,
chronic radiation exposure over time. The Hiroshima studies find little genetic damage in thesurvivors, yet Yablokov et al. document that “Wherever there was Chernobyl radioactive
contamination, there was an increase in the number of children with hereditary anomalies andcongenital malformations. These included previously rare multiple structural impairments of thelimbs, head, and body,” devastating birth defects, especially in the children of the liquidators.
The correlation with radioactive exposure is so pronounced as to be “no longer an assumption,
but…proven,” write the authors. As in humans, so in every species studied, “gene pools of living
creatures are actively transforming, with unpredictable consequences”: “It appears that[Chernobyl’s irradiation] has awakened genes that have been silent over a long evolutionary
time.” The damage will play out for generations — “at least seven generations.”

Chernobyl legacy. Photo by Paul Fusco

Such findings have provided radiation
experts a chance to reexamine their
hypotheses and theories about radiation
effects, observes Mikhail Malko, a
researcher at the Joint Institute of Powerand Nuclear Research in Belarus.32 But
rather than using new evidence to enlarge
their understanding, experts have foundways of dismissing these studies as“unscientific”: they are said to beobservational rather than properly
controlled, “Eastern European” and not up
to Western scientific protocols, andGreene: Science with a Skew

61

inconsistent with the hallowed Hiroshima data. Radiation scientists denied that the thyroid
cancer that increased exponentially after the accident could be a consequence of radiation: it
manifested in only three years, whereas it had taken ten years to appear in Hiroshima, and it took
a more aggressive form. They explained the increase in terms of improved screening, iodine
substances used to treat the children, or pesticides—even though epidemiological studies kept
turning up a link with radiation contamination. Finally in 2005, a case-control study headed by
Elisabeth Cardis confirmed a dose-response relationship between radiation and thyroid cancer inchildren in terms that had to be acknowledged.33
Chernobyl does not usually provide the kind of neat laboratory conditions that allow such precise
dose-response calculations. But neither did Hiroshima, where radiation exposure was
guesstimated years after the fact and recalculated several times according to new findings. Yet
scientists have accepted the Hiroshima uncertainties –all too readily— and have allowed thisdata to shape policy affecting all life on this planet, while citing the less-than-ideal conditions forstudying Chernobyl as an excuse to ignore or discredit these findings, dismissing them according
to a model more questionable than the data they’re discounting. The Chernobyl effects
demonstrate that “Even the smallest excess of radiation over that of natural background will
statistically…affect the health of exposed individuals or their descendants, sooner or later.” But
as with Stewart’s findings about fetal x-rays and nuclear workers, as with the studies that turn up
cancer clusters around reactors, so with Chernobyl — it can’t be radiation that’s producing theseeffects because the Hiroshima studies say it can’t. As independent scientist Rudi Nussbaum
points out, the “dissonance between evidence and existing assumptions about… radiation risk,”
the gap between new information and the “widely adopted presuppositions about radiation healtheffects,” has become insupportable.34
Chernobyl is a better predictor of the Fukushima consequences than Hiroshima, but we wouldn’tknow that from mainstream media. Perhaps we would rather not know that 57% of Chernobyl
contamination went outside the former USSR; that people as far away as Oregon were warned
not to drink rainwater “for some time”; that thyroid cancer doubled in Connecticut in the six
years following the accident; that 369 farms in Great Britain remained contaminated 23 years
after the catastrophe; that the German government compensates hunters for wild boar meat too
contaminated to be eaten35 – and it paid four times more in compensation in 2009 than in 2007.
Perhaps we’d rather not consider the possibility that “the Chernobyl cancer toll is one of thesoundest reasons for the ‘cancer epidemic’ that has been afflicting humankind since the end of
the 20th century.”“This information must be made available to the world,” write Yablokov et al. But their book has
met “mostly with silence,” as he said in a press conference in Washington DC, March 15, 2011.36
The silence of mainstream media has stonewalled information about Chernobyl’s health effects
as effectively as the Soviets’ blackout concealed the accident itself, and as the Allies’ censorshiphid the health effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
*******

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima62“We need to quash any stories trying to compare this [Fukushima]
to Chernobyl,” “otherwise it could have adverse consequences on
the market.” “’This has the potential to set the nuclear industry backglobally…We really need to show the safety of nuclear,” that “it’snot as bad as it looks.” These statements were made in a few of themore than 80 emails which the Guardian got access to, which were
not intended for the public eye. “British government officials
approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public
relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident justtwo days after the earthquake and tsunami,” reports the Guardian,“to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a newgeneration of nuclear stations in the UK.”37
Comparisons with Chernobyl have been conspicuously absent frommainstream media, even when Fukushima was upgraded, in early
June, to a level on a par with Chernobyl, level 7, the highest. Even
when Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer turned whistleblower who has been monitoring
Fukushima from the start, asserted that this accident may actually be more dire than Chernobyl.
Gundersen, an informed, level-headed commentator who inspires confidence, points out that
there are four damaged reactors leaking into the atmosphere, ocean, and ground in an area more
populated than the Ukraine: “You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores…thatis 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl.” (Fairewinds, June 16, 2011). But apartfrom the damage control piece it published March 15 (cited above) and Helen Caldicott’s passing
reference to “research by scientists in Eastern Europe” (op-ed, “After Fukushima: Enough isenough,” December 2)—the Times has barely mentioned Chernobyl (and even Caldicott did not
mention the Yablokov study by name). What Chernobyl has wrought, which has been
documented so clearly by Yablokov et al., is simply too dangerous to give press to, undercutting
as it does the nuclear industry’s claims to safety and viability.
*******The New York Times has done good reporting on Japanese blunders and corruption. It has
described the way plant operators and government officials minimized the severity of themeltdown, the corporate and government cover-ups and irresponsibility (Norimitsu Onishi andMartin Fackler, “Japan held nuclear data, leaving evacuees in peril,” August 8, 2011). It haspointed out complicity between industry and regulators (Norimitsu Onishi and Ken Belson,“Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant,” April 27, 2011). It has done pieces on
citizens’ opposition (Onishi and Fackler, “Japan ignored or long hid nuclear risks,” May 17,
2011; Ken Belson, “Two voices are heard after years of futility”, August 19, 2011) and on grassroots initiatives to gather data where bureaucrats failed (Hiroko Tabuchi, “Citizens’ testing finds
20 radioactive hot spots around Tokyo,” Aug 1, 2011). Tabuchi even takes a swipe at the“tameness of Japanese mainstream media,” which is commendable, though her statement is amodel of “tameness” compared to Nicola Liscutin’s denunciation of Japanese mass media as“little more than the mouthpiece of the government and TEPCO.”38 Human interest stories
abound in the Times, as in other major media, stories of workers sent in to quiet the reactors, ofpeople living in the vicinity of the reactors. In one such piece, “Life in limbo for Japanese neardamage nuclear plant,” May 2, 2011, Fackler and Matthew Wald refer to “a lack of hard data

Greene: Science with a Skew

63

about the health effects of lower radiation doses delivered over extended periods” – a “lack”
that’s assured, as we’ve seen, by the stonewalling of evidence endemic in the media.
As laudable as some of the Times coverage has been, what it targets is the ineptitude andcorruption of the Japanese, what happened over there as opposed to what goes on here, where
our own dirty linen remains unwashed, as it were, and out of sight. How much easier to criticize
the lax regulatory mechanisms and lack of transparency of the Japanese than to shine a light onourselves, on the insidious but largely invisible working of the nuclear lobby and lobbyists in thiscountry, on the complicity of our own government and media with the nuclear industry.
A fascinating expose by Norimitsu Onishi, “Safety myth left Japan ripe for nuclear crisis” (June25, 2011), invites comment along these lines. Onishi investigates the “elaborate advertising
campaigns” led by Tepco and the Ministry of Economy to convince the public of the safety of
nuclear power. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to rally support: “Over several
decades, Japan’s nuclear establishment has devoted vast resources to persuade the Japanesepublic of the safety and necessity of nuclear power. Plant operators built lavish, fantasy-filledpublic relations buildings that became tourist attractions.” In one of these, “Alice discovers thewonders of nuclear power. The Caterpillar reassures Alice about radiation and the Cheshire Cat
helps her learn about the energy source”.
Lest we feel smug, recall the promotion of “the friendly atom” by Walt Disney’s book and film,
Our Friend the Atom, read and viewed by millions of schoolchildren (when they weren’t doing“duck and cover” drills).
What Onishi describes as happening in Japan happened in the U.S. as well— perhaps Onishimeans to evoke such resonances— where a powerful propaganda campaign was launched, withhundreds of millions of dollars behind it, to promote “Atoms for Peace,” the new energy source“too cheap to meter” (though there was nothing “cheap” about it: it required enormous
government subsidies, and still does). This propaganda machine is described in the 1982 study
Nukespeak: The Selling of Nuclear Technology in America: “Beginning in the mid-1950s, the
AEC conducted a huge public relations operation to promote the vision of Atoms for Peace,”using “a wide range of PR techniques, including films, brochures, TV, radio, nuclear science
fairs, public speakers, traveling exhibits, and classroom demonstrations” (traveling AEC exhibitswith names like “Power Unlimited,” “Fallout in Perspective,” and “The Useful Atom”).39“Millions of kits of atomic energy
information literature were distributed toelementary, high school, and college
students.” The public relations departmentsof reactor manufacturers such asWestinghouse and General Electric were also
mobilized to prepare communities fornuclear facilities coming soon to theirneighborhoods and to prime the general
population to welcome the new technology.
The connection with mainstream media
could hardly be more direct, since“Westinghouse owned CBS for many years,
and General Electric, NBC,” as KarlJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

64

Grossman points out.40 This same PR apparatus has been busy, in recent decades, conjuring the“nuclear renaissance” from the ashes of Chernobyl, selling nuclear power as “clean, green, andsafe.”The Times coverage of Fukushima has raised hopes in some quarters that this current disastermay have opened a space for public debate in mainstream media about nuclear power. But howreal is this debate, when so many fundamental issues remain hidden? How open a discussion can
this be, when Chernobyl and the German reactor study go unmentioned, when we have to turn toalternative media to learn that the Yablokov study even exists—or to learn that, as Alexander
Cockburn reports,41 Obama was the recipient of generous campaign contributions from thenuclear industry (which may cast some light on his enthusiastic support of nuclear power)? How
open a discussion is this, when the ABCC/RERF radiation risk assessments that enable theindustry to exist remain unaddressed? A serious consideration of the Yablokov study and theGerman reactor study would reveal them to be “skewed” and useless, as we’ve seen; but rather
than go this route, the Times calls on RERF experts to do damage control for the industry. So
RERF reassurances about radiation risk remain unchallenged and in place as the invisible
buttressing of the nuclear industry, as the basis of radiation safety standards throughout theworld.
Contrast the response of U.S. media to the response of the German press: “Fukushima marks theend of the nuclear era” (Spiegel, March 14, 2011); “Germany can no longer pretend nuclear
power is safe…. it is over. Done. Finished.” (March 14, 2011) To Spiegel, Fukushima is awarning that cries out for an end to nuclear power; to the Times, Fukushima is a warning that weshould build our reactors more efficiently and regulate them more carefully, rather than ceasebuilding them at all (Editorial, “In the wake of Fukushima,” July 23, 2011). In the months after
Fukushima, “Spiegel’s most popular online feature as the drama unfolded was an evolving
digital map of the ‘radiation plume,’” observes Ralph Martin;42 “the German electorate madenuclear power their top concern—they made Fukushima theirs,” whereas “the reaction ofAmerican media…[was to] regard the events as yet another story, without any larger social
ramifications,” without much relevance to ourselves. And so nuclear power marches on:“Alabama nuclear reactor, partly built, to be finished,” Matthew Wald, August 19, 2011; “Twoutilities win approval for nuclear power plants,” Matthew Wald, December 23, 2011 (neither ofthese is a particularly long or noticeable article, and neither is front page).
There has been precious little mention in U.S. mainstream media of the plume Spiegel was
tracing, except to whisk it away as presenting “no health hazard” (Broad, cited above), though
the worldwide fallout from Fukushima has occasioned much discussion on the Web.
Gundersen43 cites evidence that the early releases, which were revealed to be more than double
what we were initially informed, contained “hot particles” of cesium, strontium, uranium,
plutonium, cobalt 60 that have turned up in automobile engine filters, and according to what’s
been detected in air filters, a person in Tokyo was breathing about ten hot particles a day throughthe month of April. A person in Seattle was breathing about five, that same month.
*******
Not to worry: “The effects of radiation do not come to people that are happy and laughing. They
come to people that are weak-spirited, that brood and fret.” So says Dr. Yamashita Shunichi,44
who has been assigned to head the official study of radiation health effects in the Fukushima
population. Yamashita was sent by the Japanese government from Nagasaki University, where

Greene: Science with a Skew65

he was part of the RERF studies, revered for their long experience with the A-Bomb survivors.
Mandated with addressing the concerns of the citizens and correcting their misconceptions,
Yamashita rallies the population with stirring words: “The name Fukushima will be widely
known throughout the world…This is great! Fukushima has beaten Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
From now on, Fukushima will become the world number 1 name. A crisis is an opportunity. Thisis the biggest opportunity. Hey, Fukushima, you’ve become famous without any efforts.”
We’re in good hands.
Gayle Greene is Professor of English at
Scripps College. She is the author of The
Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice
Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation, abiography of pioneering British radiation
epidemiologist and anti-nuclear guru
Alice Stewart, and “Alice Stewart andRichard Doll: Reputation and theShaping of Scientific ‘Truth’,”
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine,
autumn 2011, 504-31.
Her work has been published inscholarly journals such as Signs,
Alice Stewart (right) and the author
Contemporary Literature, andRenaissance Drama, and in popularvenues such as Ms Magazine, The Nation, The Women’s Review of Books, and In These Times.
References
1

Yablokov, Alexey et al. 2009. Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and theEnvironment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1181, link
2

“The Greening of Nuclear Power,” NYT editorial, May 13, 20063

2010-2011 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, Worldwatch Institute, link

4

George Monbiot “Prescription for Survival: A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy,” Amy
Goodman, March 30, 2011, Links 1, 2, 3
5“Ah, but the Americans….”: Daniel Land, “A reporter at large,” New Yorker, June 8, 1946,
quotes Tzuzuki; in Robert J. Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of
Denial, 1995, 53
6Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, 143-4; also, Shoji Sawada, “Cover-up of the effects ofinternal exposure by residual radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,”
Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 2007, 23, 1, 58-74, p. 61: “Brigadier General T. Farrel, of theresearch commission of the Manhattan Project… said that at that time [Sept 1945] in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki all those fatally ill had already died and no one was suffering from atomic
radiation.” His exact words: “In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at present, the beginning of September[1945], anyone liable to die has already died and no one is suffering from atomic radiation.”Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

66

7

Catherine Caulfield, Multiple Exposures: Chronicles of the Radiation Age, U of Chicago Press,
1989, 62-3
8

Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial, Avon, 1995, 45; Monica Braw, The Atomic Bomb Suppressed, 119-23
9Wilfred Burchett, Shadows of Hiroshima, London, 1983; also Sue Rabbit Roff, Hotspots: The
Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Cassell, 1995, 271, and Lifton and Mitchell, 46-9
10

Caulfield, 62-4

11

Brian Jacobs, “The politics of radiation: When public health and the nuclear industry collide,”
Greenpeace, July-Aug 1986,7
12

Caulfield, 120

13

Susan Lindee Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors of Hiroshima U of
Chicago Press, 1994, 107
14

Beverly Ann Deepe Keever News Zero: The New York Times and the Bomb, Common
Courage Press, 2004, p. 16; 1-3
15

Shoji Sawada, “Cover-up of the effects of internal exposure by residual radiation from theatomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Jan-March 2007,
23, 1, 58-74
16

Stewart’s quotes are from my biography of her. Gayle Greene, The Woman Who Knew Too
Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation, 1999, 143
17

Shimizu, Y, et al. 1992. Studies of the morality of A-bomb survivors. Radiat Res 130: 249266. 1574582
18

Link

19

Ian Fairlie, “New evidence of childhood leukeaemias near nuclear power stations,” Medicine,
Conflict and Survival, 24, 3, July-Sept 2008, 219-227. A fuller discussion of cancer clusters andthe studies that dismiss them is in chapter 13 of The Woman Who Knew Too Much.
20

Wing, S., D. Richardson, A.M. Stewart. “The relevance of occupational epidemiology toradiation protection standards,” New Solutions, 1999, 9, 2: 133-51
21

Claudia Spix et al, “Case-control study on childhood cancer in the vicinity of nuclear power
plants in Germany 1980-2003,” European J of Cancer 44, 2008, 275-84
22

BfS. Unanimous statement by the expert group commissioned by the Bundesamt fur
Strahlenschutz on the KiKK Study. German Federal Office for Radiation Protection. Berlin,
Germany; 2007. Link
23

Ian Fairlie, “The risks of nuclear energy are not exaggerated,” The Guardian, Jan 20, 2010,
link
24

Fairlie, “Childhood cancer near German nuclear power stations,” J of Environ Science and
Health Part C, 28:1-21, 2010, 1-21; also Rudi Nussbaum, “Childhood leukemia and cancers near
German nuclear reactors,” Int J Occup Environ Health, 2009, 15, 318-23

Greene: Science with a Skew

67

25

Shoji Sawada, “Cover-up of the effects of internal exposure by residual radiation from theatomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Jan-March 2007,
23, 1, 58-74
26“Unsafe at Any Dose,” Op Ed, New York Times, April 30, 201127

Ian Fairlie, “Infant leukaemias near nuclear power stations,” CND Briefing, Jan 201028

Sarah Bosley, “UK nuclear power plants cleared of causing leukemia: Government’s advisorycommittee says it is time to look elsewhere for causes of leukemia clusters,” Guardian, May 6,
2011
29

A quick WEB search turns this up: Link 1; link 2. Also, Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power is Not
the Answer, New Press, 2007; Rudi Nussbaum, “Clinging to the nuclear option,” Counterpunch,
May 30 201130

The Other Report on Chernobyl, Ian Fairlie and David Sumner, 2006. MEP Greens/EFA,
Berlin, Brussels, Kiev; and Greenpeace. 2006. The Chernobyl Catastrophe: Consequences on
Human Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, link
31

Yablokov, Alexey et al. 2009. Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People andthe Environment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1181, link
32

Mikhail Malko MV. 1998 “The Chernobyl accident: The Crisis in the International Radiation
Community,” Research Activities about the Radiobiological Consequences of the Chernobyl
NPT Accident KURR-KR-21, link
33

Elisabeth Cardis et al. 2005. “Risk of thyroid cancer after exposure to 131-I in childhood,” J
Natl Cancer Inst 97: 724-734
34

Rudi Nussbaum, Childhood malignancies near German nuclear reactors. Int J Occup Environ
Health, 2009, (15) 3: 318-23; also, Ian Fairlie, “Childhood cancer near German nuclear power
stations,” J of Environ Science and Health Part C, 28:1-21, 2010, 1-21.
35

Charles Hawley, “A quarter century after Chernobyl: Radioactive boar on the rise inGermany,” Der Spiegel, July 30, 2010, link
36

Links 1, 2

37

Rob Edwards, “Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima,” Guardian,June 30, 2011. Link (“Read the emails here” has been blocked.) Also, John Vidal, “Fukushima
spin was Orwellian,” Guardian, July 11, 2011, link
38

“New Media and anti-nuclear activism in Japan, Asia-Pacific Journal, Nov 21, 201139

Stephen Hilgartner, Richard Bell, Rory O’Connor, Nukespeak:The Selling of Nuclear
Technology in America, Sierra Club Books, 1982, pp.74-6
40“Downplaying deadly dangers in Japan and at home, after Fukushima, media still buying
media spin,” Extra! The Magazine of FAIR, the Media Watch Group, May 2011; Grossman’s
articles on media spin are well worth reading. Karlgrossman.blogspot.com
41“In the midst of Fukushima,” Counterpunch, March 18-20, 2011

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

68

42

Ralph Martin, “When Japan sneezes, Germany catches a cold,” The European, April 29, 2011,
link
43

Gundersen, “Scientist Marco Kaltofen presents data confirming hot particles,” Fairwinds, Oct31, 2011, link
44

Dr. Yamashita Shunichi, Democracy Now, June 10, 2011, link; from a lecture, Fukushima
City, March 21, Links 1, 2

Busby and Selden: Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease69“Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease”
Chris Busby and Mark Selden
September 26, 2011
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Mark-Selden/3609
This article expands on Greene’s thesis, providing more information on the dangers
of exposure to low levels of radiation. Mark Selden introduces the transcript of a speech
given by Chris Busby, a British chemical physicist known for his research on the negative
health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation.2 While Busby is a controversial figure withinscientific circles, his conclusions are deeply disturbing even if they turn out to beoverstated. Most alarmingly, Selden explains that Busby’s findings in Ukraine show thatamounts of radiation that may be acceptable for adults are lethal to children anddeveloping fetuses.
Radiation has long been known to cause cancers such as leukemia, but Busby showsthat children exposed to low levels of radiation actually often develop heart disease before
any cancers develop. Because one radioactive particle can damage twenty percent of asmall heart (lethal because heart tissue repairs itself relatively slowly), Busby
recommends that the Japanese immediately evacuate all children near the stricken nuclear
complex. Needless to say, this has not happened.

2 The video of Busby’s talk is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Kkuo-IK-A [accessed

4/4/13].

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

70

Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease
Chris Busby, Introduction by Mark Selden
Introduction
In the six months since the March 11 earthquake tsunami and nuclear power meltdown, a large
body of evidence has been produced (and much suppressed) documenting the vast quantities ofradiation emitted from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as well as other contaminantsfrom ruined factories and farms: into the air, into the water, and into the soil in the vicinity of theincident, throughout Northeast Japan and beyond. For example, on April 11, the Nuclear Safety
Commission announced that the Fukushima Daiichi plant, “in the first hours after the accident,
was emitting as much as 10,000 terabecquerels of radiation per hour (one terabecquerel = one
trillion becquerels).” On September 9, the Asahi cited a preliminary report by the Japan Atomic
Energy Agency that between March 21 and April 30 the plant emitted more than 15 quadrillion
becquerels of radioactivity into the sea. The figure was three times that provided earlier by
TEPCO. The report concluded further that 11.4 quadrillion becquerels of iodine-131 and 3.6
quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 had been leaked into the sea.1
The most serious emissions have beenfound in the danger zone surrounding theplant, but radiation does not conform to
the logic of concentric circles or
evacuation zones decreed by the state.
Hot spots are found both within andbeyond the state’s 20-kilometer
evacuation zone. Nor does radiation hew
to national borders. It flows with wind
and water currents to areas ranging fromthe Japanese and Chinese seacoasts to thewest coast of North America. High levelsof radiation have been found not only inhumans but in such foods as rice, tea,
beef, and fish, as well as in soil, leaves,Radioactive water leaks into the sea April 2 from a crack in a trees, and cattle fodder.
pit wall near the water intake of the No. 2 reactor at the
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. (TEPCO)

The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial
Safety Agency, which had initially rated
the Fukushima meltdown disaster as a level 4 incident on the International Nuclear Event Scale,one month later raised the level to 7, the highest level along with Chernobyl, based on theamount of Iodine-134 and Cesium-137 released.2
As in the case of Chernobyl, however, the fiercest debate rages over the consequences of the data
for the contamination, illness and death of humans, wildlife and nature from multiple radiationand other sources. This is particularly evident in the competing claims concerning cancer deaths
caused by radiation. For example, an influential 2005 report by the World Health Associationand the International Atomic Energy Association, Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental
and Socio-Economic Impact, concluded that the Chernobyl disaster had produced only fifty
additional cancer deaths as of 2004. It projected an eventual total of four thousand additional

Busby and Selden: Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease

71

cancer deaths. By contrast, the study edited by Russian and East European scientists, Alexey V.
Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko and Alexey V. Nesterenko, Chernobyl, Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environment (New York: New York Academy of Sciences,
2009), based on an exhaustive review of thousands of local hospital reports in the most affectedareas, documented extensive deaths, injuries and disabilities from multiple factors resulting inhigh rates of heart disease, brain damage, blood and lymphatic diseases, and birth defects, with
infants and children most severely affected. What attracted most international attention and sharp
criticism, however, was not their assessment of these dire malignancies, but their projection of
approximately 980,000 additional cancer deaths.3
Viewed in light of the earthquake tsunami and nuclear power meltdown which has stricken
Fukushima and Northeast Japan, however, it is not the debate over projected cancer victims, but
the immediate effects on the health of residents, above all children and pregnant women, thatshould be the focus of immediate discussion: measuring and reducing the risks of radiation andother forms of contamination, moving those at risk out of danger, and treating the injured andwounded.
We have detailed data on the dead and missing from the multiple earthquake tsunami meltdown
disaster. Official figures place the numbers at 20,000 dead or missing, 80,000 homes destroyed,
100,000 people evacuated from the twenty kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushimaplant, 400,000 displaced people; 158,000 lost jobs in the three hardest hit prefectures of Iwate,
Miyagi and Fukushima, and official recognition that it might be years before areas near the plant
could again become habitable.4 Moreover, the twenty kilometer zone was set by the Japanese
government not with an eye to fully insuring the safety of radiation victims, but to avoid theheavy costs of evacuating people in nearby cities such as Fukushima City. With Fukushima rated
with Chernobyl as a 7.0 disaster on the international scale (the highest level), it is sobering torecall that a quarter century after the Chernobyl disaster, the large area from which 400,000
people were evacuated remains uninhabitable.
The above-mentioned figures for deaths and destruction are the product of the earthquake andtsunami. While evacuations and job losses are also the product of the Fukushima plant
meltdown, there has been no official data released on deaths and injuries resulting fromradiation, with the exception of a small number of workers in the plant. While much attention has
focused on cancer risk from both the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, there has been little
discussion and documentation of the immediate and short-run health effects even beyond official
assessments. An important exception to this is Chris Busby’s commentary on the impact ofradiation on heart disease among children.
Busby in the talk presented below does two things of great importance. First, he conducts a
mental exercise, assessing the probable impact of Fukushima-level radiation on the hearts ofinfants on the basis of information about radiation levels at Fukushima and the literature on theeffects of radiation on the heart. Second, drawing on the work of Yu I. Bandazhevsky (link) andothers, he documents the heavy impact of radiation on the hearts of Chernobyl children while
noting other immediate effects such as brain damage and birth defects. This data, and other datafrom Chernobyl, make plain that the health effects of radiation go far beyond cancer.
Bandazhevsky reviews nine clinical, instrumental and laboratory studies of children from infancy
to 15 years of age ranging in sample size from 76 to 255 each, in multiple localities affected by
Chernobyl. The central finding was “a high frequency of electrocardiographic modifications inJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima72

all groups as a function of the amount of radioactive cesium in the organism of children. . . In theareas with level of 137 Cs contamination more than 15 Ci/km2 and its concentration in organism
more than 80 Bq/kg electrophysiological cardiac modifications appear in the organism of morethan 80 % of children.“ (p. 4) The studies involved control groups, and further laboratory studies
were conducted on albino rats which revealed 137Cs –induced diseases of heart, liver, kidneys
and lungs (p. 11). Bandazhevsky concluded that radioactive caesium in excess of 30 Bq/kg could
lead to serious cardiovascular consequences, especially for children, and was one of the leading
causes of cardiovascular diseases among Chernobyl children. (p. 27).
Bandazhevsky notes that Belarus was earlier subject to dangerously high doses of cesium
radiation detected in milk and other foods. This was the result of Soviet nuclear testing.
Radiation levels fell sharply after 1963, then reached comparable dangerous levels again
following Chernobyl. His research documents the high incidence of cardiovascular disease anddeaths following the Chernobyl disaster.
Busby’s work, drawing in part on Bandazhevsky, highlights the importance of immediately
assessing and publicizing the health consequences of the Fukushima meltdown to determine
whether further evacuation or other methods are imperative, particularly for infants, children andpregnant women. This should be done for people who were living throughout the twenty
kilometer evacuation zone. Equally important, it should be done for people, above all children,
who continue to live in hot zones nearby or beyond the evacuation zone.
Mark Selden
Fukushima Children, Radiation, and the Danger of Heart Disease
I'm Chris Busby, I'm a specialist on the health effects of ionizing radiation. And I want to talk to
you about Fukushima and Chernobyl. What I want to say is that the models that are used todetermine the effects of radiation always concentrate on cancer and leukemia. And so, thecurrent risk model will say how many cancers are expected after Fukushima and how many
cancers are expected after Chernobyl, and so forth. But we know from Chernobyl that radiation
causes a whole range of diseases and one of the diseases that it seems to cause is heart disease.
I want to talk to you about heart disease effects on children.
Now, a colleague of mine, Professor Yuri Bandazhevsky, became quite famous, because hestudied the cesium 137 exposure of children in the areas that were contaminated by the
Chernobyl accident in Belarus. In the late 1990s, he discovered that the children who were
contaminated to the extent of having only 20 to 30 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, which
is not very much, were suffering cardiac arrhythmias, that is, the heart wasn't beating properly,
and they were suffering heart attacks and dying. It's a very serious matter.
So it wasn't a question of leukemia and cancer in these children, although that occurred as well,
but there were very high rates of heart diseases. So children were manifesting heart diseases,
which are normally only found in old people.
And this got me thinking about how this could be at what appears to be low-levels ofcontamination. So I started looking into this and what I found was truly extraordinary. I shallshare it with you.

Busby and Selden: Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease73

The heart of a child at the age of about two to five is about this size (see video), and the age ofabout ten it's about this size, and we know from measurements to be made, how many cells there
are in the heart of a child.
A five-year-old has a heart which is approximately 220grams in weight. A lot of it, of course, isblood. So if you take the blood out and leave the muscle tissue, there's about 85 grams of muscle
tissue in the heart of a child aged five. This is all data.
Now we actually know also the size of the heart muscle cells, so we know how many heart
muscle cells there are in the child's heart. There are about three billion muscle cells. Threebillion. And what we can do is we can put 50 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137 in a thought
experiment, we can put this into the heart muscle. A becquerel is one disintegration per second,so we can see how many disintegrations or electron tracks come from the cesium 137 in a period
of about a year.
And when we do this, I mean it's really simple it can be done on the back of an envelope, what
we find is that there are many more electron tracks traversing the cells than you can imagine.
And in fact it works out that if only one percent of those cells were killed by the electron tracksof that level of cesium 137, if only one percent were killed, you would lose 25% of all themuscle cells in the heart.
And this is very serious because the heart is an extraordinary organ, the muscle cells in the heart
are autonomous, they just contract and contract for the whole period of life of the individual.
And every day they pump seven thousand liters of blood through the body. Truly extraordinary.
And we live for seventy years so this heart beats away continuously for the whole of your life
span. But of course these cells are non-replaceable by and large.
It turns out that only 1% of these cells can be replaced in a year. So if these cells get damaged, orif a particular number of these cells gets damaged, they cannot be replaced in a short period oftime. So a year's exposure to 50 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, and incidentally cesium
137, we know from experiments, binds to muscle so this is where it goes, just as iodine goes into
the thyroid gland, strontium goes into the bones and goes to the DNA, cesium 137 goes tomuscle. It will concentrate in the muscle tissue of a heart.
So this child's heart, after one year of exposure to that level of cesium, which is quite a low level,
will have approximately 25% of its cells destroyed. Now, we would therefore expect to findeffects, the same effects that were found by Bandazhevsky. And it does seem, from what people
have been telling me about, in Fukushima, the affected area, that they are actually suffering heart
attacks.
So, there are two things that follow from this, which are terribly important.
The first thing is that children in that area should immediately be scanned using ECG,
electrocardiograms. All hospitals have this device, so see that they have this. Because the firstmanifestations of this damage to the heart muscle cells would be conduction problems which canbe shown on these ECGs, in fact this is how Bandazhevsky found this. Incidentally, when hereported it, he was sent to jail.
The government wouldn't believe it and accused him of scare mongering. So they sent him to
jail. He was in jail for several years until eventually Amnesty International and the European

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

74

Parliament issued him with an international passport, one of only twenty-five that have been
issued, and got him out of jail. (Link)
I worked quite closely with Bandazhevsky, who was a hero. He received the Edward P. Radford
Memorial Prize for Radiation Biology at the Lesvos Conference where he gave the paper thatshowed these increases in heart diseases in the children.
So the first thing that has to be done is that the children have to be checked out for conduction
problems with the ECG. They must be evacuated. And if any of them are suffering from these
problems they must be immediately evacuated. But if any are suffering from these problems,
ALL children should be evacuated. Because this means that there will be sub-clinical effects
from the cesium 137 in heart muscle. And it will not be repaired. The heart cannot be repaired.
Heart tissues cannot be repaired so these children will suffer for their entire life and they will die
young. This brings me to the second point.
The second point is this; if you die from heart attack or from heart disease, you will not die fromcancer, because cancer is essentially a disease of old people, so you get genetic damage and it
goes on and on and eventually you get cancer. By and large what happens is that cancer rates go
up very sharply as you get old.
But I can tell you that the heart disease effects go up very much more quickly, so what you willfind in areas like Fukushima that are contaminated by these radionuclides is not necessarily
enormous increase in cancer. There will be an increase in cancer, but you will find a big increasein heart disease.
When we look at Belarus, we find increase in cancer, but we find a big increase in heart disease,an enormous increase in heart disease. And as a result of this, the population of the Republic of
Belarus has fallen sharply after the Chernobyl accident, and has now gone into negative
replacement. So, in fact, if it goes on like this, the population of Belarus will disappear. And thisis what we would expect to see in Fukushima. So I am warning you all now to start looking atheart disease, heart attacks and get children out there quickly.
This is all simple stuff, you can do these calculations, I've done these calculations and I produced
a report which will be put on the internet shortly and you can have a look at it. And the European
Committee on the Radiation Risk has also released the Bandazhevsky paper that he gave at the
Lesvos conference. It is available here.
Thank you for listening.
The video of the original Busby statement is available here.
See the film Chernobyl Heart documenting heart disease among Chernobyl children (link).
See IPPNW report on the health effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which discusses heartdisease.
Chris Busby, a chemical physicist, is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on
Radiation Risk (ECRR) and a visiting professor at the University of Ulster.
Mark Selden is a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal and Senior Research Associate, East
Asia Program, Cornell University. His books include The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima

Busby and Selden: Fukushima Children at Risk of Heart Disease75

and Nagasaki (with Kyoko Selden), and Living With the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural
Conflicts in the Nuclear Age (with Laura Hein). His home page is http://markselden.info/
Notes
1

Takashi Sugimoto, “Radioactive sea pollution from Fukushima may dwarf previous estimates,”
Asahi Shimbun, September 9, 2011.
2

Keith Bradsher, Hiroko Tabuchi and Andrew Pollack, “Japanese Officials on the Defensive as
Nuclear Alert Level Rises,”New York Times, April 12, 2011.
3

Matthew Penney and Mark Selden provide a preliminary review of the debate in “What Pricethe Fukushima Meltdown? Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima,” The Asia-Pacific Journal,
Vol 9, Issue 21, No 3, May 23, 2011.
4

Justin McCurry, “Fukushima six months on: Japanese mark moment earthquake struck, The
Guardian, September 11, 2011.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

76“Fukushima in Light of Minamata”
Timothy S. George
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Timothy_S_-George/3715
March 12, 2012
The Fukushima disaster is not the first large-scale industrial disaster Japan has
faced. In 1956, “Minamata disease” was discovered among residents of the city of
Minamata. The strange illness was causing muscle weakness, numbness, damage to vision,
hearing, and speech, and massive birth defects. Doctors and researchers from nearby
Kumamoto University realized that the disease was caused by mercury poisoning, and it
was a simple conclusion that a nearby factory, owned by the Chisso corporation, was toblame, as it had been dumping industrial waste (effluent) containing methyl mercury into
Minamata Bay since the 1930s. Over time, the mercury had been collecting in the bay; theconsumption of poisoned fish and shellfish from the bay caused these serious healthproblems to residents of the fishing community. However, Chisso refused to cooperatewith the investigation and did not accept responsibility for poisoning Minamata’s residents.
Minamata victims often struggled to receive even acknowledgment that pollution
had caused their maladies; it was still more difficult to win compensation to help pay fortreatment and medical fees, as victims needed official certification from the government
declaring them eligible to receive aid. Thus, the Minamata residents are an earlier group of“abandoned people,” who suffered from neglect as well as mercury poisoning. This was
only the most famous case in which terrible health and environmental effects of pollution
were routinely ignored by corporations and regulators for decades, except for occasional
lip service.
Timothy George compares the Minamata disaster with Fukushima, examining bothcauses and responses. Even though Minamata disease was solely man-made by dumping
effluent and Fukushima was in part caused by a natural disaster, humans in both cases
exacerbated the problem. Likewise, in both case the Japanese government eventuallyprovided some compensation and assistance to those affected by the catastrophes,
although not nearly enough to repair the damage done to their lives. George predicts thatJapan has not learned from its mistakes in handling the Minamata crisis, and that victims ofradiation released by Fukushima will have similar hardships in obtaining assistance. Onlyin the 2000s, half a century after the poisoning was first detected, have certification
requirements for Minamata disease been loosened to what George feels is a reasonablelevel. George calls on the government to provide more help to Fukushima victims than wasoffered to the sufferers of Minamata disease, but he fears that current indicators signal along struggle. Indeed, George points out that there are already unfortunate similarities,
such as deliberate efforts to downplay dangers and to misinform citizens about the dangersof the two crises.

George: Fukushima in Light of Minamata

77

Fukushima in Light of Minamata
Timothy S. George
Abstract: The mercury discharged into the sea by the Chisso factory in Minamata, and theradiation released by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, are not entirely different“accidents,” although one was the result of a “natural disaster” and one not. Minamata offers
hints of future developments as Japan attempts to respond to and recover from Fukushima.
Introduction
Japan is still struggling to deal with the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, and will be for along time. This makes the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 unlike anything Japan, or any othercountry, has ever experienced. The release of radiation from the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO)
nuclear power plant in Fukushima, however, is not the first time Japanese people have been
exposed over an extended period of time to a poison released into the environment by modern
technology. The March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and radiation disaster (a bundle of tragedies
referred to as the “Higashi Nihon daishinsai,” or Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster) occurred
55 years after the official discovery of Minamata disease and 79 years after the Chisso chemicalplant in Minamata began releasing methyl mercury into the sea.1 Although the two incidents
differ in important ways, Minamata surely offers hints of possible outcomes as Japan attempts to
respond to and recover from the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Minamata suggests that for decades the disaster will not be “over,” by any reasonable definition,and that human society and the environment will never return to its pre-disaster state. This essay
will first survey the many “solutions” to Minamata, and then focus on two aspects of Minamata
and the light they might shed on Fukushima: first, the company’s response to the disaster andgovernment-company relations, and second, the environment itself and what human beings havedone in response to the poisoning of the sea.
“Solving” Minamata
The mercury poisoning “incident” in Minamata has been grandly pronounced resolved at least
four times since the pollution began in 1932 and Minamata disease was officially recognized in
1956.2 In 1959 the Chisso Corporation paid compensation to fishing cooperatives and “sympathy
payments” to patients that required them to renounce all future claims against the company. It
did not accept responsibility for the disease. At the same time, it also installed a “Cyclator” topurify its wastewater, without announcing that the Cyclator did not remove mercury. At a
ceremony at the end of 1959, Chisso’s president publicly drank a glass of water from the
Cyclator, without announcing that the wastewater from the acetaldehyde plant, which contained
mercury, was not being run through the Cyclator. An eerily similar performance took place on
March 24, 2011 when Tokyo’s Governor Ishihara Shintarō drank a glass of tap water on national
television to “prove” that it was safe from radioactive contamination.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima78

The second “solution” to the Minamata diseaseproblem came in 1973 when the largest
settlement a Japanese court had ever granted led
to an agreement between Chisso and all certified
Minamata disease patients, giving them
substantial lump-sum and recurring payments.
As of 2010, 2,271 patients had been certified andtherefore made eligible for these payments,
though over half were no longer living. This
Ishihara’s televised tap water performancecompensation under the 1973 agreement,
however, was only for those certified as“official” patients, and the court case considered only the responsibility of the corporation, notgovernment.
A third solution put in place in 1995 and 1996 gave one-time payments to some 10,000 more
people deemed “affected” by the pollution but not certified as patients—but in return, in an echoof 1959, they had to drop their lawsuits and agree not to apply for certification.
The system was thrown into disarray by a 2004 Supreme Court decision in a case pressed bypatients who had refused to drop their lawsuit. The court found the government’s certification
standards too strict, and found the prefectural and national governments at fault for allowing thedisease to spread after it was discovered. The government refused to relax its certification
standards, and thousands more applied for certification or filed lawsuits. In 2010 the government
reached agreement on a plan to compensate many more people—possibly bringing the total up to
35,000—but many lawsuits continue.
What does it mean that so many “final andcomplete” solutions have all turned out to be so
incomplete and far from final? Minamata iscomplex, with medical, legal, political,
economic, corporate, social, and environmental
aspects. Can Minamata ever be truly “over,” andif so, what would that mean? That all patients
had finally died? What would it mean for theenvironment to be healed? Can any of this help
us answer questions about how long it will takeJapan to recover from March 11, 2011?
Minamata suggests that for decades the 2011
“No more Minamata” protestors during the 2010
disaster will not be “over,” by any reasonable
court casedefinition, and that human society and theenvironment will never return to their pre-disaster states.
Company, Government, Citizens
There were many reports in the wake of the Fukushima disaster of localities having second
thoughts about their efforts to solve their problems by attracting nuclear power plants.3 As
Japan’s rural population declined and farming and fishing became marginalized, nuclear power
plants had seemed to many a reasonable gamble in order to keep their towns alive. In Minamata

George: Fukushima in Light of Minamata

79

in the early twentieth century, local leaders concerned with the loss of salt-making and transport
jobs courted Noguchi Shitagau and persuaded him to build his new chemical plant in the town.
Responses by Chisso and the national and local governments to the poisoning that the factory
later inflicted on the area taught people to assume that corporate and government leaders would
hide, deny, or downplay their responsibility, and would attempt to move just in time, and just far
enough, to head off serious damage. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has
followed other companies in Japan and elsewhere causing pollution, or nicotine addiction, ormine disasters. Chisso did this in 1959 with its mimaikin sympathy payments. TEPCO did thiswith the tiny payments it quickly offered to residents and towns near its Fukushima power plant,
and at least one local mayor rejected this money.
Government responses to pollution incidents have probably changed more over time than thoseof corporations. The central government, particularly the Ministry of International Trade andIndustry (whose functions were absorbed into the new Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
in 2001), may have been more unwaveringly on the side of corporations in the 1950s and early
1960s than now. But the government has continued to have particularly strong connections to the
nuclear power industry.

In 1977 Ishihara Shintaro, then Minister of theEnvironment and now a leading nuclear booster,
apologized to Minamata victims after using his
position of authority to attempt to discredit theirquest for compensation. He said that many
Minamata sufferers were “fakes” and that theircourt petition “looked like it had been written by amoron.”

Government policy regarding domestic use of
nuclear power in the wake of Fukushima is stillin flux. But Japanese companies have continued
to aggressively pursue foreign nuclear power
contracts with the support of the government.
Seven months after the disaster, Prime Minister
Noda Yoshihiko said in a speech at the United
Nations: “Many countries of the world areseriously exploring the use of nuclear power, andwe have assisted them in improving nuclear
safety. We will continue to answer to the interestof those countries.”4 In Minamata, Chisso
attempted to export its mercury waste to Korea
but was blocked by union workers.

One common question in both the Minamata andFukushima cases is what to do if the company isunable to survive if it has to pay all the costs but
the government does not want to be seen as
abandoning the “Polluter Pays Principle.” In the
Minamata case, as the costs of the 1973
agreement burdened a declining Chisso, a deal
was brokered by the late 1970s to have Kumamoto Prefecture sell bonds to finance loans to
Chisso, with the understanding that the central government would buy most of the bonds and that
Chisso would not repay the loans. In 2010 a bill was passed to split Chisso into two companies,
one doing business and one existing only to pay compensation, so that those debts would not
drag it down.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima80

It is too early to say what will happen withTEPCO, but in the first months after the disasterthe government moved quickly to explore arange of ways to keep the company alive andable to pay compensation. Key differences will
include TEPCO’s attempt to argue that this wasan act of God/nature, the greater extent of thedamage and greater number of people involved,
the vastly greater national and international
coverage, and the fact that TEPCO is not likely
to lose as much relevance to the national
economy as Chisso did after the early postwar
period. In comparison to Minamata, theNoda and Vietnamese Premier Tan Dung forge agovernment moved more quickly to explore
nuclear technology agreement
ways to help TEPCO pay some of the costs ofcompensation payments, which will likely total
trillions of yen. But as far as possible it has described much of this as assistance to TEPCO thatwill enable TEPCO to pay the compensation itself, and it seems to have backed away fromrumored earlier plans to nationalize the company. So it has been looking for ways to preserve the
Polluter Pays Principle, at least on the surface, where it can. But there are limits: it appears thatthe costs will be so great, and the nuclear power industry has always been so closely intertwinedwith government and bureaucracy, and citizen demands have been so unceasing, that the
government has realized that it will be unable to avoid paying a significant portion of the cleanup
and compensation costs directly.
Environment (and Bodies)
In the case of the environment there are some great differences as well as some similarities
between Minamata and Fukushima. One key difference has been noted above: TEPCO feels
more able to blame the disaster on nature rather than on its own negligence. But of course it isalso argued that the tsunami should not have been a completely unforeseen event, given what
scholars of earthquakes and tsunami know of the history of Japan’s northeast coast going back to
the ninth century. In Chisso’s case, it was argued that the company should have been aware of
medical reports of organic mercury poisoning from the 1940s.
Human bodies are part of the environment, and the poisons put into the environment therefore
also poison the human body.5 In some ways methyl mercury and radiation as poisons are moresimilar than one might expect. Both organic mercury in seafood, and radiation in air, water, soil,
and food are impossible to see, taste, or feel. Of course radiation fades away according to its
half-life, but mercury remains in the environment and can only be reduced in concentration by
being spread more widely. However, mercury does in fact have what one might call a half-life in
the human body, which tends to expel it at a regular rate.
Some six months after March 11, a plan was announced for monitoring the health of several
hundred thousand children living in the vicinity of the Fukushima plant throughout their lives forthyroid problems possibly caused by radiation. This plan was launched because thousands ofcases of thyroid cancer are believed to have been caused by the 1986 Chernobyl accident inUkraine. No true comprehensive health study has ever been done for Minamata and its environs,George: Fukushima in Light of Minamata81

but Minamata does remind us to pay attention to how much the subjects and others will be toldof what is learned about their bodies. Kumamoto prefecture and its neighbor to the south,
Kagoshima prefecture, tested mercury levels in human hair in 1960 and 1961 but did not informthe subjects of the results. Ten years later researchers looked for some of those whose hair had
had the highest concentrations of mercury, only to find that a number of them had died. A
significant number of these people had lived relatively far from the Chisso plant and had likely
continued eating fish without realizing how contaminated they were.
Both Minamata and March 11 polluted the sea and took the lives or destroyed the livelihoods ofmany people who had depended on fishing, often for generations. Those who were still able tofish found themselves unable to sell their tainted
catch.
Another similarity is in ways of dealing with
polluted water. TEPCO has had to try to store themost radioactive water while finding ways todeal with it in the long term. In Minamata from1983 to 1990, the sludge from the most polluted
parts of the bay was dredged up and used toreclaim the innermost part of the bay. Chisso
paid the bulk of the cost of creating this newland, which consisted of a top layer of “clean”
dirt over a plastic sheet covering the material
dredged from the areas of the bay where theconcentration of mercury in the sludge was over
25 parts per million (ppm).

Children measured for radioactivity following the

March 11 disaster
This reclaimed land illustrates the effects on theenvironment of human projects to “clean up” andprevent recurrences of pollution disasters. They can never return the “natural” environment to its
pre-disaster state, much less to some sort of “natural” state, partly because virtually all of it had
been significantly transformed by human activity for centuries before the disasters.

Fukushima and Minamata
There are better and worse ways to respond to “natural” disasters, and perhaps Minamata does
offer some lessons, positive and negative, to those in a position to decide, and some hints toobservers of what we should watch for. The two disasters are not completely different, as somemight assume because they see the Higashi Nihon daishinsai as a “natural disaster” andMinamata as manmade. Rather it is the mutual influences of human beings and nature on eachother that make natural disasters.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

82

Earthquakes and tsunamis are dramatic naturalprocesses, but not natural disasters, if they do notaffect humans and their built environments.
There is really no such thing as a “natural”
disaster: only human presence, and humanchoices and actions and responses, make naturalprocesses into “natural” disasters. Human
actions, refracted through the environment of
Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, caused
Minamata disease. Every part of Japan’s March2011 triple disaster: the earthquake, the tsunami,
and the nuclear crisis—faced the consequences it
did because of what human beings did before
In Tohoku, seawalls and tetrapods wereand after the great earthquake. Some of thoseoverwhelmedhuman actions were failed attempts to protect
against disaster, such as the concrete seawalls
and tetrapods that lined so much of the shoreline. Others were planning errors, such as the
emergency generators and fuel tanks at Fukushima Daiichi that were not placed out of reach of
the tsunami.
Anger over Minamata and other major pollution incidents contributed to the flowering of citizen
activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and helped force the government and the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party to become more responsive. The Environment Agency was created.
Laws were passed in a Diet session nicknamed the “Pollution Diet” to require meaningful
reduction of at least some types of pollution, particularly air pollution. Japanese companies
found ways to profit from the need for pollution controls, and consumers became better
informed. By the 1990s Minamata was a national leader in recycling. Whether the disasters of2011 will be a significant turning point, and the nation will redefine itself (perhaps by phasingout nuclear power and becoming more of a global leader in renewable energy), or whether March
11 will merely accelerate the slide of Japan’s global relevance and the depopulation andeconomic decline of its rural northeast Pacificcoast, is yet to be seen.
To return to the question of when a disaster canbe over: even if we wanted to, we cannot
recreate or rebuild the past. Life in Minamata cannever revert to what it was in 1932 when the
mercury pollution began, or 1956 when
Minamata disease was discovered. Minamata
Bay will never be like it was then either, since somuch of it has been dredged, filled in, andwalled. Northeastern Japan, too, and to someextent the nation as a whole, will not berecovering their pre-disaster past but will becreating a new environment, society, andeconomy. That creation is a constant process, so Minamata named Japan’s “Environmental Capital”
in 2011the question is not when the disaster will be overGeorge: Fukushima in Light of Minamata

83

and its problems solved. The disaster marked an end to many things, but also a beginning. But a
beginning to what, we cannot yet say.
Timothy S. George is Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island, where he teaches
courses on modern Japan, modern China, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. He has also taught
courses on modern Japan, East Asian environmental history, and democracy in East Asia at
Harvard University as a lecturer in 1997-98 and a visiting professor in 2004-05. His
publications include Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan(2001), Japan Since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble (2012), and he is co-translator ofHarada Masazumi’s Minamata Disease and of Saitō Hisashi’s Niigata Minamata Disease. He
has spent 16 years in Japan since 1962.
Notes
1

The company’s name was Nihon Chisso Hiryō K.K. from its founding in 1908 to 1950, Shin
Nihon Chisso Hiryō K.K. until 1965, and Chisso K.K. from 1965, but for simplicity it will bereferred to here simply as Chisso.
2

For the details of the Minamata story, see Timothy S. George, Minamata: Pollution and theStruggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center,2001).
3

See Daniel P. Aldrich and Martin Dusinberre (2011), “Hatoko Comes Home: Civil Society andNuclear Power in Japan.” Journal of Asian Studies 70(3): 1-23, for a study of such efforts in the
1980s in Kaminoseki, a town on the Japan Sea that is, ironically, relatively close to Hiroshima.
4

Quoted in Hiroko Tabuchi (2011), “Japan Courts the Money in Reactors,” New York Times,
October 10, (link) , accessed October 11, 2011.
5

See Brett L. Walker, Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2010).

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

84“Life-world: Beyond Fukushima and Minamata”
Shoko YONEYAMA
October 15, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Shoko-YONEYAMA/3845
Yoneyama analyzes the Fukushima and Minamata tragedies in the context of the“life-world,” a concept coined by OGATA Masato. Ogata is a Minamata fisherman who has
written and spoken on philosophical matters, drawing experience from his experience
growing up in the wake of Japan’s worst pollution disaster. Yoneyama recounts the
struggle victims of Minamata disease, including most of Ogata’s immediate family, have
faced in receiving compensation.
Interestingly, Ogata gave up his own chance to receive compensation. He views his
consumption of industrial products—such as the ones the Chisso corporation produced—
as being part of the system that caused the problem, and so he does not feel it is right thathe accept compensation as a victim. He has said that the general Japanese public is“another TEPCO” for using nuclear and fossil fuels, and so a switch to renewables would be“a step forward towards ‘liberation.’”The philosophical model behind Ogata’s opinions is the concept of the “life-world,”
which is the belief that all living things—especially humans, animals, and plants—areconnected and sacred. From the life-world perspective, it is necessary to recognize that
Minamata and Fukushima affected more than just humans; each disaster wreaked
devastating damage on animals and the environment. For Ogata, the life-world is morethan a philosophical perspective; it is a spiritual framework and a guide to live one’s life.
Thus, Ogata asserts that monetary compensation is an inadequate response to either
catastrophe, because money supports only humans, but does little to address the damage
to animals and the environment. Ogata emphasizes the idea of connectedness in
responding to the two disasters, citing two slogans that symbolized this idea. The first,“mooring” (moyai), was generated by Ogata himself and borrows a term for tying boats
together to highlight the connections between the Minamata residents and the national
community. The second is the annual “word of the year” selected in December by a public
opinion poll; respondents were asked which term best symbolized the year, and they chose“bond” (kizuna) in 2011. In his own life, Ogata has striven to build connections with otherhumans, with the environment, and with his soul, and he interpreted the selection of“bond” to mean that his efforts were being reciprocated by his compatriots.
The Minamata pollution posed questions of the soul and of sin to Ogata, and theanswers are not rooted in the supernatural, but in the very real impact on humanity andnature in this world. The Fukushima disaster has renewed these questions: What is a
moral response to the Fukushima disaster? What kind of response would account forhumans and the environment? Is it enough to throw money at the problem? What is thebest way to avoid such disasters in the future?

Yoneyama: Life-world85

Life-world: Beyond Fukushima and Minamata
Shoko YONEYAMA
1. Introduction
German sociologist Ulrich Beck writes that Japan has become part of the ‘World Risk Society’
as a result of the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima.1 By World Risk Society he means asociety threatened by such things as nuclear accidents, climate change, and the global financial
crisis, presenting a catastrophic risk beyond geographical, temporal, national and social
boundaries. According to Beck, such risk is an unfortunate by-product of modernity, and poses
entirely new challenges to our existing institutions, which attempt to control it using current,
known means.2 As Gavan McCormack points out, ‘Japan, as one of the most successful capitalist
countries in history, represents in concentrated form problems facing contemporary industrial
civilization as a whole’.3 The nuclear, social, and institutional predicaments it now faces
epitomise the negative consequences of intensive modernisation.
The stalemate over nuclear energy – the restart of Ohi reactors and the massive citizens’ protest
against it – suggests that we are indeed at a significant crossroad. But what is the issue? A quick
look at the anti-nuclear demonstrations shows that the slogan, ‘Life is more important thanmoney!’, is ubiquitous, suggesting that many citizens see a problem not only with nuclear power
generation but also with something more fundamental: the prioritisation of economy over life.
The fact that such an obvious proposition has to be raised as a point of protest indicates the depthof the problem. How is this rather extreme dichotomy between life and the economy to be faced
at this point of modern history? And what will be Japan’s contribution, if any, in envisaging a
new kind of modernity?
This paper explores these questions by drawing upon the notion of ‘life-world’ presented by
OGATA Masato,4 a Minamata philosopher-fisherman whose ideas developed in response to the
Minamata disease disasters in the mid-1950s.5 It discusses this concept in order to reflect on therelationship between nature and humankind in an attempt to envision a new kind of modernity
that does not generate self-destructive risks as denoted by the notion of ‘World Risk Society’.
2. World Risk Society JapanThe relevance of the concept of ‘World Risk Society’ is obvious with regard to the disasterunleashed at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on 11 March 2011. There is no question that
substantial radiation has been released from the stricken reactors. Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO) estimated, based on data collected at the plant, that 900,000 terra-becquerels ofradioactive materials (iodine-131 and caesium-137) were released into the atmosphere,6 whichconstitutes 17% of the fallout from Chernobyl;7 as well as 150,000 terra-becquerels into the sea,in the first six months after the accident alone.8 An international scientific collaborative study, on
the other hand, estimated, based on data collected from across the globe, that caesium-137
equivalent to 43% of the Chernobyl emission was released into the atmosphere between 11
March and 20 April 2011, 18% of which was deposited over Japanese land areas, with most of
the rest falling over the North Pacific Ocean.9 Brumfiel in Nature suggests that the vastlydifferent estimates may be complementary rather than contradictory because the data werecollected at different, mutually exclusive locations.10

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

86

Experts fear that a catastrophe on an even larger scale could still occur. Koide Hiroaki, a nuclear
scientist at Kyoto University, warns that Japan ‘will be finished’ if approximately 300 tons ofspent nuclear fuel (4,000 times the size of the Hiroshima atomic bomb) kept at the spent-fuelpool in the badly damaged No. 4 reactor building, release radiation as a result of a cooling failurecaused by, for instance, another earthquake.11 If this happens, the entire Fukushima nuclear
complex will become inaccessible, leading to radioactive emissions on a cataclysmic scale,perhaps 85 times as great as Chernobyl.12 TEPCO reported previously that as of March 2010
there were 1,760 and 1,060 tons of uranium at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini, respectively.13 A
simple calculation, based on Koide’s estimate above, suggests that this is equivalent to 28,000
Hiroshima bombs. A ‘chain reaction’ involving all six reactors and seven spent fuel pools at thecomplex was envisioned as the ‘worst case scenario’ by Kondo Shunsuke, Chairman of the Japan
Atomic Energy Commission, in his report submitted to the government two weeks after March
11. The report, which was suppressed by the government, concludes that if the ‘chain reaction’happens, the exclusion zone may have to be greater than 170km.14 Tokyo is 220km away fromthe plant. Kondo’s report thus is largely consistent with Koide’s prediction, although they holdopposite positions on the question of nuclear power generation.
TEPCO insists that the No. 4 reactor building
can withstand an earthquake equivalent to thequake of March 11,15 and the Japanese
government has accepted the utility’s plan tostart removing the spent fuel from the end of
2013, a task that would then take two years tocomplete.16 But Arnie Gundersen, a former
nuclear power industry executive, disagrees withTEPCO's risk assessment. He says that ‘TEPCO
is not moving fast enough and the Japanese
Government is not pushing TEPCO to move fastenough either, [and] the top priority of TEPCO
Fukushima Daiichi Reactor No.4, May 2012.
and the Japanese Government should be to movethe fuel out of that pool as quickly as possible.’17
As if to highlight these concerns, the region has had an elevated frequency of earthquakes since
March 2011.
Tasaka Hiroshi, a nuclear engineer and Special Advisor to the Cabinet in 2011, warns that a‘sense of unfounded optimism’ among political, bureaucratic and business leaders ‘presents thebiggest risk since the government declared the conclusion of the nuclear disaster at the end of
2011’.18 Likewise, Gundersen points out that the leaders of earthquake-prone Japan ‘chose, in theface of serious warnings, to consciously take chances that risked disaster’;19 and that ‘adismissive attitude to the risks of nuclear accidents’ is at the core of the problem.20 On October
12, 2012, TEPCO’s president for the first time stated that the utility could have mitigated theimpact of the meltdowns if it had diversified power and cooling systems by paying closer
attention to international standards.21 In relation to the risk posed by the spent fuel pool in reactor
No. 4 building, systemic inertia continues. Japan constitutes a potentially catastrophic risk toitself, to its neighbours, and to the world.

Yoneyama: Life-world87

3. Sociological Theories on Late/Second Modernity and the Question of Ethics
The inability of TEPCO and the Japanese government to take effective action in the face of a
nuclear crisis, however, is to be expected to some extent, if, as Beck maintains, world risk is anunfortunate by-product of modernity. After all, corporations such as TEPCO and nation-statessuch as Japan play a central role in pursuing economic development, which commonly correlateswith maximising corporate profit. To the extent that Japan’s modernisation was rapid andsuccessful until recently, the risk it now carries is great. If indeed the nuclear accident is a byproduct of modernity, prevention of future accidents will have to involve a transformation of thesocial system that is key to modernity.
The concept of world risk society represents the conundrum of the era in which we live: a highly
industrialised society since around the 1980s, which sociologists variously refer to as ‘latemodern’ (Giddens),22 ‘second modern’ (Beck),23 or ‘liquid modern’ (Bauman).24 This era isdistinguished from the earlier, ‘first’ or ‘solid’ modern in that in the late/second/liquid modernity
individualisation of social institutions advances, and social bonds, which connected individuals
to modern institutions such as the (predominantly nuclear) family, (reasonably stable) workplace
and, and in the case of the West, (still influential) church, weaken. Instead, living one’s own life,and pursuing individual life projects has become the common denominator of thelate/second/liquid modern in the advanced industrial countries.25 The question is what can
provide an ethical foundation in the face of a world risk that can jeopardise our own existence,
when the risk itself is the product of the social system in which we live.26
In order to explore this question, the report from the Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy
Supply, which was convened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately after 3.11, andof which Beck was a key member, presents a significant point of reference. It reads:
The progressive destruction of the environment has prompted the call for ecologicalresponsibility – not only since nuclear accidents and not only in this area. It is a matter of
how humans interact with the natural environment and the relationship between society
and nature. A special human duty towards nature has resulted from Christian tradition
and European culture.27
There are two significant points to note about this statement. One is that it draws upon a spiritual
tradition – that of Christianity - as the foundation of its ethical position. The other is that it
highlights Europe as the cultural basis of its ethics. While this ethical foundation may be suitablein the context of Europe, it leaves a question of what might be an appropriate ethical and cultural
foundation in other world regions. Given the fact that Asia plays an increasingly significant role
in relation to global warming and nuclear accidents, which are two key issues in the World Risk
Society, it seems urgent to address this question at this critical juncture of human history. In theframe of this broad theoretical concern, this paper explores the specific question: what ethicalfoundation might Japan draw on to frame its future in response to the multiple crisis posted by
the March 11, 2011 disaster?
4. Minamata and Fukushima in Japan’s modern history
Figure 1 shows Japan’s economic growth from 1955-2010 by GDP growth rate (shown by the
red line with the corresponding percentage range on the left) and the nominal GDP (shown by
the histogram with the scale on the right).28 The different colours of the bar chart indicate threeJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima88

distinct economic periods: the high economic growth period (1955-1973 indicated in pink), thestable growth period (1974-1990 in blue), and the post-bubble low growth period (1991-2010 ingreen). The graph begins in 1955, the final year of the postwar reconstruction period according
to the then Economic Planning Agency; the beginning of Japan’s rapid economic growth period;
the onset of the ‘1955 system’ (one-party rule by the Liberal Democratic Party which lasted until
1993); and the beginning of Japan’s nuclear energy policy with the enactment of the 1955
Atomic Energy Basic Act.29 The star on the left of the chart indicates the official 'discovery' in
1956 of Minamata disease, large-scale methyl-mercury poisoning caused by industrial effluent
from Japan’s leading chemical company, Chisso. The star on the right indicates the 2011 nuclear
accident at Fukushima Daiichi. It occurred only days after China officially displaced Japan as theworld’s second largest economy.30 The incidents at Minamata and Fukushima thus coincided
almost exactly with the beginning and the end of Japan’s period of rise as an economic power
and its positioning as the world’ second economic superpower, what might be called its period ofsuper modernisation.

In 2012, 56 years after the ‘discovery’ of Minamata disease, with a sordid record of corporate
denial, court battles by victims and supporters stretching over decades, and compensation forsome victims, the Japanese government is determined to bring political closure to the Minamata
disease problem by enforcing a strict deadline for applications for government compensation
under a special law passed in 2009. Applications closed at the end of July 2012, and over 65,000
people have applied to receive ‘relief measures’.31 This number does not include about 3,000
victims who had been officially certified as Minamata disease patients before 2010, under themost stringent 1977 criteria,32 and some 11,000 sufferers who received a payout in 1995, anearlier attempt to bring political closure to the Minamata disease problem. These figures areindicative, in the sense of the tip of an iceberg, of the vast devastation caused by the industrial
pollution in Minamata.

Yoneyama: Life-world89

In response to the government push to achieve a ‘final and complete’ solution yet again,
individuals who have worked closely with the sufferers emphasise that Minamata disease will
not be over.33 Numerous people, including congenital Minamata disease patients acrossgenerations, some of whom now face the added challenges of advanced age, still suffer
incapacity. Epidemiological studies by independent medical researchers, including one
conducted in 2009, have repeatedly found expanding areas, and increasing numbers of people
affected by Minamata disease.34 The strongest sense of problem consciousness, however, comesfrom the realisation that the lessons of Minamata disease have not been learnt by those in power,
either to prevent, or to adequately deal with the 2011 nuclear disaster: most notably, failure on
the part of administration to take action to minimise harm and to adequately compensate victims.
In the case of Minamata disease, it was not until 1968, twelve years after its official discovery,
that the government took action to stop discharge of the effluent. The year 1968 was the year
when the Japanese economy became No. 2 in the world. It was not until 1973 that the first
victims received compensation after protracted court struggles.
The crisis in Fukushima is even more serious in many respects. In Fukushima, the level ofdevastation is extremely high, and as at August 2012, approximately 111,000 people have been
forced to evacuate by the government with no or limited prospects of returning to their homes.35
The impact of the nuclear crisis is global rather than regional, and in respect of the ecosystem, it
is not yet possible to determine its ultimate impact. The underlying power structure of theJapanese 'nuclear village' is more formidable than that of Chisso. Its power is reinforced by close
links to the international nuclear regime. The causal link between exposure to the poison andillness is much harder to establish in the case of irradiation: low level irradiation does not resultin distinctive symptoms as in Minamata disease; it takes many years to manifest as cancer, thecause of which is difficult to single out; and impact upon the unborn, infants and young children
is unknown.
Nonetheless, there are important similarities
between Fukushima and Minamata: both involvewide-scale and irrevocable environmental
destruction caused by humans; both occurred asa result of placing excessive faith in flawed
science; both were driven by relentless pursuit ofcorporate profit and a warped vision of national
development; both were promoted and supported
by a collusive relationship among national andlocal governments, bureaucracy, industry, themainstream-scientific community, and the media(the nuclear village); both marginalised criticalNamie became a ghost town
scientists; both sacrificed the wellbeing of local
residents, reflected a deep-seated discrimination
against rural people, and revealed the structure of dependence of the periphery on the core.36
Moreover, neither methyl-mercury nor radiation can be detected through our five senses, andvictims are obliged to be dependent on the government and the offending industry for the releaseof data crucial to their life, data which are often subject to manipulation.37

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima90

5. ‘Connectedness’ as the Legacy of Minamata and Fukushima
Seen from a different angle, the commonalities between Minamata and Fukushima can besummarised as a breakdown of connectedness at a multitude of levels: family (e.g. the impact ofdeath or health impairment of a family member, loss of housing, land and other possessions);(loss of) work; food production (farming and fishing); traditional and local ways of life; andsense of connectedness with nature, past and future, ancestors and descendants. Both disasters
caused deep schisms and paralysis in affected communities. Minamata disease caused many rifts
in the community:38 depending on one’s position towards Chisso, e.g. whether or not one
admitted to having Minamata disease, applied for certification as a Minamata disease patient, or
pursued compensation. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima has also caused often invisible rifts inthe community and within families, depending on one’s stance on nuclear energy; whether tostay in Fukushima or not (especially between mothers with young children who wanted to leave
and in-laws who wanted them to stay); whether to consume locally produced food or not;whether to work for TEPCO or not, etc. Physiologically, Minamata disease destroyedconnectedness in the nervous system, whereas radiation severs the connectedness in DNA andcells. If one of the characteristics of modernity is the weakening connectedness (of bonds
between people and society), both Minamata and Fukushima epitomise it to its extreme, not only
sociologically but also biologically.
Is it any wonder then that connectedness emerged as a legacy of both Minamata and Fukushima?
The devastation of the March 11 triple disasters met with overwhelming sympathy, abundant aid,
and offers of volunteer work from other parts of Japan and all around the world. Within theaffected districts, people strove to revive the spirit of the community, for example, by efforts tosalvage traditional festivals and seasonal events. The disaster created a sense of cohesion in
Japan. At the end of 2011, the word ‘kizuna’ 絆 (bond/connectedness) was chosen as the kanji
character that best symbolised the year of disasters.39 Indeed, the triple disaster affected thepeople of Japan in profound ways. A public opinion poll conducted in 2012 by the Cabinet
Office found that almost 80 percent of the 6,059 respondents indicated that they came to realise,
after the 2011 disaster, the importance of connectedness with society to a greater extent than they
did earlier.40
In the case of Minamata, the word ‘moyai’ 舫(mooring boats) has become its legacy,41
although it took nearly forty years for it toemerge as a key concept. The word was firstused officially in 1994 in a speech by the thenMinamata Mayor, Masazumi Yoshii. It was
Ogata Masato, a Minamata fisherman andMinamata disease sufferer, however, who first
proposed the concept as a keyword for the
future.42 He is one of the ‘creative andpersistent small leaders’ within thecommunity with whom the ‘Minamata
patients have been blessed’,43 and one of the
key persons in Minamata who can create newknowledge.44 He writes:Yoneyama: Life-world91

We have an expression, moyai, which I hold close to my heart… It comes from the verb
moyau, which means “to tie two boats together,” or “to moor a boat to a piling.” For
instance, when we fished for sardines, two boats of the same size would drag a net
between them…. If a storm should blow up while we were fishing, we would tie our boat
together with another and head for port. This, too, is called moyau. The other boat didn’t
necessarily belong to an acquaintance…. As we headed for port we would talk about ourfishing villages, how the fish were running, and so on…. Moyai began as a fishing term,
but it has been applied to other aspects of our daily lives…. It implies that a small groupof people will go somewhere and also return together. Villagers enjoy going places
together.45
As Beck points out, different phases of modernity: pre-modern, first-modern and second-modern,have coexisted in the process of the modernisation of Japan.46 In post-3.11 Japan, Minamata
presents a vantage point with which to survey this multifaceted modernity. For Ogata thismultiplicity has been his lived history, and the foundation of a philosophy which is based on thenotion of the life-world that puts the highest and absolute priority on life. As touched uponearlier, ‘life over economy’ is a phrase often seen in the recent anti-nuclear demonstrations, sothat ideas resonating with Ogata’s may well be developed based on experiences of Fukushima.
Meanwhile, as Beck points out, ‘we need a new frame of reference for the world risk society[from] non-Western countries’.47 What is attempted below is to construct such a frame ofreference by drawing on ideas that Ogata developed in his fifty year struggle with Minamata
disease.
This author had the occasion to interview Ogata in Minamata on 15-17 January 2012 and again
on 25 August 2012. What follows draws upon these interviews as well as his two
autobiographies – Rowing the Eternal Sea: the Story of a Minamata Fisherman (1996 Japaneseand 2001 English) and Chisso wa watashi de atta [Chisso within] (2001). By drawing upon theseresearch materials, it is suggested below that:
1) Ogata’s philosophy of ‘life-world’ (いのちの世界・生命世界), developed from his critiqueof modernity, presents a notion of the world where humans are envisaged as part of theconnectedness of all living beings, souls of the living and the dead, and animate and inanimate
elements of nature;2) the philosophy is based on Japan’s cultural tradition of animism and may provide a spiritualbasis for Japan (and possibly other parts of Asia and beyond), constituting an ethical foundationequivalent to that of the ‘Christian tradition and European culture’; and3) the philosophy has the potential to provide ‘a new frame of reference for the world risksociety [from] non-Western countries’48 by directly addressing the lacuna in (Western-made)social science: spirituality and nature.
6. A Critique of Modernity by a Minamata Fisherman, OGATA Masato
Ogata Masato was born in 1953, three years before the ‘official discovery’ of Minamata disease,the youngest child of Ogata Fukumatsu, a leader of local fishermen. His father died from acuteMinamata disease when Masato was six. Masato’s parents, eight of his siblings and their children
have all been officially certified as Minamata disease patients. Masato himself applied forJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

92

certification, and dedicated himself as a key member of the Minamata Disease Certification
Applicants’ Council for over a decade (197485).
Masato gradually became sceptical about thetrue meaning of compensation, however,withdrew his application for certification,
which was a prerequisite for compensation,and left the movement. As a result, he wasisolated and alienated from Minamata society.
More than 25 years later, he explains histhoughts on compensation with extraordinary
clarity:
The biggest problem I had was why
everything was decided by money.
Ogata Masato confronts government officials with a
There has been a massive devaluation banner that reads ‘Are you telling us to wait until wedie?’ (circa 1983). Adopted with permission from Oiwaof compensation. The firstand Ogata (2001) Rowing the Eternal Sea, p.86.
compensation [in 1973] ranged from
16 to 18 million yen per patient, but in
1995, it was 2.6 million, and then, 2.1 million (US$26K). The amount went down. This is
the case for the lung disease lawsuit(塵肺訴訟) and lawsuits over drug-induced suffering (薬害訴訟) as well. It was as if life
is traded in markets and was devalued in the 40th (1995) and 50th markets [counting fromthe outbreak of Minamata disease]. With the compensation being slashed like this, thebiggest problem is the very fact that the existence of life itself (本来的生命存在) is
calculated and converted into a commercial value. The government sees compensation asa ‘cost’. It is the same for TEPCO in relation to the nuclear disaster.49
1) If not money, what?
This deep scepticism about money, especially in its relationship to life, constitutes Ogata's mostfundamental critique of modernity. This led to an even more difficult question: ‘If not money,
what?’50 The answer he gives is:
The original meaning of ‘nintei’ (認定 certification), I think, is to ‘mitomeru’ (認めるcertify) a person’s existence. In the final analysis, the question is whether or not theperson’s existence is cherished (存在が愛されているか) in an equal dialogicalrelationship in which you ask a question and get a response (受け答えの関係). Whatsufferers want essentially is proof that they are cared for. But such matters as certificationof patients and environmental pollution are turned into a question of criteria. If theexistence of sufferers is cherished, we wouldn’t have been left alone suffering to begin
with… My father died within two months of onset of the illness. When I think about what
my deceased father would have wanted to say, I think that it would be ‘I am human!’ (おらぁ人間ぞぉ). He wouldn’t have wanted to be certified as a Minamata disease
patient!51

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93

Ogata’s scepticism about money, however, does
not make him simply an advocate of a premodern life style, or an outsider to modern life.
Quite the contrary. He definitely sees himself aspart of the system of modern society. Moreover,
he realises, reflexively, his own position in
relation to Chisso, the perpetrator of the disease.
This realisation did not come easily to him. It
meant shifting his position completely from thesafety of being a victim-sufferer-patient-plaintiff
who expects and accepts the responsibility ofothers, to someone who admits to being on theside of the ‘accused’, the system that caused theMinamata disease. It turned his life upside down
to the extent that it caused him to have a nervous
breakdown. In retrospect he writes:
What Chisso represented is a question wemust ask ourselves today. This may
sound abrupt but I think that Chisso
might have been another me, myself….
The age we live in is a period driven by‘affluence’, such as money, industries,
and convenience. Our everyday life is
Ogata Masato at the Minamata Disease Centre
part of a large and complex system which Soshisha 16 January 2012. Photo by S. Yoneyama
is extremely difficult to get out of. We
are very much dominated by the values of the era that caused Minamata disease. In thepast forty years, I myself bought a car and started to drive, and at home we have atelevision and a fridge, and the boat I use for work is made of plastic. Many things in myhome are made of materials from chemical factories like Chisso. Fifty years ago most of
the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) used for water pipes was made by Chisso. More recently,
they make LCs (liquid crystals). We are very much in a ‘Chisso-ish’ (チッソ的) society.
If we narrow our thinking to only Minamata disease, Chisso is responsible. However, in ahistorical sense, we are already ‘another Chisso’. This society which has pursued‘modernisation’ and ‘affluence’ has been ourselves, has it not? A big question seems tome how we can break ourselves from our own spell and liberate ourselves (emphasis
added).52
Ogata thus re-positioned himself in relation to Chisso by recognising his own position in the
broader historical context of modernisation. This re-positioning is highly relevant today inrelation to the nuclear crisis and energy consumption. Unless we find ways to live independent ofelectric- and nuclear power-generating utilities such as TEPCO, we can be regarded, strictly
speaking, as ‘another TEPCO’ in Ogata’s words. Here, he asks an important question: how can
we break ourselves from our own spell and liberate ourselves? In relation to energy, recent
developments in Japan and elsewhere to switch to renewable energy, may represent a step
forward towards ‘liberation’. As will be discussed later, Ogata sees the potential of renewableenergy to provide an economic system that enables us to live more in tune with the ‘life-world’.

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Whether it be chemical products (produced by companies such as Chisso) or energy (producedby corporations such as TEPCO), however, there remains a conceptual knot in the relationshipbetween modern human existence and nature that is beyond a technical solution.
Ogata says his realisation that he is ‘another Chisso’ led to an even more fundamental shift:namely, to reposition himself from within human society alone, into a broader system of the‘life-world’ of which human society is part.53 He says:‘Then my eyes opened to nature. I was awakened to the life of nature. That was it!’54
He writes:
I was beginning to see that everything is interrelated…. Grass, trees, birds, the sea, fish,
human gestures, and words – expressions of nature to which I had grown indifferent – allseemed to offer subtle hints…. I was drawn to the hills. When I spoke to the trees, theywould answer. Of course, they didn’t use human words. It was more like the voice of thewind, explaining to me in a different way what it meant to be alive. I was participating in
a communion of living spirits, in an exchange of feelings unencumbered by words.55
This awakening of his senses became the foundation of Ogata’s philosophy of the ‘life-world’.
2) Being human in the life-world
It was not just humans who suffered and died in the Minamata incident. Vast numbers of othercreatures, including fish, cats, birds, and domestic pigs,56 died, and rich ecosystems such as tidal
zones were destroyed.57 These 'other lives' have rarely been part of the mainstream Minamata
discourse.58 Ogata points out that it is the same with regard to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.
The damage humans inflict upon other living things is rarely discussed, and if it is mentioned, it
is primarily as ‘trouble’: the trouble caused by a loss of their commercial value, the danger weface as a result of contaminated food, or the nuisance associated with life that needs to be‘destroyed’. It has been reported that almost 3,000 cows, 30,000 pigs and 600,000 chickens aswell as numerous pets were left behind in the nuclear exclusion zone at Fukushima to starve todeath.59 A recent international study found that there has been ‘a negative consequence ofradiation for birds immediately after the accident on 11 March’.60 After shifting his position fromthat of a victim of industrial pollution to that of being part of the social system that caused it,
Ogata began to think about the responsibility of humans towards other living things. He writes:[Compensation] does not mean anything to the sea. It means nothing to fish or cats. The
truth is that compensation does not mean anything to the dead either. So how can we takeresponsibility? I think that it is by being aware of the tsumi (‘sin’) of having poisoned thesea, by facing the fact itself. I myself am confronted with the question of responsibility.61
Ogata’s sense of responsibility as a human being came with a sense of loss of connectedness
with the life-world.62 He ponders:
When I considered Chisso as offender, I thought that I had nothing to do with it. I thoughtthat it was just a company, with power in the system. But when I began to perceive
myself as ‘another Chisso’, I experienced a sense of crisis that I myself was moving awayfrom the connectedness of life.63

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Underlying his notion of life-world is the
tradition of animism which is epitomised by theword gotagai, a word from the Minamata dialect
which means; ‘we’re all in this together’. It is aname given to the sense of connectedness withall life within nature. Ogata continues:[Gotagai] doesn’t mean simply that wehumans rely upon each other for our
existence but that plants and animals arealso partners in this life. Gotagai includes
the sea, the mountains, everything.
Human beings are part of the circle ofgotagai; we owe our existence to the vast
web of interrelationships that constitute life.64

Starving cows in Fukushima

What we see here is not an image of humans controlling other living things from above, butsomething more humble, a vision of people as being on an equal basis with other life forms,
constituting part of a complex and mutually supporting web of life. Underlying this notion of
gotagai is a cultural tradition of animism and pantheism:
Beyond the pale of [institutionalised] Buddhism were local gods like Ebisu [god of thesea and fishing] and the gods of the hills. These were the gods important to the villagers’
daily lives.65
Placing faith in life and treating it with reverence and gratitude is at the core of this philosophyof the ‘life-world’,66 and underlying it is the way of life of fishing villages in Minamata:[In the lost world of Minamata fishermen] we caught lots of fish every day, and we lived
on them. We were nurtured by the fish and the sea. We would wring a chicken’s neck a
few times a year to eat them, and once every few years we might also have caught a
mountain rabbit to eat. We lived by killing creatures. There was a sense that we were
given life by other lives. In this way of life, I think people knew the depth of the sin ofkilling.67
Ogata’s ‘life-world’ is perhaps best portrayed by the image of ‘Biohistory’ which illustrates: ‘thehistory and diversity of life which came into being over the course of a four billion year period’(http://www.brh.co.jp/en/).68 The image was created based on the idea of Nakamura Keiko,Director General of the Biohistory Research Hall, whom Ogata invited to the 50th Anniversary of
the Official Acknowledgement of Minamata Disease. In her presentation Nakamura stated that
all living beings share the same origin (genome), that human beings are only one of the diverse
species which share the same history of development over 3.8 billion years (instead of being at
the top of the pyramid), and that human beings are in nature (not outside it). Nakamura alsostressed the importance of regaining our sense of being living things (生き物としての感覚をとりもどす).69 Nakamura’s call to regain our sense as living beings resonates with Ogata’s idea of
regaining the memory of living things. According to him:
In the age of “modernity”, we standardised, institutionalised and mechanised many thingsin the name of modernisation. In the process, we reclaimed the sea of Minamata70 that

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima96

was full of life saying that it was polluted by mercury. But perhaps it was not just the sea
we buried. We have perhaps created a system of concealment to continue institutionaland mechanical burying. That can be summarised as the creation of a “false memory
system” (偽りの記憶装置). By doing so, we have perhaps moved away from the essenceof life, and the memory of the essence of life. I cannot help but feel that various social
problems we face today happened because we have lost the “memory of life”(命の記憶).71
Ogata’s Minamata discourse thus developed into a critique of modernity from the standpoint of
the life-world. It addresses the change in our perceptions and senses, what Nakamura calls theloss of ‘the sense of being living things’, or what Ogata calls the loss of our ‘memory of life’,that has been shared for billions of years with other living forms. Ogata’s philosophy is a call toregain our sense of connectedness with this vast world of life.
In order to understand his notion of life-world, however, it is necessary to discuss yet anotherlayer of connectedness, that is, connectedness with the soul. This is the dimension of his
Minamata discourse that challenges most deeply the current modes of perception, analysis andevaluation of social phenomena in mainstream Western social science.
3) Connectedness with the ‘Soul’ (tamashii 魂)
Further pondering the meaning of the Minamata disease incident, Ogata writes:
The Minamata disease incident has left a question that cannot be dealt with as a politicalissue. Actually, it is the biggest and most fundamental question. In other words, there is aquestion that cannot be transformed into a question of policies or institutions. That is thequestion of the soul.72
The question of soul is difficult to address in social science language. It is a question that may
belong to the realm of what Lyotard calls ‘paralogy’, the basis of a new kind of knowledge
which produces not the known but the unknown, widening the imagination and opening it topossibilities of an ‘unknown’ knowledge. Lyotard argues that the possibility of paralogy lies in‘little narrative(s)’, like the story of Ogata Masato. Beck, on the other hand, points out that the‘enrichment of the soul’ through the spiritual quest for a ‘God of One’s Own’ has been one of thestrong trends in spiritual culture since the 1960s.73 Ogata’s discourse on the soul is thus notnecessarily alien in the context of social science. He writes:
I feel that we need to express what soul is more substantively and in a way that is easierto understand. I have been thinking lately how we can convey what soul is, and what we
can say about the soul…. Previously I stated that it is another name for life, but in a way,
I think it can also be called ‘the stamp of humanity’ (ningen no akashi 人間の証).
Especially after the war, various things have been modernised and mechanised so they
can be integrated into the system society (システム社会). This has devoured the soul,
which is the basis for the connectedness among people, between humans and other living
things, and between humans and the sea, rivers and mountains…. I think that the promiseof being human is to sense life (inochi o kankaku suru いのちを感覚する) and to
manage life (inochi o tsukasadoru いのちを司る). Humans exist with this duty. We will
never be an existence that can be mechanised and institutionalised (emphasis added).74

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Ogata’s critique of modernity in the deepest sense is that modernisation (including
mechanisation) has ‘devoured the soul’, the very basis of connectedness. For him the soul is theessence of life that enables humans to be connected with other living things and with nature. He
considers it the duty of humans to use this sense of connectedness to preserve and maintain thelife-world. His notion of soul can then be understood as something like the energy that connects
people with other living things and with nature, which altogether constitutes the whole of thelife-world.
It is with this holistic notion of the relationship between humans, soul, other living things as wellas inanimate nature in the life-world that Ogata and sixteen other Minamata disease sufferers
established the 'Association of the Original Vow' (Hongan no Kai 本願の会) in 1995. The“Original Vow” for them is a spiritual concept. The statement of the Association begins:Once Minamata Bay was the treasure chest of our sea. Here schools of fish came tospawn. The young fry matured here and then returned to repeat the cycle. The bay was
like a womb. In what is now landfill between Hyakken Port and Myojin Point, the silver
scales of sardine and gizzard shad shimmered in the sunlight. Mullet leapt. Shrimp andcrab frolicked in the shallow.75
Landfill was used to cover the area where pollution was most severe. Fish from the area, whichwere contaminated with high-concentration methyl-mercury, were caught and stuffed in 2,500
oil drums and buried underneath the landfill as ‘polluted fish’. For Ogata, this landfill symbolizes‘the depth of human sin’.76 On the field of the reclaimed land, members of the Association haveenshrined small stone statues of Buddha and other deities, including ‘Totoro,’ as a special
Minamata deity for deceased children and other young lives lost. The statement of the
Association continues:
On this land reclaimed from the Sea of Sorrow, we vow to enshrine small stone images.
Bowing down before [the stone Buddhas], we will clasp our hands in prayer, contemplate
the sins of man, and pray for the salvation of those souls lost to organic mercury. It is our
deepest wish that this land of disease and death be transformed into a Pure Land of thespirit, where all creatures may be consoled.77
From this position of recognising our tsumi (‘sin’) and praying to find spiritual consolation,
Ogata reflects on the significance of the Minamata disease incident. He writes:
I think that the question Minamata disease poses to people … [is] essentially, themeaning of life. It was the incident which destroyed a world where we could catch lots offish, octopus, shellfish and prawns from the sea in front of us, collect bracken,
tsuwabuki78 and ferns from the mountains behind us, and harvest vegetables from thefields where insects were hovering around us, and birds were soaring above.79
In the past, we were permitted to live in this world and we had a variety of practices that
helped us to feel the connection. Each one of us was connected as a living life withvarious other lives. We lived it out…. When I was involved with the Minamata
movement, I thought, deep in my heart, that I was living on my own. But when that sense
crumbled, I realised that I live, and am allowed to live by being connected to various
other living things.80

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Ogata’s sense of connectedness is not only
towards nature and the souls of the deceased but
includes connectedness among people; all ofwhich he calls his ‘spiritual community’:The spiritual community is like an oldfashioned country stew, in which each
person has a different face, physique,character, and age. Some would bedisabled. But regardless of theircharacteristics, all would have valuableroles to play. No one would be
dispensable. In such a society there
would be no discrimination. To
acknowledge each other’s differences isto acknowledge our essential equality.81
The strength of Ogata’s notion of spirituality isthat it is not ‘other worldly’. Instead, his conceptof spirituality is firmly rooted to this world,which includes not only intangible but also
observable aspects of nature and people. The
spiritual community Ogata describes above
epitomises it. It depicts a community where eachindividual is accepted and cherished for theirvery existence (存在そのものが愛される)
A Stone Buddha on the reclaimed land inregardless of physique, quality and ability,
Minamata. Photo by S. Yoneyama
including disabled Minamata disease sufferers.
Ogata writes elsewhere that he remembers hisfather welcoming intellectually-disabled people to his house, people who otherwise would have
nowhere to go. He cherished (kawaigaru かわいがる) them by protecting them from beingbullied.82 Ogata’s notion of the spiritual community also reminds the author that congenital
Minamata sufferers – many in wheelchairs with severe disabilities – have often been called‘treasure children’ (takarago 宝子) in Minamata.83
Minamata, however, is also a place where discrimination against such sufferers has been strong
and many rifts occurred in the community, as discussed earlier. Ogata’s notion of a spiritualcommunity, where other people’s differences are appreciated as their essential qualities, is likehis prayer. And with this ‘prayer’, he uses the word ‘moyau’ [to moor] to say, ‘moyatte kaeroo’[Let’s us moor together to return].84
But where does he want to return? He writes:
Was not the crux of the Minamata struggle a call from the spiritual world of Minamata
fishermen and victims? It seems to me that the heart of the Minamata question lies intheir call to live together in a world where life is revered and connected.85
Here lies the essence of Ogata’s philosophy of the life-world: to regain the sense of living
together in a spiritual world where life is revered and connected.

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The question remains, however, as to how to reconcile this notion of the life-world with thereality of highly materialistic late-modern society? Is such a notion compatible with the everyday
life of an advanced industrialised society? Or is it possible only by pursuing a hermit-like‘hikikomori’ life, after denouncing aspirations, comforts, and sense of progress, which are key tomodern living? Asking these questions leads us back to the questions raised at the beginning of
this paper:•How is the dichotomy between ‘life’ (inochi) and economy to be faced at this point ofmodern history? Is it a matter of either-or, ultimately?
The final section of this paper addresses this question in relation to Ogata’s philosophy. It also
addresses three other questions.
•Might there be some Asian principle of environmental ethics that corresponds to Angela
Merkel's ‘Christian tradition and European culture’ of the West?
•What is the significance of Japan in the post 3.11 era in regard to envisioning a world
beyond the ‘World Risk Society’?
•How is it possible to overcome the shortcomings of modernity, its ‘self-reflexivity’, thetendency to turn the Earth into a ‘World Risk Society’ like octopuses which have areputation of consuming their own tentacles?
7. The Life-world for a New Modernity
1) The Life-World and the System-Society: Dialogue‘How [can we] break ourselves from our own spell and liberate ourselves’ from the spell of the‘system-society’ driven by the pursuit of affluence? -- Ogata asks. By system-society he means acomposite of legal and institutional systems that support modern society.86 He does not suggestthat we should give up living in the system-society in pursuit of living in the life-world. Rather,he sees the relationship between the two as ‘right foot and left foot’: both are indispensable forwalking. The question is how to live within this potentially contradictory dual structure.
We need to think how to live with the dual structure. In the global-capitalist-market
economy, we are controlled by a view of the world dominated by the economy and wecannot escape from it. It is a world regulated by clock-time, and we feel as if everythingis controlled by the overwhelming power of the economy and politics. But precisely
because of this, I think it is necessary to have our own time in ‘cosmic-time’, in order torelax and refresh, and find and regain a sense of our true selves. I think that each person
is like a small universe and that it is possible for each of us to find our own way,
existentially, to connect to the cosmic-time where life is eternal. It seems to me thatliving this duality provides a very important hint for us to remain and regulate ourselves
as humans. To put it differently, we work in the system-society to earn our living, and welive in the life-world to live our life. It’s like doing two-sword fencing, or having two
different, top and bottom, streams of wind, or a double helix structure in one’s life.87
For Ogata, to recognise this duality meant to understand that he himself was part of the ‘Chissoish’ society and to recognise that he was ‘another Chisso’ as discussed earlier. Ogata emphasises,
however, the importance of knowing where each of us ‘stands’, i.e. ‘where you put your centreof gravity’ (重心) and 'where you put your soul'.88

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Sadly, I myself cannot escape from the money economy or the economic system. I use
my mobile phone and my boat is equipped with GPS, for instance. Although I cannot
escape from the system, I am still resisting stubbornly. What is it that I am defying?
There is only one point ultimately. It is where you put your ‘trust’ (どこに信を置くか
shin as in shinrai 信頼). In the end, it is the question of where you place your trust, thesystem-society or the life-world.89
For Ogata, the life-world presents an absolute, ethical frame of reference in which, he as humanbeing, has a sense of responsibility to nature even though he is living in the system-society. In
this sense, Ogata’s notion of the life-world may sound somewhat similar to what Turner90 callsthe ‘centre’ or what Birkeland91 calls the ‘north’ in their work on pilgrimage; an inner space
which constitutes a separate ‘place to be’ independent of socially constructed morals and values.
Ogata’s life-world is no doubt his ‘place to be’ and it provides him an absolute ethical frame ofreference.
The significance of his thoughts, however, goes far beyond his personal sphere, beyond a
spiritual quest of his own god/centre/north, which may be interpreted as a postmodern quest for
spirituality. Instead, Ogata presents a philosophy, a foundation for environmental ethics that
addresses human responsibility vis-à-vis nature at this particular point of history when the
globalising world faces the life-threatening reality of ‘self-reflexive’ modernity.
2) Intangible Heritage: Animism
The strength of Ogata’s philosophy lies in its dual historical backgrounds. One is the history ofcontemporary Japan through which he has lived, from Minamata to Fukushima, a period ofradical modernisation which now faces an undeniable turning point. The other is the cultural
tradition of Japan inherited and transmitted for centuries: animism. His philosophy is based onwhat UNESCO calls an ‘Intangible Heritage’. It is similar to the Okinawan value of ‘Nuchi dutakara, the affirmation of the supremacy or sanctity of life’,92 as well as the ancient Shinto93
whose polytheistic/pantheistic world accomodates an infinite number of kami (gods or deities) as‘a natural force or manifestation of energy or life-force within given objects or places, and spirits
and signs of spiritual energy within the world’.94 In this tradition, nature is spirituality, andspirituality is nature. Not at all solemn or abstract, Ogata’s spiritual world is crowded with many
types of spirits, living and dead, human and others, including plants and inanimate entities innature such as mountains, rivers and the sea. It is an eternal world full of diversity, all connectedby the soul.95
Animism is not unique to Japan. Its primordial-indigenous tradition merged with Daoism from
China that constitutes a strong cultural heritage of East Asia and beyond. Ogata’s philosophy canbe considered as a late-modern version of this cultural heritage and thus has a potential toprovide environmental ethics that is widely relevant in Asia. If, as the German Ethics
Commission for a Safe Energy Supply points out, environmental ethics should be drawn from aspiritual tradition, an animistic culture might be as appropriate in the East as Christian tradition
and European culture is in the West.
In the animistic tradition of pantheism, the relationship between nature and humankind is very
different from that in (mainstream) European culture. In Ogata’s view of nature, for instance,
there is not the slightest hint that humans are above other living things. The image of humankind
is humble. The responsibility of humans, who nonetheless have the power to destroy nature,Yoneyama: Life-world

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emanates from within the ‘life-world’, rather than from the position external to it. This notion ofa life-world is very different from the discourse on ‘human rights’ and ‘animal rights’, which areoften used as keywords in the discourse on environmental ethics.
This cultural heritage, however, has not been part of Japan’s intensive modernisation as seen
above. As a consequence, we see a situation where many people in Japan feel as if they arecompelled to make an unreasonable choice between 'life' and the economy. It is at this historicalcrossroad that Ogata sees a new possibility emerging, a possibility of redressing the conflicting
relationship between the life-world and the system-society. It is through the systematic
introduction of renewable energy.
3) Renewable Energy
According to Ogata, the tension between the life-world and the system-society is the problem of
the relationship between nature and contemporary human civilisation as a whole.96 With thetriple disaster of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear meltdown in 2011, this tension came to a head, but,he remarks, there has been ‘a historical push’ (時代の後押し) to redress the problem, i.e. peoplecame to realise how important it is to live with a sense of safety. Today, Ogata sees a possibilityof reducing the tension further by shifting towards green energy. He says:
I think it is possible to change the existing paradox between economy and life to makethem more compatible. If people look back 50 or 100 years from now, it will probably beclear that we have been going through a stage of evolution, a type of new industrial
revolution. Previously, 'economy' meant manufacturing and industry, but it has graduallychanged. From about 20 years ago, the environmental business became part of theeconomy. Eco-tourism, for instance, sells the environment to attract tourists. And now wereach a stage where we cannot sustain ourselves without maintaining a balance withnature. We cannot but realise that the tipping-point is near. This is not just the case inrelation to the nuclear crisis. It is also the case with global warming, depletion of theozone layer, water pollution, kosa (airborne sand) from China's spreading deserts, andphotochemical smog, etc. With these global issues, how to maintain a balance with nature
has become an economic question. Before, economy and nature were conceived
separately, but now, nature has become the first thing to consider for the economy.
Renewable energy, Ogata says, increases the compatibility of the life-world and the systemsociety. He is particularly interested in the alternative energy project advanced by Son
Masayoshi, who is one of the key proponents of green energy in Japan.97 Ogata is particularly
positive about solar energy which, unlike wind, has no conceivable harm to humans: in his
words, there are ‘no worries about pollution’ (公害の心配がない). He also sees the positive
impact it might have towards local autonomy.
Mr. Son constructively engages himself with renewable energy and many heads of local
government endorse his view. I think his project will eventually promote local autonomy
and local sovereignty. The nuclear accident has threatened life in a broad area, not only inFukushima. Because it is an issue directly related to survival, sovereignty should be withlocal residents, and not with the central government. Decisions about the matter of life
should be made by the local people themselves.

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Ogata is also interested in the international scope of Son’s project, which covers a vast area of
Asia from Mongolia to South East Asia. He continues:
Mr. Son brings the whole of Asia into his perspective, collaborating with other parts ofAsia to create mutually beneficial relationships. Because issues such as air pollution andnuclear crises have impact beyond national boundaries, I think their counter measures
must also be thought about beyond national boundaries. In that sense, I find his ideas
very interesting.
Ogata, however, is apprehensive about the system-society that is supported by alternative energy.
He says:
In my neighbourhood, contracts have been signed to build two mega-solar stations. One
is on reclaimed land that has been left idle because some factories moved overseas. The
other is a pasture used as a cattle farm before. Because agriculture cannot be sustained
economically, rice paddies, mountains and fields have been neglected and gone wild.
Building solar power stations usually means just putting solar panels on the land that isleast valuable. Now, it feels as if nature is being integrated into the commodity economy(商品価値化する) in a different way. Increasingly, nature, mountains and the sea, arebeen looked at through economic lens, and it feels as if our sense of awe of nature is
weakening (畏怖の念が弱体化). Maybe it can’t be helped, but I fear that our reverence
towards nature is fading away…. I am a fisherman and I see myself as a kind of ‘thief’
who ‘takes’ from nature. In a sense, fishermen and farmers are all thieves. That’s
precisely why, it’s important to treat nature with dignity and respect (仁義を通す).
He implies that the same thinking should apply to renewable energy. If greater commodificationof nature indeed leads to a diminished sense of awe, there is perhaps more reason to treat nature
more mindfully with dignity and respect. In Ogata’s philosophy, this means to feel connectedwith the life-world and to have a sense of responsibility towards it from within. This suggeststhat no matter how compatible the system-society becomes with the life-world, the raison d'êtreof the life-world is to provide ethical and spiritual dimensions that are not covered by the systemsociety.
In fact, the duality of the 'life-world' and ‘system society’ does not mean that they simply coexist. During our interview, Ogata repeatedly talked about the significance of maintaining
dialogue (対話的関係): for one person to ask a question and for the other to respond. For Ogata,the ‘Chisso within’ has been a significant ‘other’ with whom he maintains a dialogue, while
Chisso Corporation avoided dialogue with sufferers at all costs. For Ogata, it is such a dialoguethat makes humans human. The life-world is like a sounding board with which individuals canhold inner dialogues, raise existential questions, and seek ethical references to live moremeaningfully in a highly industrialised, late-modern world. At the same time, the life-world is
not just an abstract spiritual world. It is nature that exists in the tangible world, as birds, fish,
grass, trees, rocks, water, wind, sunlight, etc. The uneasiness Ogata expresses about thediminishing sense of awe to nature is a cautionary note from the life-world, a composite ofspirituality and nature, towards the commercialisation of nature.

Yoneyama: Life-world

1034) Spirituality and Nature: the Lacuna of Social Science
Ogata’s philosophy of the life-world is, more than anything else, a critique of modernity. Hequestions the two most fundamental premises of modernity. One is the dominance of moneycentred social values as discussed earlier. The other is the exclusion of matters related tospirituality. There seem to be three interrelated levels in the incongruity between modernity andspirituality. The first is empirical. Namely, there is a sense, to quote Ogata again, thatmodernisation and mechanisation have ‘devoured the soul’ from everyday life. To put it
differently, modernity has a capacity to ‘de-spiritualise’ cultures.98 The second is historical, thatis, one of the key features of modernity has been to pursue freedom from the oppressive power ofreligious institutions, as epitomised by the Nietzschean claim that ‘God is dead’. And, the third is
epistemological, which is most relevant in the context of this paper.
Social science, and sociology in particular, is a product of modernity and has operated withsecularism as its basic assumption, putting spiritual matters outside its boundary. Spirituality isunderstood to be something belonging to an ‘other reality’ as against ‘this world’.99 Issues ofanimism, among other things, have been treated in sociology ‘with the utmost reserve, if notdisdain’100 as if it is ‘magic’. The elimination of ‘magic’, according to Max Weber, is ‘one of themost important aspects of the broader process of rationalization,’101 that is to say, the key tomodernity.
On the other hand, the critique of modernity has been presented within social science itself as
one feature of postmodernism. For Lyotard, in particular, incredulity towards a metanarrative, inthis case the fundamental premises of social science, is the very definition of the postmodern.102
He sees in the ‘little narrative’ the potential to produce a new kind of knowledge which opens up
our imagination to the unknown, something which has been outside the epistemologicalboundaries of existing knowledge.103 The ‘little narrative’ denotes the kind of knowledge that has
been outside the legitimate sphere of (social) scientific knowledge. The ‘little narrative’ of Ogata
presents this possibility of creating a new knowledge as discerned long ago by Tsurumi
Kazuko.104 Founded upon the intangible cultural heritage of Japan that is shared with otherindigenous cultures, it directly addresses problems of modernity based on his first-handexperience as a key person in the historic Minamata movement, that is, on the very frontline
where modernity and the indigenous culture of Japan collided.
Connectedness – moyai (tying boats together) and kizuna (bonds) – emerged as a response to thedevastation in Minamata and Fukushima at the beginning and end of radical modernisation in
Japan. This is a response from the ancient cultural wisdom to the reckless aspect of supermodernity that brought Japan not only affluence but crises. In the post-3.11 world, theindigenous tradition expressed in late-modern Japan may open new epistemological possibilities
in social science.
The sense of ‘connectedness that an individual feels to everything that is other than self’ isspirituality.105 And enriching one’s soul by having one’s own god has been a definite trend in themodern world.106 Ogata’s philosophy is very much in line with this trend in a world which might
be called ‘postmodern’. In his philosophy, however, this connectedness is not based on a one-toone relationship with one’s own particular god. Rather, it is based on a strong sense of being
connected organically to a rhizome-like life-world. In that sense, it presents a philosophy that iscounter to the reality of ‘individualization’107 and ‘new individualism’108 in the globalising late-Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

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modern world. Precisely because of this, it is possible, paradoxically, that there will be a greaterneed to restore a sense of connectedness at a different level in everyday life.
Every philosophy and every social theory is culturally and historically specific. While the impactof the increasing economic power of Asia is felt all over the world, as yet no ethical framework
to support its sustainable development has been identified. Ogata’s philosophy may provide afirst step for us to start imagining a new way of perceiving everyday life for a different kind ofmodernity. And to do this may demand an epistemological change in the social sciences. But
perhaps there is nothing new in that. Sociology did not exist before Durkheim established theconcept, and the existence, of social phenomena ‘sui generis’ that are independent of the actions
and intentions of individuals in society.109 Would it be going too far to say that recognition of theexistence 'sui generis' of the life-world might be the pre-condition for a new modernity where
sustainable development is possible?
Acknowledgments: Many people contributed tothe completion of this article. Gavan
McCormack was the original catalyst of thisproject, introducing me to the work of Ogata
Masato some years ago. Okura Shonosuke, a
Noh otsuzumi player, personally introduced me
to Ogata Masato, and gave me the opportunity to
conduct rare interviews with him. Ogata Masato
shared his thoughts and ideas freely with me on
two separate occasions, once in Minamata, andthen through Skype from Sydney. It was thepower of his spoken words that enabled me towrite this article. The presence of my friend,
Minamata Bay in winter. Photo by S.Yoneyama
Kimura Hiroko, a foot-painter and poet, wasindispensable for my fieldwork in Minamata.
Kato Takeko, the Director of Hot House, a facility to support congenital Minamata disease
suffers, provided us with a wonderful space of dialogue that was a catalyst for my fieldwork.
Critical comments from Mark Selden and Katalin Ferber were most valuable. And it was withthe generous editing and encouragement of Shirley Leane of Tottori University that I could
complete this piece. My deepest gratitude to all.
Shoko YONEYAMA is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of
Adelaide, and the author of The Japanese High School: Silence and Resistance, London & New
York, Routledge, 1999 (paperback edition, 2007).
Notes
1

Beck, Ulrich (2011) 「福島、あるいは世界リスク社会における日本の未来 [Fukushima,or the future of Japan in the World Risk Society], in Sekai, July, pp.68-73.
2
3

Beck, Ulrich (1999) World Risk Society, Polity, Cambridge.

McCormack, Gavan (1996) The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence (first edition) New York:
M.E.Sharpe, p.5.

Yoneyama: Life-world

105

4

All Japanese names (except the author’s) in this paper are presented in Japanese order: familyname first.
5

The term, ‘life-world, has been used in philosophy and sociology to refer to the subjective andconscious dimension of everydaylife (Husserl) including the phenomenological aspects(Merleau-Ponty), which is sometimes posited vis-à-vis the ‘system-world’ (Habermas). Ogata’s
discourse can be called phenomenological and he also talks about the dichotomy of the ‘lifeworld’ and the ‘system society’ (システム社会). With these similarities, it will be interesting to
examine Ogata’s philosophy in relation to the western philosophical tradition. This, however, iswell beyond the scope of this paper, and will have to be left to a later date.
6

TEPCO (2012) Press Release 24.05.2012 「東北地方太平洋沖地震の影響による福島第一原子力発電所の事故に伴う大気および海洋への放射性物質の放出量の推定について（平成24年5月現在における評価」here (accessed 29.05.2012)
7

Obe, Mitusuru (2012) ‘Tepco’s Estimate Of Radiation Rises’, Wall Street Journal Asia,
25.05.2012, p.5.
8

NHK News Web (24.05.2012) 「東電90京ベクレル放出を発表」 here (accessed
29.05.2012).
9

Stohl, A., Seibert, P., Wotawa, G., Arnold, D., Burkhart, J.F., Eckhardt, S., Tapia, C., Vargas,
A., and Yasunari, T.J. (2012) ‘Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere fromthe Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmosphericdispersion, and deposition’, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 12, pp.2313-2343.
10

Brumfiel, G. (2011) ‘Fallout forensics hike radiation toll’, Nature, 478, pp.435-436. here
(accessed 29.05.2012).
11

Koide, Hiroaki, Selden, Kyoko. (trans.) (2012) ‘Japan’s Nightmare Fight Against Radiation in
the Wake of the 3.11 Meltdown’, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 1 April 2012. here
12

Burnie, Shaun, Matsumura Akio and Murata Mitsuhei (2012) ‘The Highest Risk: Problems ofRadiation at Reactor Unit 4, Fukushima Daiichi’, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol
10, Issue 17, No. 4. here (accessed 29.05.2012).
13

Kumano, Yumiko (Nuclear Fuel Cycle Department, TEPCO) (2010) ‘Integrity Inspection of
Dry Storage Casks and Spent Fuels at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’, PowerPoint
presentation, slide 4, presented at the Third International Seminar on Spent Fuel Storage (ISSF)
第3回中間貯蔵使用済燃料国際セミナー, at Central Research Institute of Electric Power
Industry 電力中央研究所, 15-17 November 2010. here (accessed 19.05.2012).
14

Kondo, Shunsuke (25.03.2011) 「福島第一原子力発電所の不測事態シナリオの素描」
here (accessed 31.05.2012). The report was originally suppressed by the Cabinet Office.
15

TEPCO (26.04.2012) 「4号機原子炉建屋は傾いておらず、燃料プールを含め地震で壊れることはありません」 here (accessed 31.05.2012)16

Asahi shimbun (26.05.2012) 「廃炉作業阻むがれき
here (accessed 3.06.2012)

福島4号機・建屋内部を初公開」

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

106

17

Gundersen, Arnie and Gundersen, Maggie (12.05.2012) ‘Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth andthe Future’, video presentation, Fairewinds Energy Education, here
(accessed 3.06.2012).
18

Tasaka, Hiroshi (2012) Kantei Kara Mita Genpatsu Jiko No Shinjitu: korekara hajimasu shinno kiki [The Truth About the Nuclear Accident as Viewed From the Prime Minister's Office: The
real crisis is expected in future], Kobundo shinsho, pp.20-23. Emphasis added.
19

Fairewinds Energy Education (2012) ‘Lessons from Fukushima’, here, p.7.

20

Fairewinds Energy Education (2012) ‘Lessons from Fukushima’, here, p.5.

21

“Tepco finally admits crisis was avoidable,” Japan Times, October 12, 2012 here. To be sure,the admission was made in a bid to gain permission to restart its closed plants.
22

Giddens, Anthony 1991 Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age,
Stanford University Press.
23

Beck (1999) World Risk Society.

24

Bauman, Zygmunt 2000, Liquid Modernity, Cambridge and Malden, Polity Press.

25

Beck, U. (trans. Ito, Midori) (2011) 「個人化の多様性 [Diversification of individualisation]
in Beck, U., Suzuki, M. and Ito, M. (eds.) 『リスク化する日本社会』岩波書店 p.21.
26

Beck (1999) World Risk Society, p.9.

27

Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply, 2011, ‘Germany’s Energy Transition – A
collective project for the future’. Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and
Nuclear Safety, Germany, here.
28

The blue line indicates the inflation rate, which was included in the original chart produced by
the Ministry of Finance but not relevant in this context.
29

Yoshioka, H (2005) 'Forming a Nuclear Regime and Introducing Commercial Reactors', in S
Nakayama (ed.), A Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan, Trans
Pacific Press, Melbourne, pp.80-103.
30

Guy, Robert (15.02.2012) ‘It’s official, China is No.2’, The Australian Financial Review.

31

Asahi shinbun, 31 August 2012「水俣病救済策、６万６千人申請、想定２倍、潜在被害多く」 here.
32

環境省総合環境政策局環境保健部特殊疾病対策室 2010 「公害健康被害の補償等に関する法律の被認定者数（水俣病申請処理状況）平成22年3月末現在」 here.
33

George, Timothy (2012) ‘Fukushima in Light of Minamata’, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan
Focus, Vol 10, Issue, 11, No. 5, 12 March; George, T. (2001) Minamata: Pollution and theStruggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan, Harvard University Asia Centre, pp.264-5; Harada,
M. & Ishimure, M. (2012)「水俣病、終わらんよ

原田正純さん・石牟礼道子さん対談」朝日新聞2012年6月13日

Yoneyama: Life-world
34

Takaoka, S. (2011) 「水俣から福島への教訓」『診療研究』470号 August issue.

35

Reconstruction Agency 復興庁 15 August 2012 「復興の現状と取組」 p.37, here.

107

36

Harada, Masazumi (08. 09. 2011) 「原田正純医師に聞く 天災ではなく、人災」東京新聞
Tokyo Shimbun.
37

George (2012) Japan Focus; Smith, Aileen (2012) ‘Anti-nuclear activist sees commonalities
between Minamata and Fukushima’, The Mainichi Daily News, 4 March; See also, Smith, Aileen
Mioko (2012) ‘Post-Fukushima realities and Japan’s energy Future’ (an interview), The AsiaPacific Journal, 10 (33) no.2, August 13.
38

栗原彬 (2000) 『証言水俣病』岩波新書 pp.10-11.

39

The kanji was chosen in the annual poll for the kanji character conducted by Japan's Kanji
Aptitude Testing Foundation. BBC News Asia, ‘Japanese public choose “kizuna” as kanji of
2011’, 24 December 2011.
40 Respondents were over 20 years of age and were randomly selected from 350 also randomlyselected cities, towns and villages in Japan. Cabinet Office of Japan 内閣府 (2 April 2012) 社会意識に関する世論調査 here. (accessed 28.06.2012).
41

George (2002) p.178. Tsurumi, Y 2007 ‘Minamata’s moyainaoshi movement and sustainable
development: Recovery from division’, The ESD Study Group for the Asia-Pacific Region,
Education for Sustainable Development, Tokyo. Available at here (viewed 28 June 2012).
42

Interview with Ogata Masato, 16 January 2012.

43

George (2001) Minamata, p.284.

44

Tsurumi, Kazuko 鶴見和子(1998)『鶴見和子曼荼羅VI 魂の巻 水俣・アニミズム・エ
コロジー』 [Tsurumi Kazuko Collection Mandara VI Minamata: An Approach to Animism andEcology], Fujiwara Shoten, Tokyo, p.39.
45

Oiwa & Ogata 2001, p.173.

46

Beck, Ulrich (2011) ‘Postscript: Individualizing Japan and Beyond: Comment on Comments’,in Beck, Ulrich., Suzuki Munenori, Ito Midori (eds.) Risukuka suru nihonshakai: Ulrich Beck
tono taiwa 『リスク化する日本社会』 Iwanami Shoten, p.252.
47

Beck (1999) World Risk Society, p.3.

48

Beck (1999) World Risk Society, p.3.

49

Interview conducted with Masato Ogata, 15 January 2012, Minamata.

50

Oiwa and Ogata, p.98.

51

Interview.

52

Ogata 2001, p.49, my translation. All quotations from this volume have been translated fromJapanese to English by the author.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

108

53

Ogata’s terminology, ‘seimei sekai’ (生命世界) or ‘inochi no sekai’ (いのちの世界), becomes‘life-world’ when translated into English, which happens to be the same phrase as used by
Habermas. Both are the same in that ‘life world’ is conceived as an antithesis of the ‘systemworld/society’. While the ‘life world’ of Habermas refers to everyday life of humans, however,Ogata’s notion of ‘life world’ covers a much wider spectrum including the biological, ecologicaland spiritual world of all beings living and dead.
54

Interview.

55

Oiwa and 2001, p.99.

56

Ogata 2001, p.66

57

Oiwa & Ogata 2001, p.164.

58

Except the work of some Minamata residents: Ogata Masato, Ishimure Michiko and Sugimoto
Eiko.
59

Yomiuri Shimbun, 19 April 2011.

60

Moller, A., Hagiwara, A., Matsui, S. and others (2012) ‘Abundance of birds in Fukushima as
Judged from Chernobyl’, Environmental Pollution, 164, p.36.
61

Ogata 2001, p.68.

62

Ogata 2001, pp. 64-5.

63

Ogata 2001, p.66.

64

Oiwa and Ogata 2001, p.164.

65

Oiwa and Ogata 2001, p.171.

66

Oiwa and Ogata 2001, p.164.

67

Ogata 2001, p.62.

68

See the homepage of Biohistory Research Institute for the image of ‘Biohistory’ at here.

69

Nakamura, Keiko (2007) ‘Seimei kagaku: Ikimono kanaku de kangaeru’ 「生命科学：生き物感覚で考える」 [Bioscience: To think about it with senses of a living creature], in 水俣病公式確認50年事業実行委員会『創世紀を迎えた水俣：未来への提言』 [Minamata which
Entered a New Period for Life and Creativity] (souseiki o mukaeta Minamata)
70

This was done as a solution to the pollution caused by the organic mercury.

71

Ogata 2001, p.63.

72

Ogata 2001, p.67.

73

Beck, Ulrich (2008) A God of one’s own, Cambridge, Polity, p.27.

74

Ogata 2001, pp.192-3, emphasis added.

75

Oiwa & Ogata 2001, p.122.

Yoneyama: Life-world76

Oiwa & Ogata 2001, p.122.

77

Oiwa & Ogata 2001, p.122.

109

78

Farfugium japonicum. Its leaves look like shiny fuki, but it is not fuki and it has small yellow
flowers in autumn. It is evergreen and often seen in Japanese gardens, next to stones.
79

Ogata 2001, p.74

80

Ogata 2001, p.75

81

Ogata and Oiwa 2001, p.172.

82

Ogata 2001, p.10.

83

Ogata and Oiwa 2001, p.162. A strong counter-example to this would be the case of the 14year-old ‘school killer’ in Kobe in 1998 who murdered a small child and displayed his
decapitated head at the gate of his school, in order to demonstrate to society how his ‘existence
has been erased’ (存在が消された) by the ‘school society, an incident that has had a prolonged
empathic impact among Japanese youth ever since. Yoneyama, Shoko (1999) The Japanese HighSchool: Silence and Resistance, London, Routledge, pp.1-17.
84

Oiwa and Ogata 2001, p.173.

85

Ogata 2001, p.63.

86

Ogata 2001, p.48.

87

Interview with Ogata Masato, 25 August 2012.

88

Ditto.

89

Interview with Ogata Masato, 16 January 2012.

90

Turner, Victor (1973) ‘The Centre Out There: The Pilgrim’s Goal’, History of Religion, 12 (3):191-230.
91

Birkeland, Inger (2005) Making Place, Making Self: Travel, Subjectivity, and Sexual
Difference, London: Ashgate Publishing.
92

McCormack, Gavan (2009) ‘Okinawa’s Turbulent 400 Years’, The Asia-Pacific Journal,
Vol.3-3-09, 12 January 2012.
93This is a far cry from state-shintoism which has been in place since the Meiji period.

94

Reader, Ian (2001) Shinto, Simple Guides, London, pp.40-41. See also, Kagawa-Fox, Midori(2010) ‘Environmental Ethics from the Japanese Perspective’, Ethics, Place and Environment,
13 (1): 57-73.
95

This image of this spiritual world has been adopted in many ways, including anime films by
Miyazaki Hayao, most notably in ‘Spirited Away’ (2001) and ‘Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea’(2008). A strong feature of Miyazaki films is the presence of numerous spirits and (mostly
lovable) monstrous beings that live in the unseen world, especially in nature. There are otherfamous Japanese manga and anime films such as ‘GeGeGe-no-Kitaro’ by Mizuki Shigeru, andJapan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

110

more recently, ‘A Letter to Momo’ (2011) by Okiura Hiroyuki, where beings from the invisible
world play central roles. The animistic tradition is perhaps best expressed in ‘Tales of Tono’(1912), a presentation of fork legends by Yanagita Kunio in literature, as well as by woodblock
print artists such as Munakata Shiko and Naka Bokunen in art.
96

All quotations in this section, unless otherwise indicated, are from an Interview with Ogata, 25
August 2012.
97

Son Masayoshi and Andrew DeWit (2011) ‘Creating a Solar Belt in East Japan: The Energy
Future’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 9, Issue 38 No 2, September 19.
98

Flanagan, Kieran (2007) ‘Introduction’, in Flanagan, K. and Jupp, P., A Sociology of
Spirituality, Ashgate, Farnham, p.1.
99

Berger, Peter, L. (1969) A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of theSupernatural, Doubleday & Company, New York, p.2.
100

Flanagan 2007, p.1.

101

Persons, Talcott (1930/1974) ‘Translator’s note’, Chapter IV, Endnote 19, in Weber, Max(1930/1974) Persons, T. (trans) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Unwin
University Books. Parsons 1930/1974, p.222.
102

Lyotard, J.F. (1979) The Postmodern Condition, University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis.yotard 1979, p. xxxiv.
103

Lyotard 1979, pp.60-67.

104

Tsurumi, Kazuko 鶴見和子(1998)『鶴見和子曼荼羅VI 魂の巻 水俣・アニミズム・
エコロジー』 [Tsurumi Kazuko Collection Mandara VI Minamata: An Approach to Animism
and Ecology], Fujiwara Shoten, Tokyo, p.39.
105

De Souza, M, Francis, L.J., O’Higgins-Norman, J., and Scott, D. (2009) ‘General
Introduction’, in De Souz et al (eds.) International Handbook of Education for Spirituality, Careand Wellbeing, Volume 1, Springer, p.1.
106

Beck, Ulrich (2008) A God of one’s own, Cambridge, Polity, p.27.

107

Beck, U., Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001) Individualization, London, Sage.

108

Elliott, A., Katagiri, M. and Sawai, A. (2012) ‘The New Individualism in Contemporary
Japan: Theoretical Avenues and the Japanese New Individualist Path’, Journal for the Theory ofSocial Behaviour, Online: 30 May 2012.
109

Durkheim, E. (1895) The Rules of Sociological Method. See Jones, Robert, Emile Durkheim:
An Introduction to Four Major Works. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1986. pp. 6081.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

111

Asia-Pacific Journal Articles Recommended for Further Reading
Japan’s 3.11 Earthquake, Tsunami, Atomic Meltdown
The Asia-Pacific Journal
http://www.japanfocus.org/Japans-3.11-Earthquake-Tsunami-Atomic-Meltdown
The Asia-Pacific Journal has compiled a comprehensive list of articles related to the
Fukushima disaster: readers can find here articles about the impact the catastrophe had on
Japan’s people and environment, many visuals, and accounts of the responses ofgovernments, corporations, citizens, and artists to the disaster.
Global Historical Context“Understanding the Ongoing Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima: A ‘Two-Headed Dragon’
Descends into the Earth’s Biosphere”
Fujioka Atsushi, translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs
September 12, 2011
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Fujioka-Atsushi/3599
Fujioka Atsushi assesses the Fukushima nuclear disaster in light of Hiroshima andNagasaki, Hanford, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and the nexus between nuclear weaponsand nuclear power.
Minamata“Minamata at 50: The Tragedy Deepens”
Eric Johnston
May 7, 2006
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Eric-Johnston/1994
Johnston commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Minamata disaster in this brief
article. He describes some of the ways the disaster has been memorialized, as well as the
propaganda and negligence Chisso employed to avoid the financial burden of assisting theMinamata victims. He summarizes the major lawsuits that finally brought some aid tothose harmed. Interestingly, at a May 1st anniversary ceremony (five years prior to theGreat East Japan Earthquake), some Japanese already linked Minamata and nuclear power;
in attendance were government officials from the village of Tokaimura, where a 1999
nuclear accident occurred which killed two people.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

112“Contamination: From Minamata to Fukushima”
Christine L. Marran
May 9, 2011
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Christine-Marran/3526
Marran compares the response to contamination from the Minamata pollution and the
Fukushima radiation. Where efforts to prevent mercury poisoning after Minamata were by
all means a failure, the response to Fukushima has received mixed reactions: some see
efforts such as widespread food bans as an overreaction, but others think that the
government has not gone far enough. Marran focuses mainly on food safety, but also
discusses clean-up efforts, the importance of disseminating reliable information to the
public, and the relationship between humanity and the environment.
Those interested in the relationship between humans and the environment in Japan—for
the environment is often neglected or “abandoned” too—are encouraged to read the Asia
Pacific Journal course reader no. 2, “Environmental History.”
Health Risks of Radiation“The Dangers of Low Dose Radiation”
Ian Goddard
May 6, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/events/view/146
Independent researcher Ian Goddard provides a brief survey of various studies on thedangers of exposure to low dosages of radiation, providing a short summary of each andlinks to the full studies.
Responses to the Fukushima Disaster“Mismanaging Risk and the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis”
Jeff Kingston
March 19, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Jeff-Kingston/3724
Risk is inescapable with nuclear power plants. Kingston discusses how this risk can best be
managed to minimize the damage from disasters, and analyzes where TEPCO and NISA
went wrong in assessing risks and how their actions ultimately led to an environment
where the Fukushima disaster could happen.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

113“The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Fight for Compensation”
David McNeill
March 5, 2012
http://www.japanfocus.org/-David-McNeill/3707
McNeill discusses the compensation and aid residents of Fukushima have received since
the disaster. McNeill argues that the aid granted is not enough; some people who deserve
compensation for the disaster will receive nothing, and those who are compensated often
do not receive enough to make up for what they lost. In other words, the victims are still“abandoned.”
Recommended Articles from Other Sources
International Context
Sharon M. Friedman, Carole M. Gorney, and Brenda P. Egolf, “Chernobyl coverage: how the
US media treated the nuclear industry,” Public Understanding of Science, July 1992; vol. 1, 3:
pp. 305-323.
This article examines the media coverage of the Chernobyl coverage in the United States.
Readers can compare the information presented in this article with the media coverage of
the Fukushima disaster.
Risk Perception
The following three articles examine risk perception and nuclear power, a topic Yoneyama
alluded to in her article analyzing Ogata’s concept of “life-world.” Even in the best of
circumstances, people living near a nuclear power plant face the danger of radiation
exposure. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing body of research on the strategies
such individuals employ to suppress these anxieties. Some might even suggest that the“abandoned people” are not entirely abandoned, having previously accepted the risks
associated with living near a nuclear power plant. Is it fair to begin their story postdisaster? That is, do the “abandoned people” bear some responsibility for choosing to live,
or continuing to live, near nuclear power plants? How else should we think about thisissue? Understanding the factors that influence the decision to live near nuclear power
plants can help determine how to better communicate the dangers of living in such areasand how to better respond to future disasters; the following three articles examine risk
reception regarding nuclear power.
Visschers, V. H. M. and M. Siegrist, “How a Nuclear Power Plant Accident Influences
Acceptance of Nuclear Power: Results of a Longitudinal Study Before and After the
Fukushima Disaster.” Risk Analysis. 2012.

Japan’s “Abandoned People” in the Wake of Fukushima

114

Doble, John, “Public opinion about issues characterized by technological complexity andscientific uncertainty.” Public Understanding of Science, April 1995; vol. 4, 2: pp. 95-118.
Hinman, G. W., Rosa, E. A., Kleinhesselink, R. R. and Lowinger, T. C., “Perceptions of Nuclear
and Other Risks in Japan and the United States.” Risk Analysis, 13: 449–455. 1993.