IMAGES: Tohoku 1 month, I year, and 2 years after 3/11. Courtesy of Kyodo press.
Just after the devastating
earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown of March 11, 2011, support, helpers
and prayers flooded in from the international community. The world was shocked
by the scale of the destruction.
As the dust settled and the
immediate danger and panic subsided, there was talk of a Japanese renaissance. We hoped that Japan would rise from the ashes, as it had done before.
There was hope that the different political factions in the government would
put aside their squabbles and unite to lead the nation out of its trauma. We hoped that Japan would now turn away from nuclear power, and lead the world
in the search for renewable energy resources.
We were wrong.
In Iwate and Miyagi
prefectures, as of Feb 22nd 2013, only 41% of the estimated 619,000 tons of
tsunami debris has been cleared from the disaster zone. At least 157,000 people were
evacuated from their homes in Fukushima because of radioactive contamination.
32,000 are currently living in temporary housing structures in the same
prefecture. 59,000 live in subsidized apartments, where the rent if free but
the utilities are not. TEPCO is deliberately delaying the final compensation
settlements, permanent housing has not yet been built, and the land inside the
contaminated zone will be uninhabitable for decades.
In fact, the families from
that area are now saying that they will never return; they know that while they
wait, the houses will get more and more dilapidated until they decay and
collapse, so there will be nothing to return to (but they are still paying
mortgages on those houses). Hence, a large number of those evacuees are
currently filing lawsuits against TEPCO and the government.
During the last two years,
hundreds of thousands of people have attended huge anti-nuclear rallies in Tokyo and other
parts of Japan. The government ignored them. Rallies are still held
on a weekly basis (every Friday) outside the Diet buildings and Prime
Minister's residence in Nagatacho. With the right-wing nationalists now back in
power, the government will try to restart the nuclear power program as soon
as it can, regardless of safety concerns. The weekly rallies will get smaller
and smaller from now on, because the protesters are failing to take the next
logical step; walk through the barriers, through the lines of police in riot
gear, and into the Prime Minister's residence, and occupy it. There are far
more protesters than there are police; it is possible, but not probable. There
is still the sense of the self-restraint (jishuku) that the foreign media lauded the
Japanese for two years ago when the crisis was at its height.
And so, on the eve of March
11th, please allow us here at Excalibur to once more outline the objectives of
"3/11:The Fallout".
1) We support the right of
the people of Tohoku in their search for justice, self-sufficiency, and
ultimately self-government, breaking away from the Tokyo-based metropolitan
policies which are slowing them down.
2) To achieve this aim,
Excalibur is trying to raise public awareness in Japan and the rest of the
world. Please remember that the only time Japan has gone though major social
changes, it was as a result of outside influences - for example, at the end of
the Edo period, and at the end of World War II. We need foreign help, foreign volunteers, and foreign investors, because the Japanese government is going to
sit here and do nothing until the country withers away and dies.
3) Also to achieve this aim,
the Tohoku people need funds. Please, please consider buying a copy of
"3/11:The Fallout". The money will go to Kizuna Foundation, Impact
Japan, and the Tomodachi Initiative, who will distribute it to where it's
needed most. (those charities are affiliated to foreign embassies, NOT the
Japanese government).
For news of 3/11 and how it
has been interpreted in fiction, go here.
For famed naturalist C.W.
Nicol and his take on 3/11, go here.
To buy a copy of "3/11: The Fallout", go here.
Good luck; and please, for
our sake, don't ever forget.
This has been Winston Saint
reporting, March 10th, 2013.
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