By Toshio Nishi, PhD
Is our Japanese government lying to us? Yes.
Is “lying” too strong a word to depict the government’s spectacular public show of its bungling? Would, then being “mendacious” be more accurate and kinder?
Semantics is not even an issue here. Good manners should no longer be expected from ordinary Japanese men and women who have been inhaling highly radioactive dust and vapor since March 11, 2011. But we continue to behave. I assume it is a matter of pride that each of us refuses to become selfish in a crisis.
Don’t Drink Green Tea
Cesium has shown up dangerously condensed in our national beverage, green tea. Green tea is supposed to be good for our health. Must be, because the Japanese live the longest in the world.
Japan’s largest tea farm is in Shizuoka, about 320km (200 miles) south from Fukushima. Tea farmers cannot harvest the rich green leaves any more, for they cannot sell them. Now, cesium and other radioactive elements have invaded our milk, chickens, pigs, beef cows, vegetables and fruits.
It is disheartening to realize that the sea off Fukushima is one of the world’s three richest fishing zones. Some desperate fishermen, perhaps being defiant against their misfortune, go out to sea, but who would dare eat their catches? We ordinary citizens fail to comprehend the apparent and hidden magnitude of radioactive contamination that threatens to never end.
From the beginning of the disaster at Fukushima and for the first two months, one nuclear scientist after another from famous universities and government agencies appeared on nightly TV news programs, and intoned with a special atmosphere of possessing superior knowledge that radioactive dust and vapor or fish caught off the shores did not pose “an immediate health risk.” We, unschooled in the field of radioactivity or medicine, wondered if not immediately then years later, will we have cancer?
Don’t Panic
We watched night after night the same group of nuclear experts lecturing that our intense anxiety and aversion about all things radioactive was absolutely groundless. They even implied, not subtlety, that our deepening fear nationwide resembled a “herd panic attack. Okay, give young mothers with infants another insult before they go to bed.
Who, by the way, paid them to say that the lethal leak was actually a small amount when it is the largest in the world, and that the accident could be controlled with available safety procedures when nobody can yet repair anything or stop the massive leaking of deadly water?
We watched, as did the whole world, the fiery explosions expose through toxic white smoke the black skeletal bones of the reactor buildings. Those scholars and experts do not appear on national TV any more. We do not wonder why.
When the experts disappeared, Tokyo Electric Power Company appeared on television and announced that the meltdown had indeed occurred within the first hour of the quake and tsunami. What, come again?
This admission popped up two months after the accident, during which Tokyo Electric had been masterfully evasive and obstinately refused to admit the meltdown did happen. The Company’s confession came too late for those people who stayed a little distance away from the meltdown and were unknowingly rained upon by radioactive dust and vapor. Didn’t the Company feel guilt-ridden to fully know there were tens of thousands of babies and children nearby?
Behold, the Company got away with it. The Prime Minister’s top aide said on the nightly television news that the Japanese Cabinet was not informed by Tokyo Electric during the first two months, and it was shocked, very shocked. Who is running a public show of incompetence and arrogance? Have all of us fallen into the Twilight Zone?
Let me present our national sentiment as accurately and politely as possible. We are outraged. Disgusted. We feel constantly looked down upon. We realize now that the government and Tokyo Electric think we are not intelligent enough to understand the highly technical jargon about nuclear power. Of course, we never heard the esoteric jargon before. But we do understand we are facing a nuclear winter on this beautiful archipelago on the Ring of Fire and may not live long enough to see such a winter.
Historically, and to this day, we have respected authority (the government) and faithfully observed our laws and regulations to the point of overdoing it. We are taught in our schools and families that the central government in Tokyo, composed of our best and brightest, strives hard everyday to guide our nation to safety, prosperity, and fulfillment in our daily lives.
Are the best and brightest betraying us now? Is Japan’s postwar democracy failing us at the moment when we most need its collective wisdom? Our government does not seem willing or able to reciprocate our unwavering loyalty. Worse, we fear our government wants from us a leap of faith in the face of its incompetence.
Bickering Among The Elite
We witness our political parties positioning themselves for power and a money grab by exploiting the worst postwar disaster. The office of Prime Minister must ooze an intoxicating scent that no politician can resist. Many powerful men and women in our barely functioning parliament bicker and squabble among themselves and openly insult their competitors with an admirable concentration of combative energy. Have they forgotten the catastrophe continues degenerating beyond our abilities to rectify it?
Nearly 30,000 people in Japan’s northern region have died. Many lucky enough to survive lost their loved ones, who remain missing. They saw their livelihoods disappear and have been living with a radioactive nightmare, but still manage to be hopeful for the day when they will return to their homes and work harder to rebuild their lives. Most of them do not know and have not been informed by the government or the Company that they can never return to their hometowns where contamination, so thorough, will stay lethal far beyond their life spans.
Lying is a perfect mirror reflection of our government’s coping machination with the horrific calamity. When our leaders look at themselves in the mirror each morning, what I wonder is what do they see on the mirror of their conscience? Shame is not the first thought on their mind, perhaps. And, that is a shame.
Is monopolistic Tokyo Electric, still a rich giant group of nuclear scientists and other bright business professionals, lying to their unsuspecting customers? Yes, continuously, since the biggest earthquake and the biggest tsunami in our national memory, since the irreparable meltdowns, and since an unseasonably cold March 11, 2011.
I do not want to abbreviate Tokyo Electric Power Company to TEPCO, because its abbreviation dehumanizes a very human Company that is facing its own Frankenstein.
Don’t Complain
Tokyo Electric and the government, perhaps joined at the hips, tell us that we have received the benefit of nuclear power generation and, because of such power, we enjoyed postwar prosperity. Hence, don’t complain. Nonsense. Did we the people have any choice in deciding that Japan would go to nuclear power? No.
Their coordinated excuses for the man-made disaster fail to disclose that the government and Tokyo Electric had together constructed a most seductive mythology that nuclear power is safe, cheap and forever clean. To maintain the façade of this myth, the government and the Company hid numerous nuclear accidents or underplayed their serious health hazards.
Nuclear power is obviously not safe. It is not clean. It is also not cheap.
The nuclear industry receives an enormous amount of government subsidy (our tax money). The industry is a virtual monopoly, hence has no incentive to improve itself. The only motivation the industry has shown is to maintain the status quo.
That is why electricity in Japan is the most expensive in the world. The South Koreans, our closest neighbor and an industrial inspiration of Asia, pays 2.5 times less for electricity than Japanese. No wonder their economy is booming.
Talking about money, why hasn’t our government distributed the donations from the Japanese and foreign contributors, which amounts to $1.5 billion dollars, to the disaster refugees? I heard the excuses of our government as to why the money is still sitting in Tokyo. I am too embarrassed and angry to list them here. Only 20% of the donations have been handed out. Is this another example of incompetence and heartlessness?
Tight Friendship
When government bureaucrats in the agencies that regulate the nuclear industry retire, they move into the nuclear industry with huge pay increases. It is nepotism. We citizens hope that the mass media would relish muckraking the whole unsightly scene. The mass media reply on advertising money from the nuclear industry. Hence they hesitate to bite the generous hand feeding them. Reportedly the electric power industry is one of the biggest spenders on advertising. The industry must also be a large contributor to all political parties who sedate any opposition. Since March 11 we have learned all about these building blocks of the safe-cheap-clean nuclear mythology. What a sham.
Just consider, if nuclear power is safe, why would all of the 54 reactors be located in Japan’s remote corners where there are few people? If indeed safe, then build several reactors on the shores of Tokyo Bay where demand for supply is constant and very high.
What is “dirty” is the industry’s play on the poverty of the people living in those remote villages and towns.
I’d like to explain.
Tokyo Electric with tacit government consent chooses a remote location on the seashore, like Fukushima, which has a small population with a barely sustainable tax base. The industry pays a huge residence tax and corporate tax, and offers new infrastructure such as bridges, roads, swimming pools, an auditorium and gymnasium (which are disproportionately large and luxurious for the number of townspeople), and proposes to hire local people for the nuclear reactor. The people of the small seaside village get to vote to decide whether they want the nuclear power station. They don’t have a choice but to accept if they want to live happily ever after. They vote yes nearly every time and everywhere. They bargain at the threshold of heaven and hell. If there is no accident, the village people live in heaven. If they lose the gamble, they are in Fukushima.
This way, Tokyo Electric and other power companies have made a huge profit, enough to make all electric power companies one of the most desirable stocks to park our money in. Then, March 11, 2011.
All villages with nuclear reactors throughout Japan are holding their breath, dreading that their own might suddenly enact the same nightmare. Should the Japanese people bail out the endangered nuclear power stations?
Fukushima alone will cost us tens of billion dollars until someone in the near future succeeds at entombing five Fukushima reactors.
The government and Tokyo Electric do not have enough money to cover the disaster and its collateral damage. So, prominent politicians have begun floating the same old idea of raising income tax, corporate tax, consumption tax, toll fees, and an endless list of more taxes. Are they going to suffocate the Japanese economy that has suffered twenty years of emaciation? Aren’t they the same elite group who mismanaged an economic recovery by suddenly increasing taxes?
I hear the people (including taxi drivers) say the government and Tokyo Electric are using the people caught in the quake and tsunami to collect sympathy money from us just to save Tokyo Electric. Is this another government bailout engineered by none other than former bureaucrats and their accommodating politicians? Do I sound too distrusting of the government and the nuclear industry? I have become very wary of them.
Would we be asking too much if we insist Tokyo Electric first sell their enormous assets to pay for the damage?
When Tokyo Electric makes a huge profit, it keeps it. When the Company loses money in a man-made accident, must ordinary citizens of Japan pay for their loss? Haven’t we heard this bizarre way of doing business happens only in Wall Street of our favorite nation across the Pacific?
We the citizens of Japan had no choice in deciding if we wanted nuclear power stations in the first place. Who brought it to us from America? Are we not the only ones to receive the world’s first baptism by nuclear bombs? Aren’t we scared of everything nuclear? Yes, we are very scared of it, apoplectic, in fact.
For the past 65 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan has cultivated a fundamental religion of anti-nuclear bombs. But along the way Japan has metamorphosed into a strange creature of its own making.
A new strand of immunity against things nuclear has invaded our national psyche. While all foreigners left Japan within the first two weeks of the Fukushima accident, no Japanese ran. Why? Because Fukushima is not a nuclear bomb. Having been immunized by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are not frightened enough to launch into a mass exodus. Hence, we can remain calm and collected in the midst of a horrible reality.
Courage
Regarding the Fukushima fiasco let me say that we do not need more scientific assessment of the situation. We already know no science can repair the disaster.
We need courage and resilience. We must find within ourselves the courage to face the aftermath of our own folly and hubris. It is the courage to rebuild our nation with a revolutionary vision of man and nature, with Japan’s legendary way of embracing nature without deforming it.
Japan stands at the threshold of the rise or fall of a great nation. I am not exaggerating here. Japan’s old formula of success has continued beyond its usefulness. The Japanese have an unshakable faith in their ability to overcome insurmountable hardship and rise like a phoenix from the ashes. After all, we have lived and prospered on the Ring of Fire from time immemorial.
Toshio Nishi
Born in Osaka, Japan, Toshio Nishi graduated from Kwansei Gakuin University near Kobe and received an MA and PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle. He is a professor at Nihon University in Tokyo and concurrently a research fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His interest is on Modern Japan and Asia-Pacific, US-Japan relations, and the US Occupation of Japan. He lives in Palo Alto, California, and in Chiba, Japan, which is sandwiched perfectly between Fukushima and Tokyo, on the cesium road.
Thank you, this is a very important and informative article, coming from an unimpeachable source. I have sent it to all the members of PSR radiation health group and posted it on the abolition-caucus e-group.
I think that if enough ordinary people can understand what has happened at Fukushima, and what could happen near every nuclear reactor, then they will at some point say “Enough!” and demand an end to this incredibly dangerous technololgy. It is a struggle because the corporate media makes it very difficult to spread the word, and it is the technique of the powerful to make people feel isolated and powerless. It is also harder in the case of nuclear fallout to raise the alarm, because the poisons are invisible, so those who wish to cover up can do so more easily, using false safety standards can reassure people there is “no significant risk to human health”.
Thus it requires precisely this kind of warning from respected members of society. The nuclear industry will of course attempt to discredit such statements, s they do with all important criticism of their industry. Thus it is important that this article and others like it be widely distributed.
In other words, we have a universal problem with the nuclear industry, not restricted to Japan. There is so much money involved, going from the mining to the reprocessing, to building and operating the power plants, that it is a trillion dollar industry. Plus it is inherently connected to nuclear weapons production, which vastly complicates the situation. Remember, nuclear power plants were invented as an afterthought . . . nuclear reactors were designed to produce plutonium, not electricity so it is probably the most difficult industry to challenge in the world.
On the other hand, I think many ordinary, non-technical people are quite able to use common sense to see we don’t need nuclear power or weapons. And hopefully there are enough good people out there willing to speak up, to make the final difference in this argument.
Thank you for your kind note. I am afraid that the Japanese government has not attacked the Fukushima problem with enough courage and intensity. It is similar to the Bush administration’s problems after Hurricane Katrina. Now they suffer a “death from 1,000 cuts” because they did not honestly tell the Japanese the seriousness of the situation 100+ days ago. But we must move on from where we are now. I absolutely agree with you that this should not be portrayed as Pro and Anti and would like to discuss this more with you in the future. Thank you for writing!
The effects of Fukushima have been detected in the milk in my refrigerator in San Diego, CA weeks after the March 11 accident, despite all the officials in Japan and the U.S. reassuring me that I was safe. Intuition told me that a massive cover up was occurring as the media told me that the radiation was not dangerous to my health or to my two small children. I disagree. Government agencies and the media left out the fact that other more dangerous, even deadly, radionuclides also made the journey across the Pacific Basin to North America.
I contacted various concerned groups such as San Clemente Green to become more informed. The more I learned the more I see that the nuclear industry has from the start been a tragic mistake in to merge corporate amorality and greed with a deadly technology of potentially unlimited scale of destruction.
What strikes me most is the size of the geographical area impacted by a single nuclear accident, and the fact that there is little or nothing that can be done once large amounts of radioactive contamination have been released into the environment. The 50 mile evacuation zone suggested by the NRC seems meaningless in light of the Japanese fallout traveling tens of thousands of miles.
A nuclear accident at a plant like San Onofre in California would leave 7.4 million people with nowhere to go but shelter-in-place. Sheltering in place is an ineffective defense if the nuclear accident is triggered by a catastrophic earthquake and building envelops are damaged. CEMA and FEMA instruct the population near San Onofre to stay home and apply duct tape around doors and windows. In the meantime the area know as the 8th largest economy in the world would be reduced to a dead zone of zero use and zero land values, contaminated food and water supplies, and every human left fending for himself, just like Fukushima. It’s no wonder why the world is getting smart and challenging the NRC’s and the nuclear industry’s safety claims. A nuclear accident can reduce your life and the region around you, to zero. Thank you Dr. Nishi for this wake up call.
You raise some interesting points but I would like to point out that in fact not “all the foreigners left Japan during the first two weeks from the Fukushima accident”. In fact I stayed even though I was in Tokyo at the time of the incident, never left Japan during the months after the incident and still reside here. Most of my foreign friends did the same. So please, no unfair generalizations, especially if they are completely untrue.
Thank you, Dr Nishi, for writing your courageous honest and clear assessment. I cry for the beautiful islands, the seas, and their peoples. I hope Japan has many many people like you, who are humanity’s best chance for the hard work and endurance required to eventually rise like a phoenix from the ashes of our own making.
” Is Japan’s postwar democracy failing us at the moment when we most need its collective wisdom?” ”Japan’s old formula of success has lived beyond its usefulness. The Japanese have an unshakable faith in their ability to overcome an insurmountable hardship and rise like a phoenix from the ashes.” -( from article of Dr. Nishi)
I believe Dr. Nishi’s philosophical question is most appropriate for the situation at hand and his observations that follow identify the unfortunate circumstances that currently exist.
Due to the various reasons noted in Dr. Nishi’s article, it can be said that the democracy which is supposed to be the foundation of the Japanese Society has been delinquent in informing the public of much merited information. This lack of information is hindering the ability of the world in obtaining the best possible solution through the collective wisdom to respond to the immediate and critical issue.
It is certain that this “unshakable faith” of Japanese people was crucial to the recovery of Japan after World War II. They accomplished not only the recovery but the rapid growth of Japan. Unfortunately, the resolve, or perhaps “over confidence,” gained from this remarkable success in the past could be impeding their ability to recognize the severity of the issue at hand and, in turn, negatively affect the tenacity required to correct the situation.
Well known scientists and engineers worldwide, such as Dr. Arnie Gundersen, are warning us of the possibility of a catastrophic disaster which may occur unless necessary measures are taken at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant.
The Japanese government, through information from TEPCO, has maintained its stance that they are doing their best possible effort to address this problem. Although I, as a Japanese citizen, do not have any doubt that TEPCO is doing its best to resolve the issue at hand, it seems to me that the Japanese government is putting too much trust into a single company.
How can one be sure that TEPCO’s actions are the “absolute best measure” which can be taken at this time? Is it allowable to permit a single company and/or a single government to determine what the “absolute measure” will be in this situation?
If there is a possibility that such a catastrophic disaster, as Dr. Gundersen and others have warned, were to occur, then the issue would not remain Japan’s alone. Leaving the decision to the Japanese Government/TEPCO to determine the “absolute best measure” for this nuclear emergency would be the same as leaving the fate of the world in their hands.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in Japan at this time, the resolve of the government in overcoming this adversity without seeking the requisite and best possible technological expertise may end up simply as a “misguided effort” of an uninformed government.
Determining the best course of action would require the expertise and technologies possible only through the collaboration of knowledgeable scientists and engineers. Then, and only then, is it possible to determine the “best possible measure” in how to manage nuclear emergencies. If this can be accomplished, then the Japanese government, and other governments who have nuclear industries as well, may formulate the absolute best plan for dealing with nuclear emergencies and protect their citizens.
Although there are many theories as to how the world will end, let it not be through radioactive annihilation due to the well intentioned, but ignorant, actions of its people. Until these measures have been taken, it would be wise for nuclear industries worldwide to withhold future nuclear endeavors.
「日本の戦後民主主義は我々がその集約した英知を最も必要とするこの時に破綻しようとしているのだろうか？」
「日本の昔の成功への定式がその効用をこえて息づいてきた。日本人は灰の中から蘇るフェニックスのように自分たちはいかなる困難も乗り越えることができるという、ゆるぎない信念を持っているのだ。」－（西鋭夫先生の記事より抜粋）
西先生のお言葉は、日本の現在直面している状況と、日本に現存する遺憾な情状を的確にご指摘されていると思います。
先生が記事の中で述べられているような様々な理由から、その根幹となるべき民主主義さえが全うされずに政府は不十分な情報を公開しています。その情報不足が目下の重大な局面に対し英知を集め真に最善と思える解決策を見出す上で大きな妨げとなっています。
また日本人の持つ断固とした信念こそが第二次世界大戦後に日本が復興、急成長を遂げた原動力であったことは確かです。しかし、その過去の成功から得た過信ともいえる強い信念は福島原発問題の重大性を理解しその解決策を模索する上で妨げともなっているのではないでしょうか。
ガンダーセン博士のように世界的権威を持つ学者らが福島第一原発の現状が大惨事へと続く可能性があることを警告しています。彼らの判断と警告は彼らの得られる限りの証拠とデータに基づくものです。
日本政府はTEPCO経由の情報で「最善の処置」がとられていると事故以来断言し続けています。日本人である私もTEPCOが現場で「彼らの最善」を尽くしているだろうということに疑いはもちません。しかしながら日本政府は一企業であるTEPCOに信頼を置きすぎてはいないでしょうか。
TEPCOのとる最善とは、本当に「真の最善」といえるのでしょうか？福島第一原発において真に最善の処置が尽くされているかどうかの判断を一つの会社、一国の政府で下してしまって良いものなのでしょうか？
警告されているような大惨事が起きる可能性があり、もしそれが現実となった場合には問題は日本のみに留まらないでしょう。日本政府／TEPCOのみに最善対策を委ねるということは日本国の将来はもとより地球の将来の運命を彼らに委ねているというに等しいのではないでしょうか。
しかしながら、現在の日本にみられるように、可能な限りの技術的専門知識を広く求めぬままに逆境を乗り切ろうとするならば、その結果は情報に欠けた一政府による単なる「的外れの尽力」ということになりかねません。
真に最善の手立てを見出す為には世界の優れた経験と知識を持つ科学者工学者を含めた協力体制が必要です。そうした協力体制が実現してこそこの原子力緊急事態の解決に向かう「真に可能な限りの最善の策」を見出すことが可能となり、日本政府また原子力産業を保有する他国の諸政府も、本当の意味で最善といえる原子力非常事態に向ける対応策をたて国民を保護する、ということが可能になるのではないでしょうか。
様々な世界終末説がありますが、放射能による絶滅などという人々の善意ながらも無知な行動による終末だけは迎えたくないものです。世界の英知を集約した真の協力と対策がとれるようになるまでは、世界中の原子力産業における今後の試みは保留にするべきなのではないでしょうか。
Thank you Mr. Nishi for providing a thoughtful, yet smacking, assessment, one that can be shared by many like-minded for the yet uninformed.