Japanese education - Racism: the white man's burden

It's easier to sanitize one's own past than
reflect on it...
Happy Manchus, Chinese and Japanese
co-operating during Japanese occupation

I was having a coffee with a Japanese English teacher friend the other day.  He was saying that he is doing a unit on Gandhi at the moment from the Ministry of Education authorized textbook that he is using.  The chapter dealt with Gandhi in South Africa, being evicted from the train as a coloured person and his subsequent struggle with authorities to gain rights for Indian people in South Africa.

It's a great case study of civil rights and leadership;  I've actually taught it myself.
But... it highlights a mindset that dominates the ministry's attitude to history: wrong is done by other people. There is no self-reflection, let alone reflection, in the ministry's approach to history. The point of looking at Gandhi or Martin Luther King is supposedy to globalize the kids and provide moral education that discrimination (outside Japan)  is bad. It's a great opportunity to combine English with history and civics   e.g. questioning laws that are wrong, having a  sense of what constitutes unacceptable treatment of other people, having courage to act when there are problems that are ethically wrong,  effective means of protest; assessing and encouraging  principled leadership.  But I can guarantee with 100% certainty that there will be nothing that has anything to do with encouraging active citizenship.

The text books  serve to confirm perceptions of white racism and Asian / coloured victims. Which no doubt has been and remains a problem.  Racial theories popularized in Europe were well received in Japan and were used to legitimize poor treatment of racial "inferiors"   School education here completely avoids local unpleasantries like the treatment of Okinawans, Ainu and Zainichi Koreans.  Unpleasantries, controversies, and empowering students to be active citizens are not suitable for ministry sanctioned classroom discussion.

Incidentally, last year I looked at the same case study of Gandhi and  I did try to make it socially relevant.   I asked students to discuss whether they thought Gandhi was doing the right thing. All agreed.  I asked them if they had been there, would they have joined in. They had to weigh up pros and cons  - with little hesitation most said no on account of it being dangerous.  I asked if there was anything that they felt would be worth protesting about (keeping in mind there is a major nuclear problem happening). Most students said no.  Those who could think of something worth protesting about tended to say something along the lines of a hypothetical situation where their families were attacked and they wanted revenge, not a broad social principle.  

All that said though, perhaps it's generational....the generation that's only known recession...

This semester I'm teaching Japanese history... I am sure it will be as much of an eye opening experience for me as it is for the students...

Fukushima - what the government should be doing.

Getting the nuclear plant stable so it is not emitting or dumping nuclear waste is obviously an imperative.  The New Scientist's assurances that it is less radioactive than Pacific nuclear tests such at Bikini Atoll, (which incidentally included the  irradiation of the Japanese fishing boat the (un)Lucky Dragon) are  not consoling.  Poison in the Well's  assessment of the evolution of nuclear waste policy in  helps build historical context,  but knowing that nuclear dumping has happened in other places is no consolation to the fishermen who can't sell their fish or to the farmers whose rice is growing in contaminated soil.  It's not acceptable anymore to be dumping waste into the ocean, irrespective of whether it can be feasibly argued to be safe.  Public outrage and distrust of information sources is too high. At the moment saying a bit of nuclear in your food is not ideal but on balance it's OK is a bit like saying be like trying to mount a case that a little bit of pedophilia is OK..

Anyway, the government doesn't seem to get the fact that they have to deal with the outrage as well as the nuclear problem, and that the two are inextricably linked.

At the moment Japan is considering taking Korea to the WTO to demand that they lift trade bans on fish caught in the waters off north eastern Japan.  In a sense it makes no sense to ban fish based  on location since fish can obviously swim... but the government misses the point that forcing people to buy fish which they believe is unsafe does not restore faith in the food system.  If anything it stigmatises all Japanese fish...

According to Sandman there are 5 steps that need to be taken to reduce outrage.  The government is not doing so well.

• Admit the error.

I am trying to think of examples of the government admitting error. What comes to mind is PM Abe blaming former PM Kan for his handling of the situation in the initial days.  (I think history is likely to treat Kan well - it is bad, but it could have been much worse in the initial days.)  TEPCO has been admitting errors, but they have a tendency to do so only AFTER they have been caught in the spotlight.  

Abe's assertion that everything is under control might be good for getting an Olympics, but good at all for restoring the faith of those who are affected.

PM Abe's decision today that reactors 5 and 6 need to be decommissioned is long over due and very welcome.  It's not an admission of error, perse but it comes close.  The PM is planning to visit Dai-ichi this week... I hope  he spends enough time with people there to be more compassionate in the way the govt. deals with them.

• Apologize 

Again, I can't think of any government apologies. TEPCO officials were apologizing to fisherman  the other day for dumping wastes that destroys the fishermen's livelihood. Apologies are often "kuchi dake" - just words in Japan (like anywhere I guess.)  Their website has emblazoned across it
We deeply apologize to the people of Fukushima and broader society for the tremendous inconvenience and anxiety caused by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

"Inconvenience and anxiety"  !!  Abysmal EQ.  

Apologies are important, but unless they reflect an understanding of the devastation that their actions have caused... it trivializes people's suffering and just makes people angry and cynical.

• Compensate and mitigate

Compensation is inadequate, and will never be adequate for the upheaval that people have faced.  But, farmers should not be farming land that they believe is unsafe.  If land is contaminated, people must be given the option to relocate.  It's hard to restore confidence when farmers themselves believe they are producing tainted goods.


It is a great pity for Fukushima prefecture that the area is so large and that the reactors were named after the prefecture.  All Fukushima produce is tainted by association.

The government has been doing a lot of health checks to alleviate concerns, except they haven't alleviated concerns because they have been finding an abnormal number of growths in children.  Medical experts are saying that it is too early for growths from the reactor to be showing up, and they are finding growths because they are testing.  (The inference being that if mass testings were done anywhere, elevated results would be found).   People have to wait and see.... which contributes to anxiety. 

• Promise to never do it again

They can't and they won't.  So long as they can't and they won't they need to be doing testing has to be vigilant, and results have to be transparent.  Abe is still determined to bring nuclear back. Without cheap(ish) electricity, it's hard for Japan to regain exports.

• Do penance

No evidence of that ...

Conclusion:

The situation is very difficult. It's easy to criticize the government and there is a lot they could have done and could be doing better - like insisting on safety procedures being followed, being transparent with information,consulting more with Chernobyl experts, communicating with the public and not treating the public as idiots by saying things like "everything is under control", being more empathetic and responsive to farmers and residents and making it clear that the health and well being of people in Fukushima prefecture is as important as people in Tokyo, making sure that information is available in Japanese and other languages, that there are people who are informed who can answer technical questions in lay people's language.

I am sure many govt. and TEPCO workers are working as hard as they can. It doesn't help that the policy with workers in Japanese government and corporations are often deliberately kept generalist but not truly specialised in anything.  Many of them are clearly, despite good intentions, way out of their depth.

I don't see the plight of the farmers being resolved any time soon, nor is there much to persuade those who are anxious about food safety that it's Ok to consume food from the north.  I don't think the government has the PR skills, or the integrity to persuade people otherwise.

My outrage level is not nearly as high as my food consumption from Fukushima. A lot of the reaction is  hysterical, inconsistent and uninformed, people are very risk averse when they feel the govt. is playing them for mugs.  But the the lack of transparent information,  lack of effective communication, lack of empathy in listening to and acting on concerns makes it almost inevitable.

All of this compounded by media that in many cases is not interested in promoting deep understanding... While most of Japan can switch off or zone out or eat food from Kyushu,  for the farmers, fishermen and people of Fukushima - there is nowhere where they can avert their eyes.

http://www.psandman.com/articles/risk.htm

Fukushima, radiation & data

This is an interesting graphic from http://xkcd.com/radiation/  It is the kind of information the government is working with - there is radiation, but it's not that dangerous. This kind of information, while extremely useful and reassuring,  by itself is totally inadequate for appeasing outrage.

The plight of Fukushima farmers III

• Individually controlled vs. controlled by others

Farmers have very limited control. They are told where they can farm, where they can't farm. They are told what is "safe" and what is "not safe".  Despite misgivings about tilling the soil on land with radioactive readings, they are told that it's not contaminated enough for them to be compensated to the extent that allows them to move somewhere else or acquire new skills to pursue a different career. They go to meetings - like the one on the video- and the people who do control the decisions don't understand that part of the core anxiety of farmers is that the they have been rendered totally impotent in  decision making. 

• Fair vs. unfair

Not fair.  Not fair. Not fair at all.  Even thought some of the places near the plant - in particular Tomioka - (but not Namie which has a long history of resistance against the plant) received financial incentives to have the plant in their local government area. This was compensation (bribes) for the plant; it wasn't to mollify people, who had been sold the myth of "Atoms for Peace", in the face of nuclear meltdown.   Anywhere in the world agriculture and fishing have an uneasy relationship with mining and heavy industry.  The integrity of agricultural products depends on perceptions of food safety.  For farmers who have been campaigning against the plant for years, it's bitterly unfair.  Rural Japan provides the oxygen for the cities to live.  It's an unfashionable point of view that is also found in the sentimentalized fascist constructions of a mythological glorious past.  But in reality Tokyo in particular relies on the regions for domestically produced energy - in the case of Tokyo, much of it from Tohoku. Nuclear plants in particular have kept energy cheap, at least cheaper than it would have been, and allowed Japanese industry to thrive.  The constant stream of cheap labour from the north facilitated the post war reconstruction.  Hiro's uncles were typical of their generation - rice farming in the spring summer and autumn in Akita,  labourers in Tokyo through the summer.  The children of the sixties and seventies left the regions for education, many finding work in Tokyo and making it their home.  The farming towns of Fukushima, like the farming towns all over Japan, have dwindling and aging populations.   There is outrage in Tokyo about potential danger to "our" food, but you see hints of outrage against farmers too for being complicit in knowingly producing food that is contaminated.  
The unfairness of that perspective, is something I lack words to describe.

• Morally irrelevant vs. morally relevant

As Peter Sandman says, pollution "used to be unimportant (but) now pollution is morally wrong and polluters are reprehensible." We can subsitute "nuclear residue". It used to be unimportant, because it wasn't an issue, but now radioactive residue is absolutely unacceptable.  It makes absolutely no difference whether the Maximum Residue Level is 10 becquerels or 100,000 becquerels.  The fact is any becquerels is unacceptable. Mass opinion, in the absence of scientific "proof" does not want any becquerels as residue in their food.  The fact mass opinion doesn't condemn clogging tonkatsu or transfat filled Oreos, permits smoky coffee shops and doesn't question the intentional irradiation of food as a hygiene method  are a point of irony that bemuse me, but essentially not relevant to the fact that in the popular mind there is no safe level of nuclear residue.  No amount of persuading that 100 becquerels is safe, will convince the population that nuclear residue is comparable  to something like butter  where some is OK, but too much is bad for your health....

• Responsive process vs. unresponsive process

The government has done some.... they've made an exclusion zone.  But the farmers that are complaining here are not being listened to.  The govt. and TEPCO are not being open and transparent about how decisions are being made.They are  not admitting that they have and are making mistakes.  TEPCO is not admitting mistakes.  It was announced perhaps two weeks ago that no-one is going to be prosecuted for the mistakes made.  Despite the fact that warnings were ignored, false information was given, no-one is going to be held accountable.  Listening to farmers talking about their dire situation and responding with what may as well be  - you are gullible for believing rumours that your food is not safe is not the kind of response that heightens anger, outrage and mistrust.

• Trustworthy sources vs. untrustworthy sources

The government and TEPCO have lost all credibility.  PM announcing that the situation is under control to the IOC sent shockwaves through much of Japan.... For the farmers in this video, they are very clear that it's not under control.  They know themselves that they are contributing to a food chain that people can't trust.  If it's under control why is water with radiation being poured into the Pacific?  An official from the plant is on the record last week saying it's not under control.      If there are lies about such basic things, why would you believe in the integrity of the food chain, or that 100 becquerels is safe, or that it's not going to cause cancers, or it's not ever going to affect Tokyo...

Anti Nuclear Protest - more undercover police than protesters

Uniformed police waiting for a protest of about 80 anti nuclear protesters

If the authorities put as much energy into responding to
people who live in affected areas as they spend intimidating
anti nuclear protesters... a lot more might be achieved.