Tag: Japan

Twice exposed to nuclear radiation

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Beth Balaban

More than 60 years ago, the first atomic weapons were dropped on Japan. Today about 200,000 Hibakusha–survivors of those attacks–live as reminders of the nuclear horror that devastated the country.

Fukushima radiation dose map
Image in public domain

Among the multitude of lives thrown into turmoil by the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a few Hibakusha were exposed to radiation for a second time.

Eighty-one-year-old Saichi Ouchi is one of only eight people in history to be twice exposed to such high levels of nuclear radiation. In 1945, a few days after the August 6 bombing of Hiroshima, military medic Saichi entered the city to tend to the injured and was himself exposed to high levels of radiation.

After the war ended, he returned to his hometown in the sparsely populated Yamakiya district of Kawamata to take over the family rice farm. He and his wife Tsugiko raised four children who brought them three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

After suffering three strokes over the last few years, Saichi remains sequestered at a nursing care facility in Iitate, Fukushima–a small village just 24 miles north of the Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Saichi’s eldest son, Hidekazu, has now taken on the responsibility of leading the family. Unable to carry on their generations-long tradition of farming due to the contamination of the land, Hidekazu works as a truck driver to provide for his parents and children.

As Japan slowly heals from a terrible catastrophe, the Ouchi family, too, must find a way to recover.

Over the next few weeks, I will be making a film that will follow the Ouchi family as they reassemble their lives, bringing to light a universal human experience– the importance of family–amid the rarest of misfortunes.

Beth Balaban
Co-director/Producer
Principle Pictures

Committed to non-violent protesting (Quaker reflections, Part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

A continuing series by guest author Jean Gerard

Moving to California, I married and began raising three boys. It was the time of World War II, with its nuclear atrocities that wiped out vast portions of my beloved Japan.  All too soon again came the Korean “engagement.”

Quaker star
Quaker star. Image in public domain

Finally worried and angry enough, I joined Quakers. With the strength of their comradeship and guidance, I committed to non-violent protesting of further nuclear testing and missile development.

I was a paid office manager for the Sane Nuclear Policy Committee, then later for Women’s Strike for Peace and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze movement, and finally for the American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee.  My main interest has long been in world peace:

  • To what extent could it be taught?
  • What are the essential ingredients of intercultural understanding and acceptance?
  • What does empathy have to do with understanding differences?

It is no surprise that I have fallen in with Occupiers.  I find them particularly engaging because they are trying to do what I failed to do – discover and employ the most important fundamental of peace-making – creative alternatives to violence.

I have read some, listened a lot, and thought a great deal about the works of Gene Sharp, Richard Gregg and others, and the practices of Gandhi, Mandela, Schweitzer, Havel and Walesa, the Berrigan brothers, and Catholic Worker activists.

When the recent uprisings began in the Middle East, I started reading Al Jazeera and several foreign English language sources.  I recognized at last some hope for stopping the destruction of this failing world and for rehabilitating our decadent American democracy.

I see the free Internet as an aid to improving international understanding, and nonviolent revolution as a means toward a human future.

 

Religions as revolutions

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Majed Ashy, Ph.D.

Moses and escape from Egypt
Israel's escape from Egypt. Image in public domain

From the time of…

  • Moses, who helped guide the Israelis out of slavery and oppression to freedom, to
  • Jesus, who preached equality and love and changed the whole human understanding of power structures, to
  • Mohammad, who fought tyranny and oppression in Arabia and preached for justice and human dignity …

… one can see that these religions were in some ways revolutions, forces against existing oppressive power structures and traditions.

No doubt, some of the followers of religions established their own oppressive power structures and committed violence, but violence and oppression can be committed by non-religious as well as religious individuals and forces.

What did any religion have to do with the 20 million people killed in WWI, or the 60 million killed in WWII?  With Vietnam, Korean, or Japanese wars, the Cambodian or Rwandan genocides, or the dropping of the nuclear bombs over Japanese civilians?  Or the oppression and killing of millions in Russia and Eastern Europe by Stalin and other dictators, or the oppression committed by military dictators in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, among many others?

Linking violence to one religion or another reflects:

  • Selective attention and reading of the history of violence and oppression that existed before and after any of these religions were established
  • Overlooking the role of religions and religious people in fighting oppression and contributing to humans’ well being in many areas of life
  • A dangerous way of offering unexamined answers that feed popular cultural prejudices and fears
  • A simplification of the problem of human violence,l which transcends race, culture, or religion

Instead of falsely attributing violence to religion, we need a serious scholarly non-ideological discussion to find the real roots of violence and the way toward greater peace.

To achieve peace, we need courage to look in the mirror and see our own faults before we point fingers at others, and we need courage in our struggle to be fair — even with those with whom we disagree.

Dr. Majed Ashy, assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Today: A day of mourning and celebration

Posted on by kathiemm

Today is a day when we should mourn the first and only use of nuclear weapons and their growing threat to life on earth.

Nuclear bomb test on Bikini Atoll
Nuclear bomb test on Bikini Atoll (Image in public domain)

By some estimates (e.g., the Ploughshares Fund, June, 2010), there may now be over 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Primarily owned by Russia and the United States, these modern weapons are more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Today is also a day that warrants celebrations. It is a day to appreciate the ongoing efforts of thousands of activists around the world to resist the spread of nuclear weaponry—including the unintended “weaponry” that unleashed death and contamination at Japan’s Fukushima power plant.

Today, psychologists emphasize mindfulness as a path to greater mental health.  Think of the anti-nuclear activists as our global agents of mindfulness.  They risk persecution and prosecution to help sustain life on earth. They educate, agitate, and promulgate on behalf of all of us.

Today we are approximately one quarter of the way through August, which is Nuclear-Free Future Month.  At least for today, think about what this world would be like if we stop — or fail to stop — nuclear proliferation and the retention of thousands of nuclear weapons.

Is this not an issue worthy of your attention? What will you do to make your voice heard?

Today is a good day to learn more about anti-nuclear crusaders for peace and justice. For example, check out The Nuclear Abolitionist, Waging Nonviolence, and The Ploughshares Fund.

Today is a good day to get Howard Zinn’s last book, The Bomb, (City Lights Open Media) and to listen to Daniel Ellsberg’s discussion of the man and the book.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology