Yutaka TONOOKA “Fukushima Study Tour Report “Iitate Village, Three Years Past – A Trial by Mr. Muneo KANNO – ”

I learned a word “Madei” for the first time. This word expresses behavior and consciousness of good-natured farmers who have supported traditional societies, diligently since the Edo period (1603-1868), or earlier. It seems to me a good expression. I, as a scholar of environmental problems, am appealing strongly every day to the general public, as the most important issue, that our objective is a sustainable society.

 

This objective can be achieved if the whole society would change to “Madei” and, at the same time, if we could outgrow from the use of fossil fuel and nuclear power.　In that sense, a trial of Iitate resurrection is an entrance for sustainable society and the Iitate villagers are bearing their role, without being noticed; their example may lead Japan to this direction.

 

I think it is quite natural for the Iitate villagers to have a strong determination to abandon nuclear power generation. We cannot find such determination in other villages. The Iitate villagers have both objectives of establishing a sustainable society and abandoning nuclear power generation. We, who are living in Tokyo where we have not suffered from the nuclear accident, forget completely what the Iitate villagers who live a “Madei”-like life think their suffering is natural. If you listen to Mr. Kanno, it will be a good chance to understand what city-dwellers lost. The villagers’ “Madei-spirit and positive “trial-and-error attitude”, even in a situation where they fall into the bottomless pit or in deadly contamination by invisible radioactivity, will become steady and motivated for resurrection. I am sure that a village where such people are living can recover someday even if its population would decrease.

It became clear, from the administrative confusion this time, that many people in governmental offices (Kasumigaseki) or in major companies in a city or in Tokyo lack in the qualifications to deal with such an emergency. We cannot find such reliable person or persons like Mr. Kanno. 　Actually it was a serious situation but, at the same time, it was also invisible and dangerous that many people did not consider it seriously. Strangely enough, invisible contamination by radioactivity coincides with invisible irresponsibility in a city. I am afraid such coincidence will compounded the danger.

 

There is a similar situation in universities. I cannot criticize it, as I cannot do anything anyway in my own organization. As is often the case, we cannot do anything or are not allowed to do anything of a dampening effect, being bound by old set of rules or we cannot make flexible use of them. Teachers and administrative officers escape from such situations by saying that both of them are not the leading parties and do not like to be responsible for results. It was the same in the UK. I do not know how the situation in China is now, though it seemed opposite that of a few years ago.

 

I have painted in watercolors landscapes in the agricultural countryside since my high-school days. There was a sympathy in my mind with Japanese original life in which people live together with nature being unified and blessed which is symbolized by “satoyama” (rural natural areas). I have been attracted to farmers and their villages and houses as “Madei-like” life places. I, as a specialist in environmental issues, am returning to a world of pictures which I have painted in my youth. I think my sense of values has made a change in my life which seems to have been half- scheduled. It is clear, as my reserve in my mind, that there exists what I can do and what I cannot do as a mission which is given by God.

 

Owing to Atsumi International Foundation, Sekiguchi Global Research Association, I could visit Iitate at last and have gotten a chance to experience being in the disaster-stricken area at first after three and a half years. I was able, unexpectedly, to meet there Mr. Tao, who is an old acquaintance of mine. I could not help but think that our meeting was due to something beyond coincidence, which was concealed. We studied together at the Ojima laboratory at the Department of Science and Technology, Waseda University around the year 2008.　 I understand that such past acquaintance gave us the chance of meeting this time unconsciously. I came to know for the first time that Mr. Tao is playing a very active part there as an NPO activist for the resurrection of Fukushima.　 Prof. Ken-ichi Kimura, as my mentor for my doctoral thesis at Waseda University, also participated in this tour. This was another reason why I decided to participate, though I was busy. I also happened to meet Mr.Inoue at the house of Mr. Kin-ichi Okubo in Komiya District,　which is said to be an area with a high degree of radioactive contamination. He is taking care of a ninety-year-old lady and working at the Shonan Central Hospital (in Tsujido, Kanagawa Pref.).　 According to him, he knows my father Toyohiko Tonooka coincidentally. 　I cannot help but feel again there exists something destined behind such coincidence.

 

I talked with Mr. Kanno of Kahoku Shinpo (Japanese newspaper in Tohoku Area) at his house. He said that the young people who evacuated during the disaster do not intend to return to their own village since the last three years. He also said that their village cannot maintain their administration because only the old folks have remained and their population is diminishing. 　Such severe situation is coming. I have to seriously consider again about the special circumstances which have occurred from the nuclear accident and the resulting difficulties. Conversely, however, I might say that people who like to manage agriculture will be able to get a chance to practice their skill even though they are not generation of farmers. And we can see even a possibility of changing this mind-set into a big hope.

 

If a village cannot be organized without outsiders or the young, they should receive newcomers who transcend conservative habits of the village. It will be a good chance to establish new agricultural villages by outsiders which have fresh disposition and have modern knowledge. We may be able to establish another new Japanese society remote from a bad influence of world economy which is in a dead end. 　As implied in a sharp decline of the New York Stock Market for these few days, a Great Economy Crash may happen in the near future. It may lead to a World Crisis whose scale may be bigger than the Fukushima Nuclear Accident. Trials at Iitate may be preliminary and precedent correspondence to avoid such world crisis. Coping with immediate crisis in “Madei-like” and its accumulation would receive unsought divine protection.

I think (or rather “I hope”) “Madei-like” Iitate shall be a gleam of hope for Japan and the world.

 

(Professor of Faculty of Economics, Saitama University)

 

Translated by Kazuo Kawamura

English checked by Mac Maquito

 

SGRA Kawaraban 438  in Japanese (original)