A place covered with heavily grown grasses: Fukushima

Photo courtesy japanese.china.org.cn/

Photo courtesy CNN

Photo courtesy mytown.asahi.com

In this world, there are number of places that used to be very lively and full of vitality, but became desolate no-man's land. Fukushima prefecture in Japan is not an exception. After the huge earthquake in March 11th 2011, people had to evacuate from the prefecture, which was contaminated by the radiation. This radioactive contamination was created by the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was heavily damaged by the tsunami on March 11th.

The families, workers, children….all people in the town near the nuclear plant were forced to leave their hometown. Today, there are more than 40,000 people are being forced to live at an evacuation site. More than 300,000 people are living at a temporary house. Children are being apart with their friends and enter school at the surrounding prefectures. Students from Fukushima are being discriminated at the certain school due to a suspicion that they might bring radiation. Recently, kindergartens from Fukushima were refused to enter a nursery school in Yamanashi prefecture. The increasing discrimination against innocent people in Fukushima shows no signs of stopping. Biased, rapid information provided by the mass media produced a huge prejudice toward everything related to Tohoku region, especially Fukushima.

Towns in Fukushima became ghost towns. Without humans, the roads are being covered with ivy and weed. Some plants grew too large that they are reaching the height of the humans. Nobody lives here, but there are animals everywhere in the town. These animals came from the farms, zoo, and normal houses. Most of them are pet animals. Owners needed to make a harsh decision to leave their pet animals, who are the important member of the family. The scenery of an ostrich walking in a residential area seems to be very unnatural. Can people believe that the humans used to live here until the last year? Can people accept the reality that this is Japan? After a year, the passionate, favorable feeling that the people in Japan had toward the victims are decreasing. In fact, most people lost interest. The disaster had not ended yet. There are places and people that still need help.

Related articles/links:

世界のゴーストタウンを歩く：雑草が生い茂る福島の町
http://japanese.china.org.cn/life/txt/2012-03/26/content_24987309.htm

東日本大震災から１年　写真で振り返る復興と現在
http://www.cnn.co.jp/photo/7652-10000275.html

福島から避難の子ども、入園断られる　山梨の保育園
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0302/TKY201203020761.html

全国の避難者等の数
http://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/20111221hinansya.pdf

4/13 San Jose, 4/14 LA Film Screening:
FUKUSHIMA Never Again

There will be a film screening of the "Fukushima, Never Again" in San Jose and LA next weekend, directed and produced by Bay Area filmmakers, Steve Zeltzer and Kazumi Torii. These events are organized by our ally, No Nukes Action Committee.

April 13th 7PM
San Jose Peace and Justice Center
48 S. 7th St., San Jose, CA

San Jose Green Party will host FNA screening as a part of their movie night program.

Refreshment and food will be served from 6:30PM. Umi Hagitani will attend and moderate post-screening discussion.

More info at:
No Nukes Action Committee website

April 14th 2-6PM
Southern California Library
6120 S. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90044

The Southern California Library and Yushi Yamazaki from LA will host a screening (plus speakers and discussion).

$5 donation requested (no one turned away due to lack of funds)

Please contact Yushi Yamazaki 323-401-3035 or yushiyam@usc.edu

More info at:
Facebook event page
No Nukes Action Committee website

Fukushima protesters wearing hand-knitted hats and scarves provided by Occupy Berkeley’s Sit-In & Knit-In Project at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on December 28, 2011 (Photo courtesy of Ruiko Muto)

Japan Multicultural Relief Fund Connect the Occupy Berkeley and Fukushima Women's Anti-Nuclear Movement

In December 2011, Occupy Berkeley's "Sit-In & Knit-In" project sent a box of knitted hats and scarves to women from Fukushima who protested at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy and Industry in Tokyo.

The "Sit-In & Knit-In" project started as a global solidarity action with Tahrir Square in Cairo, and Wall Street in New York. In December, Maxina Ventura, an organizer of the project contacted Japan Multicultural Relief Fund (JMRF), organized the knitting, and sent it in a box to Fukushima. Women from Fukushima received the box, and wore the knitted goods at the protest site in front of TEPCO.

Ruiko Muto, a Fukushima woman who organizes Hairo Action says, "We are very happy about our solidarity with the Occupy movement in Berkeley. Even though we are sad to hear that police raided Occupy Berkeley, we know that they can never suppress your sprits, and our solidarity. Let's continue building a better world hand in hand. We are empowered by connecting with women across the ocean. Every circumstance seems to stand against us, but we know that women survive through this. Our deep compassion, our abilities to create new ideas, and our strength without resorting to violence is what will change the world."

This international solidarity gift was made possible by Hairo Action, Ruiko Muto, Hiroko Aihara, Nobuyo Goto, Occupy Berkeley, No Nukes Action Committee, Sacred Sites Peacewalk For a Nuclear Free World, and the citizens of Berkeley.

Japan Multicultural Relief Fund will continue to support this grassroots seedling in all its endeavors. Please help us support this effort! If you are interested in connecting Fukushima and Bay Area women, contact Akane at akane@jprn.org

"Amid invisible terror, we were witnesses"

By: Arata Maeda, a member of Fukushima Farmers’ Alliance; resident of Aizumisato, Fukushima Prefecture
Location: Aizu Misato
Japan Family Farmers Movement News
July 17, 2011
Translated by Andrew Barshay, Professor of History, University of California Berkeley.
Editied by Fusako de Angelis

Assaulted by invisible terror
Even now, after four months
We remain driven from our birthplace, our hometown
At Level 7, with no change in the situation
Tens of thousands of livestock starved to death
In the deserted villages.
Only the stink from their corpses rises into the air

Across the mountains and rivers of our native land
Stolen by something that will not show itself,
The seasons pass, as if nothing at all had happened

There, where the cuckoo cries,
can it be only in our dreams
That we toil and sweat?
There, where we cannot even set foot!

Once, long ago, it was our country’s policy
that we were driven to Manchuria
There, after our country’s defeat, we were ordered to commit mass suicide
To escape back home we had to abandon our children

And now, as then, these homes of ours
are destroyed as our country’s grand plans again collapse in ruin

This time, although it’s a slow death that takes its time in coming
Just as on that day, isn’t it forced collective suicide all over again?
Isn’t it the human experiments of Unit 731 all over again?

Friends, friends, we can’t just stand here grieving and crying,
Over these four month’s, amid invisible horror,
What we have witnessed with our own eyes
Is the true face of terror that says:
No matter what,
For profit’s sake, the reactors must stay on

All right then! If that’s how it is
We’re ready to take them on,
for the sake of our children and their children

Just like the Kanto Army before them,
these bastards hid the facts,
and were the first to run from danger.

And now they wear an innocent face
and prattle on, about safety and reconstruction

No way will we let them take these lives so easily!
Oh friends, friends. My dead friends.

前田新（まえだ　あらた）　福島県農民連　会津美里町在住

『しんぶん農民』（2011年7月17日）

見えない恐怖のなかでぼくらは見た

見えない恐怖に脅かされて
4ヶ月も過ぎたいまも
ぼくらは、ふるさとの町を追われたままだ
レベル７、その事態は何も変わっていない
何万という家畜たちが餓死していった
人気のいない村に、その死臭だけが
たちのぼっている

姿を見せないものに
奪われてしまったふるさとの山河を
何ごともなかったように季節が移ってゆく
郭公が鳴くそこで、汗を流して働くのは
もう、夢のなかでしかないのか
ぼくらは、そこに立ち入ることもできない

かつて、国策によって満州に追われ
敗戦によって集団自決を強いられ
幼子を棄てて逃げ帰ってきたふるさとを
あの日と同じように、一瞬にして
国策の破綻によって叩き壊された
しかもこれは痛みのない緩慢な死だが
あの日と同じ集団自決の強要ではないのか
７３１部隊の人体実験ではないのか
なかまよ、悲しんで泣いてはいられない
この4ヶ月の間、見えない恐怖のなかで
ぼくらがこの眼でみたものは

それでも、儲けのために
原発は続けていくという恐怖の正体だ

よし、そうならば
ぼくらも孫子のために、腹をすえてかかる

かつて関東軍のように、情報を隠し
危ないところからは、さっさと逃げ帰って
何食わぬ顔で、安全と復興を語る奴らに
そう簡単に殺されてたまるか
なかまよ　死んでいった、なかまよ

¹ Unit 731 (Japanese: 731 部隊 Nana-san-ichi butai) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel.

Visit the No Nukes Action Committee website for more details.