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Nursing and Health Sciences (2014), 16, 52–55
Practice Article
What we can learn about recovery: Lessons from the Fukushima survivors Mayuko Tone and Teresa Stone, PhD Graduate School of Medicine, Yamaguchi University, Ube, Japan
Abstract
Recovery from disaster can take a lifetime, and people looking in from outside might not appreciate the stages of recovery. Little talked about is the stigma, which might attach to the survivors of a disaster, especially if it is a man-made disaster. This paper documents the account of a Japanese nursing student who visited the area 18 months after the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, talked to the people there, and shared her reflections. The experiences of the Fukushima survivors are linked to those of victims of other disasters, whose recovery was impeded by being discriminated against and stigmatized.
Key words
disaster, Japan, mental health, nuclear accident, radiation, recovery, stigma.
INTRODUCTION
MAYUKO’S ACCOUNT
This is an account by Ms Mayuko Tone, a third year nursing student from Yamaguchi University. Yamaguchi is a prefecture in the south west of Japan, well away from the danger of the great earthquake of 2011, but the repercussions and emotions of the tragedy have affected everyone in Japan. As the world recovers from more recent disasters and braces itself for the inevitable next one, the situation in Fukushima remains a tragedy for those from the affected area who want to get on with their lives. At least 15,883 people were confirmed dead at the time of the disaster, but 2654 still remain unaccounted for; more than 215,000 people are still living away from home; and decommissioning of the plant is expected to take 40 years (Corbett, 2013a; McCurry, 2013). The decontamination of the six towns around the nuclear plant had been expected to be completed by early 2014, but the environment minister recently announced that it will be delayed by up to three years (Corbett, 2013b) Barely a day goes by without bad news in the media: reports about radioactive leakage contaminating fish stocks, ground under the stricken plant sinking, plummeting morale in the workers tasked to clean up the plant, radiation levels as high as in 2011, and strong suspicions that the government are covering up the extent of the continuing disaster (McCurry, 2013).
Mayuko wanted to understand the situation before she started out in practice as a nurse, so she decided to use her holiday to go on a tour of the affected area and talk to the people. This is her account:
Correspondence address: Teresa Stone, Faculty of Health Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Yamaguchi University, Ube 755-8505, Japan. Email: teriston@ yamaguchi-u.ac.jp Received 19 November 2013; accepted 24 November 2013
© 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
I visited Fukushima Prefecture in the summer of 2013. Fukushima contended with the damage from the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear accident on March 11, 2011. The damage was very extensive and the images are familiar to all of us from the television and papers. We saw a powerful, muddy wall of water swallow houses, cars and towns, and change the landscape in minutes.The nuclear plant collapsed, and I felt the “blind terror of radiation”. It is something that is dangerous but completely invisible. Although I lived in Japan, I had not experienced this at first hand and felt that I did not understand it. Even though these were our neighbors, our friends, we still felt that they were remote from us (Fig. 1). Two and a half years have passed since the disaster, and I still have no understanding of the stricken area and the problems faced by those who live there. When I review the images of the earthquake and tsunami, I remember the immense damage. The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident disasters came together and changed everything. In that situation, seeing those people who are sad, helpless, and lose all their hope, I thought their sadness and suffering were immeasurably huge (Fig. 2). When I visited Fukushima, most of the mountains of rubble, which told of the physical misery of a disaster, no longer remained. Many challenging tasks still lie ahead; for example, radioactive decontamination work and restoration doi: 10.1111/nhs.12117
Recovery from disaster: Fukushima
Figure 1.
Remains of a house in Fukushima.
Figure 2. Police vehicle of two policemen who were visiting outlying houses to advise people to evacuate. Because these outlying houses were remote, the policemen stayed to the end doing their job, and unfortunately, were both killed by the tsunami. People whom they rescued set up a memorial and a place to post letters to say thank you for saving their lives.
of electricity, gas, and water have still to be completed, and improvement of river defenses and roads, disposal of waste, and the resurrection of industry and farming. Because of these factors, people cannot live there safely (Fig. 3). People live in the few surviving houses in isolation surrounded by emptiness, or in temporary housing. Large piles of radioactive dust, which cannot be processed, exist, and what remains are ghost towns. Neither agriculture nor fishing can be resumed, owing to actual radioactivity problems or the damage caused by rumors and myths about the radioactivity. Since there is neither a place of work nor the required equipment, people cannot work, even if they would like to; and because so many people have lost their jobs, even if they
53
Figure 3. Remains of the railway station.
Figure 4. Hamakaze Commercial Avenue.
would like to move forward, they cannot see a bright future. So actually the disaster is not yet finished, despite going on for more than 2.5 years. I had a chance to talk with people in a shopping center, Hamakaze Commercial Avenue, a temporary prefabricated commercial area set up on the site of an elementary school, which sells the basic necessities for daily life. These people had lost both their house and their store (Fig. 4). In the aftermath of disaster, they said that the only thing they could do was cry, because they despaired, feeling the sadness of people who had lost everything and were afraid of the future. They kept thinking: “Why did this have to happen to me?”. They thought that they might as well die because they had nothing, but they realized that “crying doesn’t get anything started” and they “had to keep working as hard as possible”, because there are still lives left and work to be done. They also said: “Thank you for coming; we are as © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
54
recovered as we are now because a lot of people have visited us and given us cheer. We really appreciate everybody. Thank you again”. Every single person we met on our tour of the affected area welcomed us with kindness, “heartfullness”, and cheer. I was really warmly welcomed, even though I had only a short chat while shopping. Others said: “We lost many family members and friends in the earthquake. A lot of young people left because of the radioactivity problem. Not many people come here because of fear, no matter how we try to recover for this wonderful place. This place is still thought to be terrifying and pitiful. We would prefer everyone to recognize that we are recovering and cheerful, and don’t want any kind of support. I would like you to tell all your friends how you felt about the way we live, and to come visit us again, and not forget us”. Then they shook hands with me, with a smile. I realized that before I came here, my ideas of how to help were wrong, and (I) felt ashamed because I had held the view that I was strong, and pitied these poor people who needed my help. It is true that they went through a lot of sadness. However, they are trying to recover hopefully, and indefatigably working harder than we are, and they never give up. Moreover, it is we who recognize the stricken area only by images, who interrupt their recovery. We tend to pity the people who live in Fukushima, because we do not understand the reality of the situation. We tend to treat them as weak by thinking: “Let’s support them since we’re sorry for them”. Yet on the other hand, we avoid eating crops and fish from Fukushima because of the fear of radiation. Nobody notices that these prejudices are tormenting people who live there, but they are stronger than we are, and are not overwhelmed by the conditions they face, instead believing in the possibility of change, and doing their best to improve their situation in as short a time as possible. The people who have stayed in Fukushima find it hard to get accurate information about what health effects there may be, so they are living with much uncertainty, which has led to a lot of anxiety. When people leave, it increases the anxiety, because all are unsure whether they should stay or go. Whenever someone leaves it increases the fear that numbers are diminishing to a point where there will no longer be a community. People departing have a sense of guilt that they are further damaging the community. Those returning to their neighborhood, having fled after the disaster, worry that it appears that they abandoned their community and thus betrayed them, and the guilt makes it hard for them to integrate into this tight-knit community brought closer by facing the challenges together.
CONCLUSION As Mayuko stated, people, including those in the affected areas, are reluctant to buy goods that might be contaminated. The damage caused by rumors and news items about radioactivity means that neither crops nor fish sell, and this was previously one of Japan’s major producers of agricultural goods. Locals would love to tell us to buy their produce and © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
M. Tone and T. Stone
eat their fish, but they themselves are anxious about the health effects of eating food produced here. Fukushima fishermen are going as far afield as Hokkaido to catch their fish, but if those are landed through the port of Fukushima, they are seen as tainted and lose value. Instead of giving up, the storekeepers told Mayuko that they have tried to cultivate cotton. Outside efforts to restore the city to its former beauty create anxiety, because the locals are not sure whether people will ever return to live there. The uncertainty pervades everything, because the waters surrounding the city are still contaminated. Mayuko said that this is a lesson that applies not only to disasters, but to illness and other problems. If we meet people who are sick or disabled, we see them as being pitiful. We then think that we will help the pitiful person, but in doing so, we undermine their power with our prejudice. What is required is to accept their power to become independent, and beware of projecting onto the survivors our own feelings of helplessness. In the end, it might be the effects of stress and stigma that are more harmful than the radiation. People no longer trust the Japanese Government to tell them the truth, and this loss of credibility fuels the fear. Anxiety attaches to radiation, because it is perceived as high risk, with delayed effects, is man-made, and people must rely on experts to detect the levels of radiation (Norwood, 2008). Disasters usually bring out the best in people, but not all the time. While responses might include altruism and resilience, there might also be anger, scapegoating, stigma and discrimination, paranoia, loss of faith in social institutions and government, breakdown of social networks or social isolation, and demoralization (Norwood, 2008), all of which have been seen to some extent in Fukushima. Stigma might also attach to those who show symptoms of trauma following a disaster. Others might be too embarrassed to access help because of the stigma that attaches to mental health, or drop out of treatment for the same reason (Ursano et al., 2011). Social stigma against the survivors of the disaster is another cruel burden to bear. The stigma also attaches to the possible victims of radiation, in a way that mirrors the discrimination suffered by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs: men could not find work, and women were unable to marry due to fears they were “tainted”; women from Fukushima might be viewed as “damaged goods”, because they might give birth to affected children (Haworth, 2013). In 2013, an antinuclear activist, Hobun Ikeya, the head of the Ecosystem Conservation Society of Japan, said publicly that “people from Fukushima should not marry because the deformity rate of their babies will skyrocket”. Children from the affected areas who moved to new schools have been shunned by other students who were scared that they might be contaminated by them, and the very act of leaving the disaster area has been labeled “un-Japanese” (Health, 2013). All these factors conspire to add to the burden of those who have undergone the triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown, and now have to cope with homelessness, joblessness, and an uncertain future (Haworth, 2013).
Recovery from disaster: Fukushima
Stigma against survivors is not new. Victims of a radiation accident in Goiania, Brazil, were issued with certificates declaring them to be free of contamination in order to combat the discrimination they encountered, which included pilots refusing to fly with a “contaminated” person aboard their plane (Petterson, 1988, p. 89). Even the coffin of a young girl, the first victim of the radioactivity, was stoned (Norwood, 2008). Survivors of Hurricane Katrina who fled from New Orleans were blamed for a rise in the crime rates, after news of looting branded them as criminals (Kaniasty & Norris, 2004). It seems that victims of technological disasters do not get the same help as victims of natural disasters (Cuthbertson & Nigg, 1987). It is difficult to deal with the discrimination. In Japan, it has been said that it is taboo to admit to not buying local produce or to mention radiation fears (Haworth, 2013). A very Japanese solution in the form of a “superhero” called Jangara, who appears at events to fight the negative reputation of the affected areas, dismisses as fools those who complain about radioactivity and spread harmful rumors that the area is not safe to visit is being used to fight stigma (Nishabori, 2012). All of this highlights the importance of continuing communication after a catastrophic event. It is useful to emphasize what is being done to help, but avoid over-reassurance; acknowledge the uncertainty; give people meaningful activities to do; and address the “what if?” questions (Sandman & Lanard, 2004). Some survivors have said that it is impossible to recover from a nuclear accident (Haworth, 2013), but it seems that others, such as those Mayuko spoke to, are determined to move on. What can we do to help? All of us admired the stoicism and quiet heroism of the ordinary Japanese, who displayed such calm and courage in the face of the triple disaster; now it is time for us all to look at how we can avoid the hypocrisy of “pitying from afar and avoiding up close” (Cunningham, 2011). The market people told Mayuko that the most helpful response would be for people to visit, and recognize and understand the situation and the efforts they are making toward recovery.
CONTRIBUTIONS Study Design: TS, MT. Data Collection and Analysis: MT, TS. Manuscript Writing: TS.
55
REFERENCES Corbett J. 215,000 hit by disaster still live away from home. 2013a. [Cited 4 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http:// fukushimaupdate.com/215000-hit-by-disaster-still-live-away-fromhome/. Corbett J. Japan extends deadline for Fukushima clean-up. 2013b. [Cited 4 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http://fukushimaupdate .com/japan-extends-deadline-for-fukushima-clean-up/. Cunningham PJ. Reflection on Japan: growing stigma against the victime of Fukoshima. 2011. [Cited 11 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http://newamericamedia.org/2011/04/mad-foreigners-andfukushima-maidens.php. Cuthbertson B, Nigg J. Technological disaster and the nontherapeutic community: a question of true victimization. Environ. Behav. 1987; 19: 462–483. Haworth A. After Fukushima: families on the edge of meltdown. 2013. [Cited 11 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http:// www. theguardian . com / environment / 2013 /feb / 24 / divorce - after -fukushima-nuclear-disaster?view=mobile. Health MA. Radiation stigma, mental health and marriage discrimination: The social side-effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. (Master of Arts), University of Oregon, Oregon. 2013 [Cited 17 Jan 2014.] Available from URL: https://scholarsbank .uoregon.edu / xmlui / bitstream /handle/1794/12994/Heath_oregon _0171N_10622.pdf?sequence=1. Kaniasty K, Norris FH. Social support in the aftermath of disasters, catastrophes, and acts of terrorism: altruistic, overwhelmed, uncertain, antagonistic, and patriotic communities. In: Ursano RJ, Norwood AE, Fullerton CS (eds), Bioterrorism: Psychological and Public Health Interventions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; 200–229. McCurry J. Plummeting morale at Fukushima Daiichi as nuclear cleanup takes its toll. 2013. [Cited 3 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/15/ fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-cleanup. Nishabori A. A local superhero to the rescue. 2012. [Cited 11 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool _japan/fun_spots/AJ201211290022. Norwood AE. Anticipated psychological impact of radiological terrorism. 2008. [Cited 12 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http:// ccnmtl . columbia.edu / broadcast / hs / projects / radterror / dec2007/ norwood_color.pdf. Petterson JS. Perception vs. reality of radiological impact: the Goiania model. Nucl. Newsmag. 1988; 8: 84–90. Sandman PM, Lanard J. Crisis communication. 2004. [Cited 12 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: http://www.psandman.com/index.htm. Ursano RJ, Fullerton CS, Brown MC. Stigma and barriers to care: Caring for those exposed to war, disaster and terrorism. 2011. [Cited 11 Nov 2013.] Available from URL: https://www.usuhs.mil/ pdf/CSTSReportStigma2012.pdf.
© 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
Nursing and Health Sciences (2014), 16, 52–55
Practice Article
What we can learn about recovery: Lessons from the Fukushima survivors Mayuko Tone and Teresa Stone, PhD Graduate School of Medicine, Yamaguchi University, Ube, Japan
Abstract
Recovery from disaster can take a lifetime, and people looking in from outside might not appreciate the stages of recovery. Little talked about is the stigma, which might attach to the survivors of a disaster, especially if it is a man-made disaster. This paper documents the account of a Japanese nursing student who visited the area 18 months after the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, talked to the people there, and shared her reflections. The experiences of the Fukushima survivors are linked to those of victims of other disasters, whose recovery was impeded by being discriminated against and stigmatized.
Key words
disaster, Japan, mental health, nuclear accident, radiation, recovery, stigma.
INTRODUCTION
MAYUKO’S ACCOUNT
This is an account by Ms Mayuko Tone, a third year nursing student from Yamaguchi University. Yamaguchi is a prefecture in the south west of Japan, well away from the danger of the great earthquake of 2011, but the repercussions and emotions of the tragedy have affected everyone in Japan. As the world recovers from more recent disasters and braces itself for the inevitable next one, the situation in Fukushima remains a tragedy for those from the affected area who want to get on with their lives. At least 15,883 people were confirmed dead at the time of the disaster, but 2654 still remain unaccounted for; more than 215,000 people are still living away from home; and decommissioning of the plant is expected to take 40 years (Corbett, 2013a; McCurry, 2013). The decontamination of the six towns around the nuclear plant had been expected to be completed by early 2014, but the environment minister recently announced that it will be delayed by up to three years (Corbett, 2013b) Barely a day goes by without bad news in the media: reports about radioactive leakage contaminating fish stocks, ground under the stricken plant sinking, plummeting morale in the workers tasked to clean up the plant, radiation levels as high as in 2011, and strong suspicions that the government are covering up the extent of the continuing disaster (McCurry, 2013).
Mayuko wanted to understand the situation before she started out in practice as a nurse, so she decided to use her holiday to go on a tour of the affected area and talk to the people. This is her account:
Correspondence address: Teresa Stone, Faculty of Health Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Yamaguchi University, Ube 755-8505, Japan. Email: teriston@ yamaguchi-u.ac.jp Received 19 November 2013; accepted 24 November 2013
© 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
I visited Fukushima Prefecture in the summer of 2013. Fukushima contended with the damage from the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear accident on March 11, 2011. The damage was very extensive and the images are familiar to all of us from the television and papers. We saw a powerful, muddy wall of water swallow houses, cars and towns, and change the landscape in minutes.The nuclear plant collapsed, and I felt the “blind terror of radiation”. It is something that is dangerous but completely invisible. Although I lived in Japan, I had not experienced this at first hand and felt that I did not understand it. Even though these were our neighbors, our friends, we still felt that they were remote from us (Fig. 1). Two and a half years have passed since the disaster, and I still have no understanding of the stricken area and the problems faced by those who live there. When I review the images of the earthquake and tsunami, I remember the immense damage. The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident disasters came together and changed everything. In that situation, seeing those people who are sad, helpless, and lose all their hope, I thought their sadness and suffering were immeasurably huge (Fig. 2). When I visited Fukushima, most of the mountains of rubble, which told of the physical misery of a disaster, no longer remained. Many challenging tasks still lie ahead; for example, radioactive decontamination work and restoration doi: 10.1111/nhs.12117
Recovery from disaster: Fukushima
Figure 1.
Remains of a house in Fukushima.
Figure 2. Police vehicle of two policemen who were visiting outlying houses to advise people to evacuate. Because these outlying houses were remote, the policemen stayed to the end doing their job, and unfortunately, were both killed by the tsunami. People whom they rescued set up a memorial and a place to post letters to say thank you for saving their lives.
of electricity, gas, and water have still to be completed, and improvement of river defenses and roads, disposal of waste, and the resurrection of industry and farming. Because of these factors, people cannot live there safely (Fig. 3). People live in the few surviving houses in isolation surrounded by emptiness, or in temporary housing. Large piles of radioactive dust, which cannot be processed, exist, and what remains are ghost towns. Neither agriculture nor fishing can be resumed, owing to actual radioactivity problems or the damage caused by rumors and myths about the radioactivity. Since there is neither a place of work nor the required equipment, people cannot work, even if they would like to; and because so many people have lost their jobs, even if they
53
Figure 3. Remains of the railway station.
Figure 4. Hamakaze Commercial Avenue.
would like to move forward, they cannot see a bright future. So actually the disaster is not yet finished, despite going on for more than 2.5 years. I had a chance to talk with people in a shopping center, Hamakaze Commercial Avenue, a temporary prefabricated commercial area set up on the site of an elementary school, which sells the basic necessities for daily life. These people had lost both their house and their store (Fig. 4). In the aftermath of disaster, they said that the only thing they could do was cry, because they despaired, feeling the sadness of people who had lost everything and were afraid of the future. They kept thinking: “Why did this have to happen to me?”. They thought that they might as well die because they had nothing, but they realized that “crying doesn’t get anything started” and they “had to keep working as hard as possible”, because there are still lives left and work to be done. They also said: “Thank you for coming; we are as © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
54
recovered as we are now because a lot of people have visited us and given us cheer. We really appreciate everybody. Thank you again”. Every single person we met on our tour of the affected area welcomed us with kindness, “heartfullness”, and cheer. I was really warmly welcomed, even though I had only a short chat while shopping. Others said: “We lost many family members and friends in the earthquake. A lot of young people left because of the radioactivity problem. Not many people come here because of fear, no matter how we try to recover for this wonderful place. This place is still thought to be terrifying and pitiful. We would prefer everyone to recognize that we are recovering and cheerful, and don’t want any kind of support. I would like you to tell all your friends how you felt about the way we live, and to come visit us again, and not forget us”. Then they shook hands with me, with a smile. I realized that before I came here, my ideas of how to help were wrong, and (I) felt ashamed because I had held the view that I was strong, and pitied these poor people who needed my help. It is true that they went through a lot of sadness. However, they are trying to recover hopefully, and indefatigably working harder than we are, and they never give up. Moreover, it is we who recognize the stricken area only by images, who interrupt their recovery. We tend to pity the people who live in Fukushima, because we do not understand the reality of the situation. We tend to treat them as weak by thinking: “Let’s support them since we’re sorry for them”. Yet on the other hand, we avoid eating crops and fish from Fukushima because of the fear of radiation. Nobody notices that these prejudices are tormenting people who live there, but they are stronger than we are, and are not overwhelmed by the conditions they face, instead believing in the possibility of change, and doing their best to improve their situation in as short a time as possible. The people who have stayed in Fukushima find it hard to get accurate information about what health effects there may be, so they are living with much uncertainty, which has led to a lot of anxiety. When people leave, it increases the anxiety, because all are unsure whether they should stay or go. Whenever someone leaves it increases the fear that numbers are diminishing to a point where there will no longer be a community. People departing have a sense of guilt that they are further damaging the community. Those returning to their neighborhood, having fled after the disaster, worry that it appears that they abandoned their community and thus betrayed them, and the guilt makes it hard for them to integrate into this tight-knit community brought closer by facing the challenges together.
CONCLUSION As Mayuko stated, people, including those in the affected areas, are reluctant to buy goods that might be contaminated. The damage caused by rumors and news items about radioactivity means that neither crops nor fish sell, and this was previously one of Japan’s major producers of agricultural goods. Locals would love to tell us to buy their produce and © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
M. Tone and T. Stone
eat their fish, but they themselves are anxious about the health effects of eating food produced here. Fukushima fishermen are going as far afield as Hokkaido to catch their fish, but if those are landed through the port of Fukushima, they are seen as tainted and lose value. Instead of giving up, the storekeepers told Mayuko that they have tried to cultivate cotton. Outside efforts to restore the city to its former beauty create anxiety, because the locals are not sure whether people will ever return to live there. The uncertainty pervades everything, because the waters surrounding the city are still contaminated. Mayuko said that this is a lesson that applies not only to disasters, but to illness and other problems. If we meet people who are sick or disabled, we see them as being pitiful. We then think that we will help the pitiful person, but in doing so, we undermine their power with our prejudice. What is required is to accept their power to become independent, and beware of projecting onto the survivors our own feelings of helplessness. In the end, it might be the effects of stress and stigma that are more harmful than the radiation. People no longer trust the Japanese Government to tell them the truth, and this loss of credibility fuels the fear. Anxiety attaches to radiation, because it is perceived as high risk, with delayed effects, is man-made, and people must rely on experts to detect the levels of radiation (Norwood, 2008). Disasters usually bring out the best in people, but not all the time. While responses might include altruism and resilience, there might also be anger, scapegoating, stigma and discrimination, paranoia, loss of faith in social institutions and government, breakdown of social networks or social isolation, and demoralization (Norwood, 2008), all of which have been seen to some extent in Fukushima. Stigma might also attach to those who show symptoms of trauma following a disaster. Others might be too embarrassed to access help because of the stigma that attaches to mental health, or drop out of treatment for the same reason (Ursano et al., 2011). Social stigma against the survivors of the disaster is another cruel burden to bear. The stigma also attaches to the possible victims of radiation, in a way that mirrors the discrimination suffered by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs: men could not find work, and women were unable to marry due to fears they were “tainted”; women from Fukushima might be viewed as “damaged goods”, because they might give birth to affected children (Haworth, 2013). In 2013, an antinuclear activist, Hobun Ikeya, the head of the Ecosystem Conservation Society of Japan, said publicly that “people from Fukushima should not marry because the deformity rate of their babies will skyrocket”. Children from the affected areas who moved to new schools have been shunned by other students who were scared that they might be contaminated by them, and the very act of leaving the disaster area has been labeled “un-Japanese” (Health, 2013). All these factors conspire to add to the burden of those who have undergone the triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown, and now have to cope with homelessness, joblessness, and an uncertain future (Haworth, 2013).
Recovery from disaster: Fukushima
Stigma against survivors is not new. Victims of a radiation accident in Goiania, Brazil, were issued with certificates declaring them to be free of contamination in order to combat the discrimination they encountered, which included pilots refusing to fly with a “contaminated” person aboard their plane (Petterson, 1988, p. 89). Even the coffin of a young girl, the first victim of the radioactivity, was stoned (Norwood, 2008). Survivors of Hurricane Katrina who fled from New Orleans were blamed for a rise in the crime rates, after news of looting branded them as criminals (Kaniasty & Norris, 2004). It seems that victims of technological disasters do not get the same help as victims of natural disasters (Cuthbertson & Nigg, 1987). It is difficult to deal with the discrimination. In Japan, it has been said that it is taboo to admit to not buying local produce or to mention radiation fears (Haworth, 2013). A very Japanese solution in the form of a “superhero” called Jangara, who appears at events to fight the negative reputation of the affected areas, dismisses as fools those who complain about radioactivity and spread harmful rumors that the area is not safe to visit is being used to fight stigma (Nishabori, 2012). All of this highlights the importance of continuing communication after a catastrophic event. It is useful to emphasize what is being done to help, but avoid over-reassurance; acknowledge the uncertainty; give people meaningful activities to do; and address the “what if?” questions (Sandman & Lanard, 2004). Some survivors have said that it is impossible to recover from a nuclear accident (Haworth, 2013), but it seems that others, such as those Mayuko spoke to, are determined to move on. What can we do to help? All of us admired the stoicism and quiet heroism of the ordinary Japanese, who displayed such calm and courage in the face of the triple disaster; now it is time for us all to look at how we can avoid the hypocrisy of “pitying from afar and avoiding up close” (Cunningham, 2011). The market people told Mayuko that the most helpful response would be for people to visit, and recognize and understand the situation and the efforts they are making toward recovery.
CONTRIBUTIONS Study Design: TS, MT. Data Collection and Analysis: MT, TS. Manuscript Writing: TS.
55
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