RISE LIKE TSUNAMIS AFTER THE EARTH QUAKES: An open letter addressing grief, hope and some resources for engaging the healing process.
[Many thanx to Nuclear Free Virginia for this and many other links.]
Comment: So good! Pray for the families of Japan!
Greetings, My name is Crystal Uchino. I am writing from my home in the southern prefecture of Nagasaki, Japan.
A somber dirge continues to play in the hearts of all of us here across Japan in the wake of this earth-shaking, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis. This trifecta of disasters is truly beyond humbling, it is a living, grotesque and sobering nightmare that will likely haunt the world for much time to come. As the after-effects of both the earthquake and the tsunami continue to be revealed, so grows the depths of the despair and sadness over the magnitude of the situation. Watching events unfold over the news daily in real time delivers new quakes to test the resilience and endurance of our hearts, faith, the depths of our empathy, grief and determination to act.
The death toll has continued to climb daily as does the number of those now homeless and seeking shelter from a nuclear fallout. Additionally the conditions within the shelters is appearing more and more grim as a result of inadequate infrastructures to provide sufficient food, warmth and sanitation. There continue to be new explosions at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, and large after-shock tremors continue to rock this already shaken nation. All around me, the apocalyptic images we see coming off the news conjure memories of the damage reaped by the atomic bombs dropped here over sixty years ago, as the possibility for a new generation of Hibakusha ("nuclear explosion-affected peoples") emerges as a frightening reality.
Today, it seems that Japan is once again being poised as a great and humble teacher. The festering wound of this crisis serves to underscore, once again, just how much the splitting of the atom remains one of the single most volatile global threats at a personal, community, state, and environmental level. Japan, despite past injuries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and seemingly anti-nuclear principles: non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction of nuclear weapons; has become one of the leaders in nuclear development and production in the world. According to Green Action Japan before the quake, there were 53 nuclear power plants in operation in Japan. 53 nuclear power plants in a small island country notoriously vulnerable to earthquakes and other natural disasters.
My heart and prayers are with the people of Fukushima and the Tohoku area, as it is they who are now shouldering this horrific burden of teaching so that the world may be reminded of just what a painful and costly responsibility we bear when we allow bad stuff to enter our communities.
Around the globe, everyday people are beginning to awaken to the reality of our fragility and vulnerability surrounding the dangers of all forms of nuclear development. Barely a week has passed since the initial shaking, but as a world we have grown up in ways that we had never hoped to, and with our newly realized maturity we are challenged look ourselves in the face, to grapple with this saddest of lessons, and answer the question of how we will begin to take responsibility for our part in allowing bad stuff to enter our communities, on both the local and global scale.
The desire to help, to affect something in the situation here in Japan is echoing around the world. And while I hear it sounding and resounding all around, the ways in which each of us can tangibly work to affect some immediate relief are just beginning to be known. Still, because I have gotten so many requests from folks for suggestions on how they can support things here I wanted to share some of the initial resources I know of with you.
These links offer the best grassroots:
Second Harvest Japan: This group has been working at the community level feeding people in Japan for years.http://www.2hj.org/index.php/eng_home
https://japanvolunteers.wordpress.com/ Great resource page consolidating links to support relief efforts, relevant to folks living in Japan and oversees. It is being updated Daily with new resources as they develop.
Call for Home stay for Earthquake Evacuees (Only for folks currently living in Japan) http://earthdaymoney.org/topics_dt.php?id=391
Translators United for Peace. For those who are bilingual. 日本の原発奴隷――原子力発電所における秘密 http://www.tup-bulletin.org/modules/contents/index.php?content_id=931
A friend of mine once wrote some song lyrics calling for people to RISE LIKE TSUNAMIS AFTER EARTHQUAKES, It is a most hopeful metaphor for me in this time. And today, I received these words in an email from another friend:
"When Mother Earth speaks, all we can do is listen. But when humans dangerous passion for energy consumption has wreaked such toil on her children、then we must act." The current genpatsu nanmin (“nuclear power refugees”) have translated the reality of nuclear development into a language that the world can feel. Humanity is speaking clearly, and I feel as a result of this new communication, tho painful, that so many beautiful, hopeful and inspiring things have also unencomberedly been brought to the surface. I have been so moved by the feelings of sincere and unconditional caring and support that I have received from friends, family, and even strangers this last week, and equally as moved by the demonstrations and vigils manifesting in a multitude of forms that have been erupting with contagious passion all over the world.
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You may think me young, naive, callous or insane to bring up politics in a time like this. But I tell you that I have prayed at the graves of unborn aunts and uncles murdered by atomic bomb disease and I feel entitled to tap into ancestral lessons this week. It is from my vantage point of both proximity and distance from this crisis as a current resident of southern Japan; from my vantage point of both proximity and distance from the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as the granddaughter of a Nagasaki Hibakusha, that I say with great hope and longing that this darkest of nightmares may serve as a catalyst to once again pump life into the stagnant pools of the anti-nuclear movement, to overflow them so that the energies built and created there may also nourish other movements. To me the words "activist" and "healer" are interchangeable.
This gravest of tragedies has been an ugly and unsoughtafter vindication of so many under-supported social-justice struggles, most poignantly the anti-nuclear movement, as this eventuality was predicted time and time again and most people sat in silent denial as more and more nuclear power plants were constructed, not just in Japan, but around the world, and so many people sit even now in disbelief, quietly burying their fears as development plans for hundreds of more (albe them "safer") nuclear reactors remain on the discussion tables amongst the grotesque suffering of tens of thousands of displaced peoples. But amongst this cold and dark time also resides new growth. A new spring is just beginning and each day we rise anew, we each are gifted an opportunity to carve out a more sincere definition of accountability, to hold ourselves and each other responsible in new ways. Although our recent wounds are still gaping, still throbbing, the time is now for us to rise like tsunamis after earthquakes and once again recommit ourselves to the healing of the future for the next generation.
I've spent several days writing and revising this letter, it started out as some brief resource suggestions to friends but morphed into this. I was propelled to keep writing by my own desire to combat the helplessness I feel sitting here, relatively safe, overdosing on miso, kombu, and the news in the southern prefecture of Nagasaki, Japan as coordinated relief efforts have not yet begun accepting volunteers. This time of mourning has given me a good opportunity to re-asses what I hold important and clear out some clutter to make room for the work that lies ahead. So many exciting possibilities for new growth and new cooperation are resonating in the undertones of this funeral song. Those of us living in the overdeveloped world have become so accustomed to the ubiquitous take take take lifestyle that we have forgotten how to stretch our arms, to reach them out, to reach them up! in times when our spirits long to do so the most. This is an open letter to anyone feeling helpless at this time, let us relearn the actions.
It is my hope that some of the things said and resources within these words will be useful to you, please feel free to share them with others. The links below are also great places to continue to sober up through educating ourselves and get inspired for the long term work that is to come.
http://www.nirs.org/ Updates on the situation at Fukushima and simple ways to engage in the movement to end nuclear dependency,http://www.democracynow.org/ sober news reporting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r80RWNY_jXo&feature=player_embedded Anti Atom Demo in Germany. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEuFxgreFPs&feature=related Anti Atom Demo in France
http://timshorrock.com/?p=1137 A look into the history of "Japans Nuclear Nightmare."
http://neodadakko.blogspot.com/ This is a great sticker.
A lot of the words flowing from this page have been pretty heavy, so I wanted to share just one small anecdote with you.... This past weekend I went to the post office. And so I`m at the post office right, and there are people lined up out the door of the post office sending bags of rice and boxes of water or fresh vegetables to loved ones up north and I thought to myself..."what kind of apocalypse is this?...no one can get food or water, but they can get mail?!
On that note, I end this letter in solidarity and with hope, taking comfort in the knowing that the same moon shines light down on all of us. Each day I wake up to the budding and flowering of the ume, momo, and the sakura as well are beginning to bloom, as if to say 春が来るよ.
Crystal K. Uchino
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