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j-fissures editorial

J-fissures Editorial

To Foreign Comrades

Guru

Hello to friends in overseas. This is Guru from Osaka.

It’s been almost two months since 3/11. While many emotions have mingled at the time of moving forward, I can finally write a letter now. Thanks to Marina and others, their letters greatly empowered me.

Right now, I am moving forward while looking back, through trials and errors, yet constantly. I am doing whatever I can to create a life in a new world without nuclear weapon or power plants, a new world in our hands and not under the control of authorities. With my face up and my antennae stretched wide.

The letter from Marina reminded me of our play during the anti-G8 protest. During the last 3 years I was feeling that our activities were gradually reaching its limit, as all the tents in entire Osaka parks (except for Yorozu) have been destroyed by the city and park administration. We have been seeing less and less folks at the tent village as well as from Yorozu counseling center. But thanks to many dedicated organizations’ efforts, homeless people now can receive their monthly welfare much more easily than one could imagine some years ago. But some folks who have been living in their tent for a long time prefer living autonomously to living on monthly allowance. We believe that one’s way of living should be determined by them and not to be forced upon from above. Living in a tent should be allowed as a lifestyle for some period of time to those who choose to do so, which has always been a belief among supporters of Yorozu Park residents, who struggle to continue supporting such lives. As Marina said in her letter, we intend to be “the birds of freedom we made together from things found.” In 2009 we organized a workshop named “puppet master plan” where we made puppets and marched the city with them. The symbolic blue color of the tarp was fluttering in the wind. The numerous puppets we made with our hopes for freedom, ideas for our desire departed Osaka Castle Park into the street. Based on our own culture, experience and limited resources, we made this workshop mustering our wisdom and efforts.

In the aftermath of 3/11, a new network of people has begun mobilizing in Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Hyogo. The members of the new network include: older activists who had been protesting against nuclear power plants Monju (in Tsuruga), Takahama and Mihama nuclear power plants; DJs and sound demo organizers; residents of tent village and their supporters; Organic farmers; researchers of global warming through water resources; activists for abolishment of death sentence; people from religious organizations; friends, acquaintances, riot grrrls, queer friends, and the poor. Everybody is different but based on minimum commonground, we are organizing a mob to make things together. Our sole commonground is to “stop and abolish all nuclear power plants!” We also encourage people overseas to be aware of these common goals and do whatever they can in the spirit of Do-it-yourself.

In April, we saw a terrible police oppression in Kamagasaki, Osaka; police raid on supporters of the tent city and day laborers, some of whom were even indicted. Now all I can do is turning my anger and sorrow into energy to do anything I can in this confusing state.

There are three things we are expanding in our DIY activities. We’d like you to let us know if you have any other ideas. The first and the third can be done wherever you are.

1) You can write your letter of demands and questions to KEPCO, TEPCO and the government, attaching your own position and title, like protester against death sentence, suppoter of homeless, or day laborer. Include any organizational title if not individual name. Then you can bring your letter to our protest in May. Even if you cannot attend the protest yourself, having someone bring your letter would be a great direct action. Sending “stop nukes” messages from many different social backgrounds and perspectives would be very powerful. For instance, it would be strange to have only one letter from a group of 100 protesters. Everybody has different feelings towards abolishment of nuclear power plants, so we should emphasize the differences. We also plan on bringing our demands to TEPCO and the government in late May.

2) Paying your electric bills in person! You can ask your power company’s to send a collection agent for you to pay your bill at home, instead of sending your payment or using automated payment. People like Fuu Mizuta and Eileen from Green Action have been doing this for a long time. For instance, if a hundred people in Osaka asked the power company to collect their payment on the same day, the company would not be able to visit everyone on the day. If they don’t show up, you can legally claim it as a nonpayment, since you have set up a date based on your will to pay your bill. You could also tell them that you are not using the electricity, but they are making you use it. You may insist on not paying for energy produced by nuclear power plant. It is also productive that you can speak with collection agent in person. You may tell them that you are ‘against nuclear power;’ it is very important to let them know there are critical opinions in their community even in small number.

3) I live in a shared house and my housemates and I made a wooden board to hang in front of our house. We’re going to scribe something like this: ‘this is xx kilometers away from Takahama nuclear Power plant. If Takahama is stricken by an accident, the entire lake Biwa would be contaminated. The water here would be undrinkable. This household is against nuclear power! We want to protect our lives on our own.’ My friends already set up a board like this at their house and also at a Shinto shrine in Uji.

Since 3.11, industries, media and educational institutions in Japan all seem to be headed towards fascism. It feels uncomfortable to see their reactions. The media bring up the slogans like ‘hang in there, Japan, our hearts are one’ and seem to skip the problems of nuclear power plant while their coverage are dominated by images of damaged landscape. We seem to be forced to indulge ourselves into our misery by mottos like “let us overcome the present.” At schools, teachers are forced to play for their kids a DVD sent by the Japan Business Federation promoting how safe radiation is. This is ridiculous. We must acknowledge that living our life in our way and to continue to do so is our non-violent direct action, which is what we can do independently. We must not allow the authorities flee from the responsibility of this man-made calamity by letting such a ridiculous trend dominate our society.

The Japanese society today has tendency to constantly make the ‘general public’ conscious of the difference between themselves and those who live in stricken areas and those who work at the nuclear plant. (i.e. we are different from them. It’s safe here while it is not there.) But we must not be confused by such propaganda. Another instance is a signboard I saw at a recent demonstration: “No more Chernobyl, No More Fukushima.” But I don’t think it is “no more” yet. Neither Chernobyl nor Fukushima is over yet. We ought to learn from Chernobyl and save Fukushima, and ought to learn to live together with the people in Fukushima.

We are all living emotions in flesh and blood, restricted by orders of the present society that we live in. We, under such circumstance, must stand together and confront the reality to find solutions for the struggles and contradictions that we are under. I suspect nothing but this is all we could do. Although I have no means to criticize those who express themselves at demonstrations, for instance, what would people in Fukushima think of the celebratory atmosphere of the demo? This kind of gap is hard to deal with. Doctrines and positions all differ among us and it’s got to be a good thing. Thus we should set difference as the standard that all our activities are based on. But I must stress that I wouldn’t be able to do anything or even begin to move, if I separate my circumstance in Osaka from what is going on in Fukushima.

We know that we are small and weak in our existence. So we can recognize the weakness and turn it into the strength. In the past we have lost so many struggles and sometimes we saw terrible losses. And we know that our strength is not to give up and lose it all despite having lost numerous battles. That is how we have learned that we are able to intervene the authorities even momentarily by changing our methods and roles. People can connect and sustain these moments of intervention. For all of us, now is the time to connect. It is no time to hang our heads in sorrow. We continue to mobilize even in misery, or even in barely safe paths, and continue to spread our community to create the movement.

We are capable of showing our emotions in many different ways, have friends to share emotions. We are alive. We know that there is always a new world and not a despair. Words from friends abroad are our energy by which we can think and move, and move on from our grief and sorrow. We no longer want to or will betray ourselves! And in order not to exhaust ourselves, let us not forget a little bit of spice and much humor in our hearts.

PDF (English)

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海外の仲間のみなさん、こんにちは。グる＠大阪です。

3月11日からもう少しで2か月です。たくさんの感情が入り混じりながら、動いていて、今ようやく手紙の返事を書ける感じです。マリーナたちからの手紙にはとても力をもらいました。ありがとう。

いま私は立ち止まることをせずに、試行錯誤し、後ろを振り返りながらも前に進んでいます。核のない、原発のない、もうこれ以上クソミソ(滅茶苦茶)にさせない、ヤツラの思うようには出来ない、新しい世界での生活を送るために、やれることを、いろんなトコと繋がりながら、顔をあげて、目をそらさずに進んでいます。

マリーナからの手紙を読み反G8の時の布芝居を思い出しました。この3年の間に大阪城公園の中は全てのテント(よろずのテント以外)が大阪市・公園事務所により潰され、野宿の仲間が減っていき、よろず相談所に訪れる仲間の数もグンと少なくなり、活動に少しずつの限界を感じていました。各団体の並々成らぬ努力の甲斐あって、ひと昔前なら考えられない程に、野宿者の（居宅）生活保護は得られやすくなりました。でも、テント暮らしという自立のあり方が長い人のなかには、生活保護ではない生き方をしたい人もいます。その人らしい生き方というのは、上から押し付けられるのではなく、その人が作っていくものだと考えています。生き方のひとつとして、人生のある時期は野宿というスタイルが許容されている方がいいはずで、結局大阪城よろず相談所メンバーの考えはいつもそこにあって、もがきならなんとかやっています。マリーナの手紙にあったように、「自由を謳う沢山の鳥達であること」を共に目指しています。2009年にも「パペットマスターぐんぐん計画」というワークショップを開き、パペットを持ってデモをしました。そこでも、野宿テントのテーマカラーのブルーバードがはためいていました。私たちの望む自由を考え、欲しいものを思い、創作した、たくさんのパペットたちが大阪城公園から街へ出ました。自分たちの文化と経験と、限られた条件に根ざして、私たち自身のやり方で、知恵と力を振り絞って創り出したパペットワークショップでした。

3・11以降の大阪・京都・奈良・兵庫では新しいつながり、ネットワークが動き出しています。もんじゅ(敦賀)・高浜・美浜の反原発の運動をずっとやってきた中高年の人らや、サウンドデモの主催者やクラブDJをしている人ら、野宿者や支援の関係の人ら、有機農業をしている人ら、温暖化を水から研究している人ら、死刑廃止の人ら、宗教者の人ら、友人・知人、ライオットガールの仲間たち、クィアの仲間たち、貧乏人。みんなバラバラ、有象無象の集合体で一緒に出来ること、最低限の共通意識を持ってやっています。それは「すべての原発を即時停止、廃炉に！」っていうこの1点だけです。その共通意識で海外の仲間たちも、ＤＩＹで、いろいろして欲しいです。

そして、4月には釜ヶ崎で野宿者・日雇い労働者の支援をしているメンバーを中心に大きな弾圧があり、大切な仲間たち数人は起訴までされました。私は怒りと憎しみと悲しみと不甲斐なさを、パワーにかえて、右往左往しながら、ナウできることをやるしかない感じです。

今、私や仲間がDIY行動として広げているのは③つです。ほかにも面白いのがあれば教えてください。①と③はどこにいてもできることです。

①  みんな個別バラバラに自分の立場から申し入れ書なり、質問書をつくって、関電(関西のひとは)・東電・国へ宛てて送る。あたしなら、死刑廃止の立場・野宿者支援の立場・賃労働者の立場、とかとか。属している市民団体の名前とかで出す。(個人でもかまわないし)で、5月の関電包囲行動の時に持っていく。もし自分が労働やなにかで、包囲行動にいけなくても、自分の書いたものを渡してもらうってことは直接行動になるし。あとは、いろんな立場とか感覚で、原発止めろ！って言っていくのが力になると。例えば、100人で電力会社囲んでも申し入れが1通ってのは変でしょう。みんな違うバラバラ、いろんな思いで原発の即時停止・すべての原発を廃炉に！って集まってるんだからさ。その、共通意識でやったら良いかなと。あと5月中に東電・国にも持っていこうって計画も出てるんだ。

②  電気料金の指定日払い！これは水田ふうっていう友人やアイリーン(グリーンアクション)がずっとやってきてること。電気料金を引き落としや払い込みにしないで、電力会社に家に取りに来てもらう方法なんだ。例えば大阪市内で100人の人が月末の同じ日・時間に来て欲しいって設定したら、関電は行けないんだよね、みんなのとこへは。こっちは払う気があるから指定日にしてるわけで、取りにこなかったら不払いが成り立つ。電気は使ってるんじゃなくて使わされてる、原発で作ったエネルギーなら不払いします、とね。あとは、お金を徴収しに来た職員と話が出来るってのがメリット。「あたしは反原発です」って伝えるだけでもいいし、関電職員に、ここに1人でもそーいう人がいるって知ってもらうのは大事・チョー大事。

③  うちはシェアハウスで一軒家なんだけど、玄関に立て看板ってか、(小さい)そういうのを作ったんだ、いらない角材と木の板で。まだ書いてないけど、書いて立てるんだ。で、何を書くのかっていうと、一番近い原発(うちなら高浜)からの距離を「ここは高浜原発から○○キロ地点、高浜原発で事故があったら琵琶湖の水が汚染される・飲めなくなる。この家は原発に反対！自分の生活は自分で守りたい」的なことを書く感じ。友人のとこ宇治の橋姫神社にはもう立ってるよ。

　3・11以降、日本の企業もメディアも学校もファショな方に向かっている感じがして気持ちが悪い。メディアでは「頑張ろう日本・心をひとつに」とか、天災の被害を煽って原発の問題をちゃんと報じていなかったり。みんなで悲しみにくれることを強要されて「今を乗り切ろう」とか。学校では経団連から放射能の素晴らしさを称えるDVDが届いて、見せなきゃいけないってことが起きていたり、冗談じゃない。私たちが自分たちの生活をしていること、していくことが非暴力直接行動であり、私たちは主体的に行動を起こすのだから、こんなおかしな流れで人災を「なかったこと」にはさせない。

今の日本の風潮は、いわゆる「普通」の生活を送る人には、被災地の人々や原発労働従事者との切り離しを意識させたりさせる。(こことあそこは違う。ここは安全あそこは危険、みたいな感じ)そんなものには惑わされたくない。反原発のデモで、「ノーモア　チェルノブイリ　ノーモア　フクシマ」とアピールして、プラカードを持っている人たちがいた。けど、「ノーモア　チェルノブイリ　ノーモア　フクシマ」は違うと思う。チェルノブイリも、福島もまだ終わっていない。チェルノブイリから学び、福島を救い、そこに今も住んでいる人らと、共に生きよう・生きたいと私は思う。私たちは生身の感情を持って生活し、今ある社会に規制されて日々を生きている。そうした人らが寄り添い、現実を直視しながら具体的な困難や矛盾を解決していくしかないんじゃないか。デモでアピールしていた人たちが悪い訳ではないが、こういうズレはすごく悲しい。福島で生活している人らが見たらどんな風に思うのか。主義・主張も立場もみんなバラバラ、みんな違うっていうのは良いことで、そこがスタンダードであるべきだと思う。でも、私は自分がいま生活している場(大阪)と福島を切り離しては、何もやっていけないし、動けない。

私たちは自分たちが、ちっぽけで弱い存在であることを知っている。だから、その弱みを私たち自身で自覚して強みにすることが出来る。私たちは、たくさん負けてきた。ひどい負け方もしてきた。だから、負けても負けても、負けないでいることが強みであると知っている。だからこそ、手を変え、人を変え、品を変えて、立ち止まりながらでも、一瞬・一時でも楔を打つことが出来る。その一瞬・一時を人はつなげていけるかもしれない。いまこそ、つないでいくのだと思う。私たちはもう頭を垂れてる場合じゃない、ギリギリながらも、悲しみにくれても動いてるんだし、これからももっと仲間を増やしてやっていくのだから。

いろんなエモーション(感情)を表現する手段があって、仲間がいて、生きているんだから。そこにあるのは絶望ではなく、新しい世界であると、知っているのだから。海外からのあなたたちの言葉は力になり、その力で考え動き、動くことによって、嘆きや悲しみを止めています。私たちは、もう自分自身を裏切らない。裏切りたくない！でも無理せず、まいってしまわぬように、少しのスパイスと沢山のユーモアをいつも心に忘れずにいきましょう。

ＤＩＹ　ＣＲＥＡＴＥ　生★　大阪城公園よろず相談所　　生屋★グる

PDF (日本語）

In the Streets We Become Cattle — Towards a theory of demonstrations

Animal Insurrection Committee
(Translation by Max Black)

This is not a mobile freak show. Those cameras and cell phones you’re showing off: what are their cold eyes pointing at? What are they asking?

Cross-transmission is what will perceive us. A chindon band begins to call out. The voiceless transmitters, who parade disguising themselves with sexuality and buffoonery, describe a fold in public space with their supple and elegant gestures. Sound breaches that fold, and passes through a crowd pushing against itself, dislocating a crowd excited in its revolt against the media and public communications’ consolidation of one-dimensional information. There were those who heard a sorrowful requiem in their gay dancing to the instruments. But we stop bowing our shoulders and in setting out to walk, make the madness of street art immanent to our bodies.

You cannot find us. We have given up our names. Which we had borne from start to finish. We are in exodus from our resumes and CV’s, workplace ethics and being a good citizen. But, from the start we didn’t have names. The plebs don’t leave any remains anyway. People may call us minor. We never could understand what statements like ‘it’s safe’ or ‘it won’t influence health’ meant. The words that come out of the infants that we’d see from time to time on the bus or on the train are more articulate than that stuff. On that day in Tokyo where a fascist mayor had gained his reelection, we who gathered in the streets of Koenji, in spite of the fear of being injured by radiation, walked between the threshold of the everyday, and a new ethics which unfolds outside of it. You define this world of ours in terms of opinion. We don’t understand what an opinion is and we don’t want to know. We get this the whole time we’re walking, from start to finish, and we don’t want to hear it, since it is not even of everyday life. If that’s proper Japanese or if it’s ethics we will be in exodus from it. We make our appeal to micropolitics. At this moment we are walking in this street.

But to do that was also to talk about our dreams. What we, who differed in our backgrounds and cultures in many ways, had been doing every day up to that point. That was all. Our ethically vacuous and pointless everyday. This was the place where we encountered each other. Together we walk just to cast all of that aside. To drink, to exchange views, like the singing of songs, and to dance, giving our bodies to the music — this is what we chose.

We greet the children who wear their sanitary masks, flee from the rain, and avoid drinking their water, and who play in the courtyards where the dust dances, and say to them,‘welcome home.’ They will be able to choose to continue living life through the image of our lives. With the lady rapper’s flow –‘turn vested interests (riken) around and you get rights (kenri)’– we appropriate territory.

What the media can home in on is no more than footprints. No more than echoes. Maybe not even that. A camera can only detect the image of an empty beer can that is rolling on the ground, can only detect the image of vehicles that know nothing but traffic rules going in every direction in confusion, can only count the number of shoes, but without hearing the footsteps. Even the words written on the placards and t-shirts are semiotic character strings to them and are consolidated into information.

Maybe we should be clear. It’s not that the media doesn’t report our images. Since we live in a different world, there is no helping, with their unbearable feelings of envy, the best possible reaction we can expect from them is indifference, and apart from their indifference, they have nothing but their stiffness. Basically we don’t show up on their monitor.

A crowd of 15,000 was in insurrection. Let us reconfirm this. We have abandoned our names. But we didn’t have names from the beginning. We don’t know if they are aware of this. But a crowd is not the same thing as a mass of stuff.

We rise up, mill around, and withdraw. We stop the cars on the street, we cover the pedestrian bridges, we force the buses into retreat. We get responses from the residents in their houses on the side of the road. Right now we are the ones occupying this street. We want to abandon the names of ‘the people,’ ‘the workers,’ ‘the citizens,’ for us this is a space of encounter. This appearance, which seeks difference in face to face encounters and expression, and hybridizes haphazardly, may seem strange in their eyes.

Our interest is not in saying that this is a ‘festive resistance action’ or whatever. We should take what Felix Guattari said –‘politics precedes being’– more seriously. The moment when we overflow in the streets and hybridize, there is doubtless politics and that is where we live. This moment — long have we awaited it.

We endure. It’s not enough for us to settle for one situation. Still dancing irregularly, we slip between the people uneasily walking by and hide ourselves on the sidewalk. We even mingle with the policemen. We seduce them. We beckon with our hands and invite them in. There were policemen who gave money, inspired by the benefit song, made up on the spot. In the face of us, exceptional groups do not exist. But you are a perfect example. And we are innumerable.

An affinity. We live in the city. But there was nothing to delimit this street as a city. Cars and buses, apartments and building complexes, even Ring Road #7 and the Ome Kaido were just shapes coming towards us. Because the situations and problems coming towards us, like our backgrounds and circumstances, were different for each of us. One could raise a placard and say, ‘I want to get laid,’ but no one would turn their back at it. A world of sullen exchanges on the train we ride, tired from our jobs or the flow of each day, where the dispute is settled with the thrust of a knife. There is no change from adult to child. Only the categories change. Adult children who murder their parents and infantilized adults who murder their children. A cold formality haunts the safety and security they speak of. Solitary offices, built by catching on to the new fashion before anyone else. In the room next door an old man might be dying of solitude. Lying to live, living to lie. As we face each other and hybridize, that will produce lies also. But having abandoned our names and faced each other, our lies and even betrayals will have affect. We are in exodus from an unbearable world that has hidden its lies behind its back.

We become a pack. We do not rely on any regulation or system which disconnects us from the pack. Imagine it. An invisible system that cannot be put into language. A disconnection that is latent in it, that men and women hang around. There are people there who learn intimacy with their man or their woman in it. Their encounters with them are disseminated. But when they separate they give up their intimacy, don’t they? We are alone and we are innumerable. We do not adjust our immanent gregariousness to the default system.

It ‘s the same with the difference between men and women, in men and women. In the invisible system we can see roles for men and the roles for women distributed here and there. But he who hangs on, and she who hangs on here is pierced through by the single pack. They become woman. It is in anticipation in their wombs. They occupy a single position. We are alone and we are innumerable. I wonder to myself if I can become woman. Sexuality is not something we possess but which supports us through difference. It makes us and it takes us apart. In assembling us, it strips us bare of our positionality as individuals. We who have been made solitary by the ethics of the pack continue our encounters on the street, again, and again.

And we continue to encounter those who we have an ethics in common with.

The street was a space of encounter. But there is something we must notice: That this moment must be sustained, for as long as we have anticipated it, for longer than we have anticipated it. Even if this body disappears, politics will continue. We have noticed this. We have come from Minami-Soma, we have come from Namie. We exchanged greetings, we passed the time, we watched over each other. No, we saw each other off. How shall we become without seeing off this moment? We shall become anyhow. We are not one being that is alone. Encounter is not a becoming-one. We encounter each other again, for the third time. For a long time having danced, drank, and anticipated in this close intimacy, we encounter each other in this street again. After this street, we may not go along blindly with the 4/4 beat and the speakers, the rhythm and the bass. We may not just throw our hands up when the break comes in. We will hybridize the speakers with the rhythms that we play, and make up our own beats. When we take in the sound, the agitation on our skins repeatedly forms connections and catastrophes, it disseminates in secrecy on the border. We call forth the street. If there is exchange in the streets, it is always hybridizing, it creates new moments. Each one of us knows how this works.

The words of the approved textbooks, which teach us that friendship is a human relation where we affirm our togetherness through mutual sharing of feelings of trust and sympathy for our partners, has nothing of substance to it. Among us, seeking agreement from those who have come from Minami-Sanriku or Namie by calling for them to shout slogans beginning with ‘anti…’ or ‘no more…’ may not be solidarity in the real meaning of the word. For them the long fight has already begun. We were the ones who blinded ourselves to this. This will not be created through collusion in the mutual sharing of lies. The point of our mutual connection is not to get us money. It is not born through social mixers that we participate in for exorbitant fees. We have been forced into a situation where there is nothing but a ‘lifestyle’ where we can only make our withdrawals from these connections. A human being that places its hopes and expectations for new values and change in that existence has nothing available to it besides paranoia.

At Fukushima, cattle and dogs escaped. Later, innumerable cattle appeared in front of TEPCO’s offices. They were brought there in the shaking trailer against their will, for had they only known where TEPCO’s offices were they surely would have come there walking. Can we discern the plaintiveness that crosses over into urgency in their voice as we walk? We become cattle and dogs. Perhaps this is solidarity.

We already knew. We are able to be in that close, intimate time. That time which was lived by cattle, dogs, and cats. A voice may say, that close intimacy was the time when we were domesticated by the family, the state, the system. A loud voice may say, ‘be human!’ ‘the encounter is what happened after all of that!’ But this should not be overlooked: We are not in the business of verifying the connections between us and them. Our affect shaken by cattle, feeling shame, we become cattle. The Self Defense Force (SDF) member who fled from Fukushima became cattle before this shame, and exposed his shame. He is us. Being-man right now — wasn’t this what he was ashamed of? We become cats whose tongues are dry from the dust when we walk through the shattered rubble, we become dogs when we drink seawater on the shore where there is nothing but the sound of waves. We become cattle when we chew the cud while keenly sensing the disquiet in its unchanging taste. With our affect shaken by one shame after another we become cattle and dogs and cats, and we become a pack. A pack of innumerable affects that cannot be disconnected. The groups called Bosozoku (motorcycle gangs) in Yokohama and Ibaraki, ashamed with confused adults, raised voice through the roaring produced by their high-speed intimacies with their motorcycles. They showed their affect and abandoned their given names all by themselves. When a high school student in Minami Soma said, ‘I feel death coming on bit by bit,’ she became woman. Even a woman becomes woman. When you get down to it, what is ‘realistic,’ what is ‘possible,’ what is an ‘alternative energy plan?’ We should not get too familiar with these things. Because we have abandoned our names.

3/11. On the way home from hours long walk, we noticed it. Through the explosion at Fukushima, we came to believe, in the darkness of the rolling blackout. We carried the great and vague fear and anxiety, of wondering what could happen next. But we became aware of something that could only be expressed as a strange sense of release after the fear. What had bound us was the radioactive, the nuclear. Being ordered to ‘be human’ from the moment we were born. This was also the same. Even the left-wing groups are saying, ‘make connections!’ This was also the same. The SDF in exodus from Fukushima had felt it. The young couples who had fled Fukushima with their children had felt it. We were in exodus because of the absence of a common ethics. The future that nuclear power had prepared had collapsed. Constituting innumerable affinities, all the while fearing radiation, we are together in something mysterious which can only be expressed as liberation.

In the streets we saw nothing but insurrection.

It’s stupid to ask what counterproposals or alternative lifestyles or posses were born there.

In the street, among those who go by the way of the street, there are innumerable conspiracies.

Multiple conspiracies, which nobody can grasp completely.

We will make an insurrection in the streets again.

But it will be completely different from the one before.

With our affect shaken in shame, constantly re-encountering,

As innumerable lines change their form we become a pack and make an insurrection,

Before every nuclear plant collapses in on itself in shame.

PDF (English)

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私たちは路上で牛になる　デモ論のために

動物蜂起委員会 a.k.a. AIC

移動式の見世物小屋ではない。あなたたちがかざす携帯やカメラ、その白い目はどこに向けられ、何を問うているのか。

私たちが目にすることになる横断的な伝達。チンドンが鳴り始まる。性と道化に扮し路上を練り歩くこのもの言わぬ伝達者たちは、しなやかで艶やかな手ぶりによって広場へ襞を描いた。襞をぬけ、押し合う群衆のあいだすら吹きぬけていくその音は、一元的な情報に集約するメディアや広告を翻そうと意気込む群衆を脱臼させる。彼（女）らが奏で踊る陽気さのうちに潜む哀しみに鎮魂を聴いた者もいた。私たちは肩をいからせることを止め、代わりに路上芸がもつ狂気をその身に内在させて歩きはじめた。

私たちを見つけることはできない。私たちは名前を捨てた。始終抱えていたそれを。経歴や学歴、職業倫理やよき市民であること、そこから離脱した。一方で私たちには名前などはじめからなかった。有象無象、跡かたも残らない。ひとは私たちをマイナーと呼ぶのかもしれない。すでに私たちは「安心です」「健康に影響はありません」と発せられることの意味が理解出来ない。電車やバスのなかで時おり目が合う赤子から発せられる言葉の方がまだ明晰だ。ファシストの都知事が再選を果たしたこの日この東京で、高円寺の路上に集った私たちは被爆に怯えながらも日常の閾とその外に広がる新しい倫理のなかを歩んでいた。この世界について、あなたたちは見解と言う。解らないし、知りたくもない。歩いていれば始終耳にするそれを聞きたくもない。それは日常ですらない。なおもそれが日本語であり倫理であるならばそこからも離脱した。私たちはミクロ政治学に訴えかける。いまはここ路上を歩いている。

しかしそれは一方で夢を語ることでもあった。出身も文化も様々に異なる私たちが日々してきたこと。ただそれだけであった。 私たちの非倫理的なあってなき「日常」。私たちはそこで出会った。ともにそれをただ捨て去ることを歩む。私たちが選んだのは、酒を飲み、歌を歌うように意見を交わし会い、音楽に身を委ねて踊ることだった。
マスクを着け、雨を避け、水を飲まず、それでも埃の舞う校庭で遊んで帰ってくる子どもたちには「おかえり」と言って迎える。私たちの生きるすがたを通して彼（女）らもまた生きる日々を選んでいく。「利権を逆にして私たちの生きる権利」と女性ラッパーがフロウしたとき、私たちは領土を奪う。

メディアが追うことができるのは足跡だけに過ぎない。残響音に過ぎない。それすらもないかもしれない。空になったビールの缶が転がる姿、交通法規しか知らない車達が道路で右往左往している姿、足音も聴かず靴の数だけ数えているカメラ。プラカードやTシャツに書かれた言葉ですら、彼らにとっては記号的な文字列でありすぐに情報へと集約化する。
はっきり言う必要があるだろう。私たちの姿をメディアが報じないのではない。違う世界を生きているのだから仕方がない、彼らの嫉妬、これ以上ないぐらいの嫉妬の感情からできる最大限の反応は無視することだけであり、無視すること以外身動きができないでいるのにすぎない。そもそも、私たちは写らない。
１万５千の群衆が蜂起した。ここでもう一度確認する。私たちは名前を捨てた。一方で私たちには名前などはじめからなかった。彼らの認識がどうかは知らない。だが群衆とは塊ではない。

私たちは立ち止り、蛇行し、後退する。道行く車を停め、歩道橋を埋め、バスを後退させる。沿道に建つ住居の住民から応答を受ける。いまここ路上を占拠しているのは私たちだ。――ピープル、労働者、市民といった名前さえも捨て去りたいと願う私たちにとって、ここは出会いの空間だった。向き合うこと、表現することの差異を認め、でたらめに交配していくその姿は、彼らの眼に奇異に写ったことだろう。もちろん、祝祭的な抗議行動なんて言うつもりはない。「政治は存在に先立つ」とガタリが言ったことをもっと真剣に考えるべきである。私たちが路上に溢れ、交配していくその瞬間は紛れもない政治でありそこで生きているのだ。私たちは待っていた、長いあいだこの瞬間を。
私たちは持続する。一つの状態に甘んじるたけでは不足なのだ。くねくねと踊りつづけ、戸惑い歩くひとびとのあいだをすりぬけ歩道に姿をくらます。時には警官のあいだに紛れこむこともある。私たちは誘惑する。手をまねき、誘いこむ。即興で歌った支援金ソングに触発されて、募金をした警官もいた。私たちのまえに例外的な集団など存在しない。だが、あなたは一例だ。私たちは無数となる。

ひとつの類縁性。私たちは都市に住む。だがこの路上を都市と限定したものはいなかった。車やバス、マンションやビル群はしかり、環七や青梅街道すらも目のまえに迫りくるものでしかなかった。なぜなら、私たちの目のまえに迫りくる状況や問題も、出身や出自同様に、それぞれ異なっていた。そこで「モテたい」というプラカードを掲げようが、私たちは決して後戻りはしないだろう。仕事や日々流れていく時間に疲れて乗る電車の中での不機嫌なやり取り、諍いの結論にナイフを突きつける世界。子供も大人も変化はない。カテゴリが変わるだけだ。親を殺す大人びた子供、子を殺す幼児化した大人。彼らが言う安心安全にはよそよそしさが付きまとう。新しい流行を誰よりも先につかむことで成り立つ孤独なオフィス。そのとなりの部屋では老人が孤独死しているかもしれない。生きる為に嘘をつき、嘘をつくことで生きていく。私たちが向きあい、交配していくあいだにも嘘はもちろん生まれてくる。だが名前を捨てた私たちは、向きあったうえで、嘘や裏切りも情動とする。嘘を背後に忍ばせたこの耐えがたき世界からは離脱する。

私たちは群れとなる。群れを断ち切ろうとする規定や制度にはよりかからない。考えてみてほしい。不可視の、言語化されていない制度を。男と女が付き合う、そこに潜在する断ち切りを。彼や彼女に親しみをおぼえる人々がいる。彼（女）らとの出会いは伝播する。だが別れるとまたそれを放棄してはいないか。私たちはひとりで無数だ。内在する群生を既定の制度に合わせることはしない。
またもや男／女の差。不可視の制度のなかに女の役割／男の役割が散見する。しかしここで踏みとどまり彼は、彼女は、ひとつの群れに貫かれる。彼は、彼女は女になる。彼（女）の胎盤で待機している。彼（女）はひとつの位置を占める。私たちはひとりで無数だ。はたして私は女になれるだろうか。性とは、私たちが所有する何かではなく、その差異により私たちを支える。私を作り、私を解体する。私を構成するとともに、私から個人という位格を剥奪する。群れる倫理にこだわって孤立した私たちは、再び、三度、この路上で出会いを遂げた。

そして私たちは私たちの倫理を共有する者達と出会い続ける。

路上は出会いの空間だった。しかしこの先も私たちは気づいていかなければならない。待機していた時間と同じ長さ、それ以上に長いあいだ、この瞬間を続けなければならないことを。この身が消滅しようとも、まさにいまも、政治は続いていく――。私たちは気づいていた。南相馬から来ていた。浪江から来ていた。ともにあいさつを交わし、ともに時間を過ごし、見守った。いいや、見送った。このさき、この瞬間を見送らずにいかように成るか。いかようにも成れる。私たちはひとつではない。出会いとは一つになることではない。わたしたちは再び、三度、出会う。長いあいだともに踊り、酒を飲み、近しい親しさのなかで待機していた私たちは、まさにこの路上で出会い直した。この路上のあと、四つ打ちのビート、スピーカーを通したリズムや低音にやみくもに乗ることはないだろう。ブレイクに易々と手を挙げることなどしないだろう。私たちは好きなときにスピーカーと自らの奏でるリズムを交配し、それぞれのビートをつくりだす。音を呼びこみたければ、皮膚のざわめきが接続と破局を繰り返しボーダーの上を秘密裏に伝播していく。酒の場でさえ慣れ合いを捨て出会い直す空間に。路上を呼びだすのだ。路上で交歓するものがいれば、その都度交配しあらたな瞬間をつくりだす。方法は私たち各々が知っている。

友情は彼（女）への信頼や共感の情を抱き合って互いを肯定しあう人間関係だという御用教科書が教える言葉にはなんの内実もない。私たちのあいだには。南三陸や浪江から来ていた、彼（女）らに同意を求め、「反」や「脱」をともに叫ぼうと呼びかけることすら、真の意味では連帯ではないのかもしれない。彼（女）らにとって長い戦いはすでにはじまっていた。それを看過してきたのは私たちだ。お互いに嘘を忍ばせた馴れ合いで生まれるのではない。お互いの関係がお金を生み出すからではない。高い金を払って参加する交流会で生まれるのではない。関係をそこからしか引き出せないような「生活」しか存在しないかのように私たちは追い込まれている。そこに新しい価値や新しい変化、期待や希望を見いだせる人間はパラノイアでしかないだろう。

フクシマで牛や犬が逃げだした。東電前に無数の牛たちが現れた。彼（女）らとて、荷台に揺られてやってきたことは不本意であり、東電の場所さえ知っていれば、歩いてきたに違いない。その歩行のさなか、彼（女）らの鳴き声に哀切をこえた切迫感を聴き取ることができるか、私たちは牛や犬になる。それが連帯だろう。
私たちは知っていた。近しく、親しい時間のなかにいることができた。牛や犬や猫、その時間を生きていたことを。その親しみや近しさは家族や国家しいては制度に飼い慣らされた時間だ、という声もあろう。大きな声がこう言うだろう。「人であれ」と。「出会いとはその先を示されたものである」と。だが見過ごしてはならない。私たちと彼（女）の関係を照らし合わせることではないのだ。牛に情動を揺さぶられ、恥辱を感じた私たちは牛になる。フクシマで逃げだした自衛官は、その恥辱のもとで牛になり、恥部を露出した。彼は私たちだ。いま男であること、彼はそれを恥じたのではなかったか。ひしゃげた瓦礫のまわりを行く、埃で舌の乾いた猫になる。波音だけが響く砂浜で海水をすする犬になる。変わらぬ味の不穏さを敏感に察知しながらも草を食む牛になる。ひとつひとつの恥辱に情動を揺すられる私たちは牛や犬や猫になり、そして群れるのだ。けっして断ち切られない無数の情動の群れに。右往左往する大人に恥辱をおぼえた暴走族と呼ばれる一団が、横浜や茨城でバイクとの親しい速度のなかから轟音とともに声をあげた。彼（女）らは情動を示し、名づけられた名前を自らの手で捨て去った。南相馬の女子高生が「じわじわと死を感じるんです」と言ったとき、彼女は女性になった。女性ですら女性に＜なる＞のだ。現実的なこと、可能なこと、代替エネルギー案とはそもそもなにか。そこに馴れすぎてはいけない。なぜなら私たちは名前を捨てたのだ。

3月11日。数時間かけて歩いた帰路のなかで気がついた。フクシマの爆発を介し、停電時の暗闇のなか確信した。私たちはこれからどうなるのかといった漠然とした大きな不安や恐怖を抱えていた。しかし恐怖の先にある何とも奇妙な解放感としか言い表わせないものを知った。私たちを縛ってきたのは「放射能／原子力」的なものであった。生まれてこの方「人であれ」と命令され続けている。これも同じことだ。コネクションを作れと左派的なグループまでが言っている。これも同じことだ。フクシマから離脱した自衛官は感じていた。子どもを連れて西へ逃げる若い夫婦は感じていた。倫理の共有がないものからは離脱する。原子力が用意した未来は崩壊した。無数のアフィニティを形成し、見えない放射能に恐怖しつつも、私たちは不思議と解放感としか言い表せないものとともにある。

路上での蜂起以外に見えたモノはない。
そこでどんな対案やオルタナティブな生活や新しい徒党が生まれたのかと問うことは愚問である。
路上では、路上を経由した者たちの間では、無数の共謀が生まれる。
誰も全体像を把握できない多数の共謀が。
私たちはまた路上で蜂起する。
しかしそれは以前のものとは全くの別物だ。
そのつど出会い直し、恥辱に揺さぶられた情動のもとで
無数の線が形を変えながら群れとなり蜂起する。
恥辱のもとに各地の原発が自ら崩れ落ちてしまうまえに。

PDF (日本語）

Chigaya Kinoshita

The Japanese political scene is being drastically shaken up by the massive demonstrations and meetings that took place on June 11th throughout Japan; and also by the Italian people’s victory at referendum the following day. The day Italy made a decision against nuclear power, a Japanese poll finally reached 70% for “abolishing nuclear power plants.” Symbolically, following the events,  Nobuteru Ishihara, chief secretary of LDP, made the following remark, “these demonstrations are a mass hysteria,” prompting his fellow regional officials to restrict such demonstrations. However, it goes without saying that the politicians are the ones in hysteria and panic. The Japanese politicians, who had long underestimated the effect of mass protest calling it powerless, are in total fear of the mass uprising today. They have no option but to confront the movement. After seeing ‘tomorrow’s Japan in Italian reform, the government officials are encountering a dilemma. Since June 11th, Japan has begun a breakthrough in its anti-nuke movement — a completely new cycle which none of us has experienced before. Though I have so much more to report, this is all for now.

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６・１１の世界一斉反原発行動について－－速報

木下ちがや

六月一一日の日本中一〇〇箇所以上での集会とデモ、そして翌日のイタリアの国民投票での勝利は、日本の政治シーンを大きく揺るがしています。イタリアの国民投票が勝利したその日、遂に「日本では原発を今後廃止していく」ことへの支持が７０％を超えました。象徴的なのは自由民主党の幹事長石原伸晃が、「このデモは集団ヒステリーだ」と言い、彼の部下の地方議員を使いデモを規制せよと叫びはじめていることです。だがいうまでもなく、ヒステリーとパニックを起こしているのは政治家なのです。これまでデモなど無力だと高をくくっていた政治家たちが、世論と運動の高揚に脅威を覚え、もはや正面から対決を訴えざるを得なくなったということです。窮地に追いやられたかれらは、変革のイタリアに「明日の日本」を見てしまったのです。六月一一日から、日本の反原発運動は新しい局面に、われわれが経験したことにない新しいサイクルに入りました。まだまだお伝えしたいことはありますが、取り急ぎ以上です。

PDF (English & Japanese)

Israel and Fukushima

Aoe Tanami

For some time since March 11, I have been unable to do anything, distracted by the fluctuating situations at the Fukushima Nuclear plant and the news from the disaster-stricken area. I have almost abandoned much of my cherished daily routine (i.e., going over Arabic news from Palestine and Iraq) and my life has been somewhat floating in the air.

My brain started emitting dopamine, however, the minute I read a March 29th news that a medical support team from Israel had finally completed setting up facilities and started running medical examinations in Minani Sanriku Town in Miyagi Prefecture. Since it was reported that Israel was preparing to send a support team of medics, on a mailing list for Palestinian issues there have been debates about pros and cons of the Israeli project. For instance, I came across a voice: “we cannot let such an aggressive state like Israel look after Japanese people,” and I became weary of.

Especially when Israel comes up as a topic, conspiracy theories tend to rule. In any case, I shall bring up some facts to contextualize the event. First of all, Israeli medical unit was the first oversea medical team that Japan accepted in the current disaster, and it was also the first time for Israel to send their medical unit to Japan. This ‘first-time’ characteristics reminds me of the Haiti earthquake in January 2010, whose death toll is said to have reached over 300,000. Thee days after the quake, the first Israeli unit arrived as one of the vanguard foreign teams to enter Haiti. Soon after their arrival at Port-au-Prince, the Israel team set up an outdoor medical facility and started working; it is said that that was “the only facility that could handle complicated surgery” in the midst of chaotic situation. Eventually 236 Israelis entered Haiti, 218 of whom were soldiers and officials of IDF (Israel Defense Forces).

It is deceiving that Japanese media is calling the IDF team “medical team” and “medical staff”, for in fact all the sixty members in the current mission are soldiers and medics of National Security Forces and Medical Corps. While spectacles of the ‘active’ appearance of US military and JSDF (Japan Self-Defense Forces) may prevent us from seeing the actual situation, we must acknowledge that the IDF foreign mission is an oversea military dispatch. In recent years Israel dispatched its rescue units to, first earthquake-stricken Mexico in ‘85, and then Armenia, Romania, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, India and so on. It is obvious, perhaps too obvious, that Israel attempts to create sympathetic mood in those countries in turmoil and civil war and outside the Arab world, where critic of Israeli occupation is not conspicuous. Hence Israel’s quick decision to dispatch its rescue unit right after 3/11 was due to the fact that Japan is an ally to the US, and the position of the government that it has not criticized Israeli occupation policy for the past 30 years. While the attitude of Japanese administration was too confused to accept offers from many foreign countries for rescue and support, I shall stress the fact that Israel team was solely accepted in a very smooth fashion, though the background is unknown.

Prior to the arrival of its medical unit, Israel sent three hundred Geiger counters to Japan. They were offered by Rotem Industries, a technology supplier for the nuclear power reactors in the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, Israel. It is an open secret that Israel has been developing nuclear weapons inside this Research Center; in fact the name “Dimona” is even used as a metaphor to describe the secret. I could never have expected that the two names “Dimona” and “Fukushima” linked this way. As even the writings on its website can tell, Israel was very enthusiastic in grasping the oopotunity. But then I further learned the fact that Dimona and Fukushima had already been connected through a different link; about one year ago, Magna B. S. P. Ltd., a company also based in Dimona, had supplied their security system to Fukushima Daiichi Plant (Haaretz, March 18, 2011). The system monitors people entering the nuclear power plant, but initially it was made for preventing entries of “terrorists trying to use radioactive materials for their attack.” That is to say, TEPCO was cautious of terrorism against the power plant, while it sat on the whistle-blowing about design shortcomings of the reactors and ignored the demands for safety measures against earthquake and tsunami. There is no surprise that the supplier of the system is Israel, an “Anti-Terrorism Establishment,” whose security industries are renowned world-wide, but there is no mention of Israel in any of TEPCO’s press releases and other materials. On the other hand, truth or false, the CEO of Magna B. S. P. Ltd. boasted in the report in Haaretz that they “have signed contracts with all the nuclear power plants in Japan” to supply their security system.

All of this might be of little significance in comparison to various grotesque phenomena after 3/11, but it is just because I always lose my cool when I talk about Israel. I am at loss hearing about Sci-fi-esque portrayal of “Operation Tomodachi” by the US. France, supporting Israeli nuclear development, seems to give no room for any criticism against nuclear energy, desperately defending their nuclear policy. Thus it is not my intention to pull reader’s attention all the way to a minor axis like Israel. However, if above facts can be summarized as a tendency to focus on “anti-terrorism rather than disaster measures,” the problem is not be limited to TEPCO’s failure. In other words, one can see the same attitude in the Japanese government in prioritizing security preservation over human lives, by underestimating the danger of radiation and refusing to expand the evacuation zone.

In the wake of the disaster, many began raising voices throughout Japan, calling to take this opportunity to reevaluate Japanese society. Not only issues concerning energy policy but also those of technology and concepts of growth and development are now questioned like never before, even making appearances in mass media. While this is not a bad thing, I still find a lack of alarm against the psychological apparatus put into motion in order to keep security and order by the governance, and a lack of problematic consciousness as to how this might be co-opted into a system in the society from now on. It functions not necessarily as the authority oppressing the society from above, but by each member of the society who ends up affirming the act of authority by hiding anxiety over nuclear disaster, thinking of ‘what I can do’ for the stricken area and living calmly while doing their part in energy conservation. It is the social order in which each member is made to be the subject of maintenance. Herein the members themselves are the agent of maintaining social order, and hence complicit with the government that looks down on human lives, and incapable of criticizing the policy in the full sense.

This is a society whose members are portrayed as if they could keep their cool and were ‘calm’ whatever happens amidst the crisis. Though it is not the reality, such attitude is praised by others and Japan self-praises for it. Oversea media acclaiming Japan as the domain of “no panic, no looting” immediately reminded me, again, of Israel. One might recall during the Gulf War, Israeli society was reportedly praised for their keeping calm despite the missile attacks by Iraq, as well as IDF for restraining their counterattack. “Israelization” of Japanese society has always been my problematic, but the current beautification of calmly living everyday life in the state of abnormality might as well be called an Israelization.

One might also be reminded of, as an antipode, the festive democratic movement that arose around Tahrir Square in Egypt. Israel has long been honoring its characteristic as ‘the only democratic nation in the Middle East.’ Having been looking down on the dictatorship of the Arab world while sitting in the center of the Middle East, the recent revolutions must be significant events to the Israeli nation and people, affecting as they are their identity and reason to exist.

Concerning the democratic movement in Egypt, there has been little link to the anti-Israeli voices regarding its continued occupation of Palestine. But this could be a change of tendency in the Arab society where Israeli occupation of Palestine and Israeli government’s policies have been considered almost as normal and permanent. In other words, this could be a big change in Israelization of the Arab society. Or even if this big flow may not stop right away, at least it becomes uncertain to what direction the society is headed. Although it is unstable, the options have expanded to far beyond one-way Israelization.

In Japan too, we must not let the state foresee our direction so easily. We should not be well-behaved in this current situation where the state is obviously giving priority to social order and security over human lives. Let us release out anxiety and anger! Let us make more noises!

PDF (English)
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イスラエル、そしてフクシマ

田浪亜央江

3月11日以降しばらくは、被災地のニュースと福島原発の状況の推移に気を取られてばかりで何も手につかないような状態だったし、日ごろ大切にして来た習慣（パレスチナやイラク発のアラビア語ニュースを毎日チェックすることも含めて）もかなり崩壊気味で、なんだか宙に浮いたような生活を送っていた。

しかし3月29日、宮城県南三陸町で、イスラエルの医療チームがついに診療所の設営を終え診察を開始したと知って、突然脳内でドーパミン放出が始まった感じだ。イスラエルが医療チームの派遣を準備中というニュースが出て以来、パレスチナ関係のメーリング・リストでは受け入れをめぐって賛否両論が起きていたが 、「イスラエルなんていうとんでもない国の医療チームに、日本人の診療はさせられない」という趣旨の投稿もあったりして、かなりゲンナリさせられていたのだ。

こと相手がイスラエルとなると謀略論なども横行しがちだが、まず事実関係をひろっておく。イスラエルの医療チームは、日本政府が今回の地震で受けいれた海外政府派遣の医療チームとしては最初のもので、イスラエルが日本に医療チームを送ったのも、初めてのことだ。この「初めて」づくしで思い出すのは、二〇一 〇年一月に起き、死者が三〇万人を超えたとも言われるハイチ地震だ。地震の発生から三日後には、最初にハイチ入りする外国救援部隊の一つとしてイスラエルの医療部隊の先遣隊がポート・プリンスに到着、屋外病院を設置して活動を開始して以降は、混乱した現地で「複雑な外科手術が行える唯一の」施設として機能したという 。最終的には二三六人がハイチ入りしたが、そのうち二一八人はIDF（イスラエル国防軍）の兵士や将校だった。

日本のメディアでは「医療チーム」とか「医療スタッフ」という言い方で誤魔化されているが、今回だって派遣されてきた六〇人というのはIDFの国内防衛部隊と医療部隊の兵士や軍医だ。これだけ米軍や自衛隊の「活躍ぶり」を目にさせられていると不感症になりかねないが、これがIDFによる海外派兵なのだということは、強く意識しておきたい。これまでIDFが救援部隊を海外に派遣してきた例は、分かる範囲では八五年のメキシコ地震にはじまって、アルメニア、ルーマニア、ボスニア、ルワンダ、コソヴォ、インドなど。イスラエルの占領政策への批判が表立ってはなされない国の災害や内戦に乗じ、中東の外でイスラエルのシンパを出来るだけ作ろうという思 惑は見え見えだ。であればイスラエルが今回すばやい派遣を決めたのは、日本がアメリカの「同盟国」であることに加え、イスラエルの占領政策をまったく批判しなくなったこの三〇年ほどの日本政府の姿勢も大いに関わっているのだろう。日本側の混乱のためにいくつもの国の援助・支援の申し出が宙に浮いてきたと伝えられるな かで、背景は不明だがイスラエルの救助隊の受け入れだけはやたらスムーズに見えたことも、注意しておきたい。

医療部隊の到着に先立って、イスラエルから送られて来たのはガイガー・カウンター三百台。イスラエルのディモナにある「ネゲヴ核研究センター」内の原子炉に対して技術供給をしている、ローテム社の提供だ。このセンターのなかでイスラエルが核兵器開発を行なってきたことは公然の秘密で、「ディモナ」という地 名はこの事実の暗喩としても使われる。まさかこんなかたちで「ディモナ」と「フクシマ」が結びつくことになるとは思ってもみなかったが、イスラエル側がここぞとばかりに張り切っている様子は、ウェブの字面からでもよく伝わって来ます。あーあ。

とか思っていたら、すでにディモナとフクシマは別の線で結びついていた。ディモナにある別の会社、マグナー社というのが、およそ一年前、福島第一原発にセキュリティ・システムを供給したというのだ（「ハアレツ」紙、三月一八日）。原発施設内に立ち入る人物をモニターするための監視カメラと通報設備のようだ が、その目的は「放射性物質をテロ攻撃に用いようとする」試みを防ぐため。となると福島第一原発の設計不良についての内部告発を握りつぶし、地震・津波対策への要請を無視しておきながら、「テロ対策」だけはちゃんとやっていたということになるわけじゃんか、東電。もともと「テロ対策立国」たるイスラエルのセキュリテ ィ産業は有名だから、システムの供給元がイスラエル企業だったこと自体は驚くような話ではないのだが、東電の事業報告書とかプレス・リリースなんかには（ざっと探したところ）イスラエルのイの字も全然出ていない。他方このハアレツの記事では、嘘か本当か分からないが、「日本中の原発にウチのシステムを導入する取り決 めができてるんだ」とマグナー社の社長が豪語している。

まあ私がたまたまイスラエルの話になると頭に血が上る体質なだけであって、「三・一一」後に起こっているやたらグロテスクなさまざまな事象に比べたら、こんな話は小さいことだと思う。アメリカの「トモダチ作戦」のＳＦチックさもさることながら、イスラエルの核開発の支援国でもあるフランスの、原子力推進政 策死守のためのなりふり構わなさにはまったく言葉を失う。だからイスラエルというマイナーな軸に読者の関心を無理に引っ張るつもりはないのだが、しかし右に書いたような事実が「災害対策よりテロ対策」という姿勢や風潮として要約することがもしできるのなら、コトは東電だけの問題ではないのだろうと思う。つまりそれは 、パニックを恐れて放射能漏れの危険性を過小評価しようとし、避難対象圏を絶対に拡大しようとはしない、いわば人命よりも治安維持を重視しているとしか見えない日本政府の姿勢にも通じるからだ。

今回の出来事を、これまでの日本社会のあり方を見直すきっかけにしようという声があちこちから聞こえてくる。単にエネルギー政策の問題だけでなく、科学技術や成長、発展といった概念の見直しをも含めて、これまではあまり光を当てられなかった議論も、マスメディアのなかに登場するようになった。それは別に悪 いことではないが、いま政府だけでなく社会全体で治安や秩序を維持するための心理的装置が発動されていることへの危惧と、今後の社会のなかにそれがシステムとしてどう織り込まれていくのかということについての問題意識は、決定的に不足しているように思う。それは支配者が上から押さえつけるというより、社会の構成員一 人一人が原発事故の推移への不安をおし隠し、被災地のために「自分のできること」を考え、節電しながら大人しく日常生活を続けること自体がそれへの承認行為であり、そうやって主体的に維持されてゆこうとする治安であり秩序だ。こうやって社会の構成員自ら治安維持の担い手であるから、人命を軽視した政府の姿勢とどこか でつながり共犯関係となり、本当の政府批判は出て来ない。

異常事態のなかで平静を保ち、何かあってもまず「落ち着いて」いて、実際にはそんなはずないのにあたかもそのような社会であるかのように伝えられ、外部から称賛されつつ自画自讃もする社会。今回「パニックや略奪が起きない」などと日本のことが海外のマスコミで称賛されたとかいう話で、私がすぐ連想したのは 、やはりイスラエルのことだ。湾岸戦争中、イラクのスカッド・ミサイルの攻撃にもパニックに陥らず「冷静さを保った」イスラエル社会や、反撃を自制したイスラエル軍の姿勢が海外から称賛されたことなんかを思い出す人もいるだろう。日本社会の「イスラエル化」というのは私の十八番なのだが、この異常事態のなかで黙って 日常を送ることを美徳とするような方向も、やっぱり「イスラエル化」じゃないかとこじつけたくなる。

こうした「イスラエル化」とは対極のイメージとして、カイロのタハリール広場を中心とした祝祭的な民主化要求運動のことを思い出す人もいるだろうと思う。「中東で唯一の民主主義国家」というキャッチフレーズを掲げて中東のど真ん中に腰を下ろし、アラブの独裁諸国の非民主的ぶりを見下し続けて来たイスラエル 国家とその国民にとっても、一連の民衆革命は自らの存在理由とアイデンティティの根幹にもかかわる出来事のはずだ。

エジプトの民主化要求運動について言えば、パレスチナを占領し続ける実体としてのイスラエル国家への「No」や「反」の声とは、あまり接点がなかった。むしろイスラエルによる占領とイスラエル国家の政策をノーマルなものとして受け入れ恒常化させる流れ、つまりアラブ社会自体の「イスラエル化」への流れが大きく変わったということが言えるのではないかと思う。その流れが一気に断ち切られたわけではな いにしても、どこにたどり着くのか、当面見通せなくなった。見えないことは不安だが、イスラエル化に向かう一直線の流れに流されるだけではない選択肢は広がったのだ。

日本の行き先も、簡単に見通されてたまるか。国家によって人命より治安や秩序が優先させられていることが、これほど露骨に見える局面で、大人しくなんかしていてはいけない。怒りや不安を外に出そう！もっと騒ごう！
PDF (日本語）

6/11のための声明——われわれみなが日本である [Todos Somos Japon]！

シルビア•フェデリッチ

今日ここに、皆さんと共にいられないことがまことに残念です。わたしが自ら、日本の人々との連帯を表明し、地球上に遍在する全ての原子力発電所を封鎖する呼びかけを行うために。

われわれにとって、その結末が見えない福島の原子力災害は、誰も無視しえないことです。今現在そして今後も、無際限の歳月にわたり日本の大気と海域から放出され続けるセシウムとプルトニウムが、風と海流によってわれわれの元に届けられるのは時間の問題です。それと同様、恐るべきなのは、日本政府とわれわれの政府の対応です。三つの原子炉の溶解を目の当りにしながらも、日本の権力は、発電所近郊の住民を除いて、民衆を避難させることを拒否しています。そしてまた、愛国の名において、福島の野菜を消費することを人々に奨励し、 放射性物質の摂取量を健康基準の二十倍もつり上げています。最近（ある地域では）、専門家がすべきことであるという能書きで、母親たちが自ら子供達があずけられている保育所の放射能レベルを測定することを禁じていると聞きました。

自らの手で触れたり、息をすることで汚染されていく煩悶と共に生きねばならない、福島とその近郊の人々の健康に対するこの露骨な無視に、われわれは抗議します。しかしそこで、われわれの政府は、それよりましだといえるでしょうか？

原子力を保持すること、それに対する代案はないこと、災害という経験は学習にもなることーーこの巨大な破局もこうした姿勢の再保証に帰結してしまったことは、今や様々な報道が語って憚りないのです。この政府が３００億ドルもの予算を費やして、この国に原子力発電所を増設する企画を思いとどまらせるものは、何もないのでしょう。われわれの生命がどうなろうと、われわれの経済はそれに依拠しているのだからと、主張しています。

だが、われわれはそれが真実からほど遠いことを知っています。ドイツでは、選挙票の減少が、アンジェラ•メルケルにここ三年の内に全ての原発を閉鎖することを決意させました。それは結局、福島の爆発のニュースが伝わるや否や、ドイツ民衆が道にあふれ、そして以後、投票によって、自分たちはもう原子力による破局の脅威の中で生きて行くことはしないと意思表示したことによっているのです。

われわれも同じメッセージを送らねばなりません。原子力産業と自らの選挙運動がそれに依拠している共犯的政治家に対抗すべく強力な運動を構築せねばなりません。同時に、この災害に責任がある日本政府と原子力産業に圧力をかけ、原子炉の爆発後、直ちに彼らがすべきだったことをさせねばなりません。

• 影響を受けているすべての地域の人々を避難させること。
• 独立した監視員たちによって採取された信頼できる日々の情報を提供し、民衆に配布すること。
• 身体的影響に関与するすべての出費を保証すること。
• 立ち退かねばならなかった家、失った職と収入、使用不能になった公園や農場について、人々に賠償すること。

さいごに、われわれの心は、ことに日本の女性達とともにあります。聞くところによると、彼女達こそが、日本政府のナショナリズムと犠牲を煽り立てる宣伝工作に対して最も強力に対抗しているからです。彼女らこそが、日本では全てがうまくいっていると、この原子力災害は生きるに差し障りはないと、世界に示す為に、家族全員に放射能に汚染された食品を消費するよう強要する自殺的論理に対して、闘争していると理解しています。彼女らの闘争は、われわれの闘争であり、彼女らの抵抗は、われわれの支援を必要としているのです。

PDF (日本語）

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Statement for June 11—Todos Somos Japon

Silvia Federici

It is with great regret that I cannot be with you, here today, to express in person my solidarity with the people of Japan and call for the shut down of all nuclear plants across the planet.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster, whose end is not in sight, is something none of us can afford to ignore. It is a matter of time before the winds and sea currents bring to us the  caesium and plutonium that now and for indefinite number of months to come will be released into the air and coastal waters of Japan. Equally worrisome have been the response of the Japanese government and our government as well to it. In the face of the meltdown of three nuclear reactors, the Japanese authorities have refused to evacuate the people affected except in the immediate vicinity of the plants. They have urged the population to continue to consume vegetables produced near Fukushima, arguing it is a patriotic act. They have raised by 20 times the amount of radiation deemed acceptable by health standards. In recent days, they have even forbidden mothers from directly monitoring radiation levels at the children’s schools stating it is a job for experts.

We protest this blatant disregard for the wellbeing of the population in the Fukushima area who must now live with the anguish of knowing that all they touch and breath may be contaminated. But has our government fared better?

Fast on the heels of reports testifying to the immensity of the catastrophe have come the reassurances that nuclear power is here to stay, that no alternatives exist to it, and disaster can be a learning experience. Nothing, it seems, can dissuade this government from its decision to contribute –with 30 billion dollars– to the planned proliferation of nuclear plants in this country. Our economy –we are told— depends on it –whatever the cost for our lives.

But we know this is far from the truth. An electoral set back was sufficient to convince Angela Merkel to announce the closures of all nuclear plants within the next three years in Germany –as people there, immediately after the news of the Fukushima explosion circulated, went to the streets, and later, through their votes, made it clear that they would no longer accept to live with the threat nuclear catastrophe over their heads.

We need to send the same message, building a strong movement capable of standing up to the nuclear industry and the cohorts of politicians whose electoral campaigns depend on it. Meanwhile let us put pressure on the Japanese government and the nuclear industry, which is responsible for the disaster, to force them to do what they should have done immediately after the reactors’ explosions.

• Evacuate all the people in the areas affected.
• Provide day to day reliable information, gathered by independent monitors and widely distributed to the population.
• Cover all health related expenses.
• Compensate people for the houses they must vacate, the jobs and income lost, the parks and gardens turned forever into wastelands.

In conclusion, our thoughts should go especially to the women of Japan who, we are told, are those who are most strongly opposed to the government propaganda about patriotism and sacrifice. We understand they are struggling to resist this suicidal logic, which demands their families consume radioactive products to show the world that all is well in this country and a nuclear disaster is something we can live with. Their struggle is our struggle and their resistance needs our support.

PDF (English)

A New Movement of the People

Yoshihiko Ikegami

We have counted more than two months after the nuclear accident in Fukushima. The four reactors are still in unstable condition, being fountainhead of our pending anxiety. Everyday reports from TV and newspapers are unequivocally focusing on fluctuating situations of the crippled reactors, continuing to produce certain spectacles. But now our central concerns are no longer there.

The present issue for us is the state of radioactive contamination that is spreading from Fukushima to Tokyo metropolis, and to a larger area. How much radioactive substances have been released and where they have reached since the accident – these facts have been gradually shed light on. In terms of the amount of radioactivity in the air, the tendency has been decrease rather than increase. However, we are discreetly yet tremendously shocked by learning the fact that the magnitude of soil contamination by radioactive substances has been much larger than we originally expected.

Seriousness of the radioactive contamination affecting particularly the soil of schoolyards and parks in Fukushima has come to be known widely both in and out of Japan. And offense and defense over the safety standard of 20 mm SV set by the state epitomizes the present conjuncture.

We are now bringing a charge against the state imposing the contamination to Fukushima Prefecture and revealing the state of contamination within and beyond the prefecture. These actions have been grounded upon the wish of the people to know the truth and their concrete practices.

In fact during the two months we have studied desperately, and come to understand everything about nuclear power, beginning from the structure of nuclear reactor to the meaning of the figures such as becquerel and sievert that indicate the amount of radiation. This is a study neither for a mere desire to learn nor a self-improvement, but for survival through and through. Without knowing these numbers, we will risk our lives – the precise sense of crisis has motivated us. Furthermore, we have come to learn the historical process through which nuclear power was introduced, the ugliness of the mining sites for uranium in Africa and Australia, and the cruel working conditions for the workers at the power plants. Now all of these situations that have been heretofore known only among a small group of specialists are shared widely.

The terms such as internal exposure and low dose exposure were still ambiguous for us in the beginning. However, thanks to the conscientious doctors/researchers who have long been treating the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we know how these victims are still suffering from A-bomb diseases as well as how to understand the juncture that we are in. In other words, the entire people are achieving an intelligence of higher and higher level. In consequence, we can instantaneously see through the ideology driven information spread by those proxy scholars who speak only on behalf of the state. It was only because the state and mass media never told us truth that there was no other choice for us but to study ourselves. And this impetus knows no faltering, but only advancement.

Now spreading with tremendous vigor is a movement to measure the doses of radiation one is receiving in one’s own everyday circumstance. Although measurements of radiation in a few determined points are publicized by public institutions, people in all districts are troubled by uncertainties vis-à-vis their near-by parks, homes and children’s schools. They have begun to find that out by themselves. I would call this, including my own research process, a new movement of the people.

Some might find incongruous to call it a movement. Many intellectuals have envisioned a mass movement as that which arises when people become politically awaken. This process, however, is slightly different from that. In other words, the people have been awaken less politically than scientifically in this case. This is an unexpected turn of event. There is no doubt that herein exists the singularity of the nuclear disaster.

First of all, the most important objective for this movement is to know our own physical condition, namely, the realistic state of contamination. Only by precise knowledge can we direct our lives and determine our action.

Secondly, the nuclear disaster can be by no means concluded in the coming several months. Influences of radiation will not surface immediately; symptoms will appear gradually and anytime in the coming five, ten, twenty, thirty… years, the unimaginably long span of time. We know the fact well enough. We also know too well the fact that the state will not easily acknowledge the causality between the accident and the symptoms. For this precise reason, we must record the present. The anti-nuke groups have long been aware of these cruel facts and struggling over and against them. And some groups of scientists have begun their full-hearted investigations right at the wake of the accident with their keen awareness of these facts. Precisely like the victims of Minamata disease (struggling for more than fifty years) and Chernobyl radiation, the present struggle will definitely be long-term. We are well aware of this.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, this movement trains us to observe ourselves objectively. This movement necessitates a process through which we learn our environment, cities, and nation-state, a process that is totally different from conventional academic programs, and is filled with cruel and crucial discoveries. Therefrom we shall learn our past, social mechanism and relationship with the external world.

Can this movement that has begun with the scientific awakening synthesize the knowledge and understanding retrospectively and move on toward a social and political awakening?

Soon the rainy season and then summer will come in Japan. Nuclear power supplies thirty percent of the entire electricity demand in Japan, almost two third of which is out of use at the moment. Then the electric companies will declare shortage as a threat to us. Thus an unprecedented struggle will take place. What will happen in this course? We cannot foresee it now. We are to be tested. All in all, however, I am optimistic with the intention to observe everything that can happen.

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新たなる民衆運動

池上善彦

福島の原子力発電所の事故から二月以上が経った。福島の四基の事故を起こした原発は未だに不安定な状態にあり、大いに不安の源泉となっている。連日のテレビ及び新聞の報道は刻々と変化する四基の原発の状態にほぼ終始し、なにがしかのスペクタクルを構成するが、もはや我々にとって中心の関心事ではない。
現在の問題は、福島県及び首都圏を中心としてさらに広範囲に及ぶ放射性物質による汚染状況である。事故直後から一体どれだけの放射性物質が放出され、それらはどこに行ったのかが、徐々に明らかになっているのだ。空気中の放射線の量は今のところ増加の傾向にはなく、微減の傾向にある。しかし、放射性物質による土壌汚染の深刻さは我々が当初予感したものよりはるかに広く、深刻なものであったことが静かに衝撃を与えつつある。
福島県内における主に学校の校庭、公園の土壌汚染を中心とした放射能汚染の深刻さは内外を問わず今や広く知られるところとなっている。国家が設定した安全基準である２０ミリシーベルトをめぐる攻防が現在の焦点を象徴している。
この福島県内の汚染を押し付けようとする国家の圧力を告発し、さらには次々に明らかになる周囲の汚染状況の発覚は、真実を知り、それへの対処を求める広範な民衆の願いと、それを裏付ける具体的な民衆の実践がその背後に存在しているのである。
実際我々はこの二ヶ月というもの、必死に学習した。原子炉の構造から始まり、次々に発表される放射能の数値、すなわちベクレルとかシーベルトといった測定単位を理解した。それは知識欲とか学習欲とは全く違う、まさに生存のための学習であった。この数値が理解できないと自らの生存が補償されないという危機感からであった。さらにそこに留まらず、原発が導入された歴史的経緯、さらにはウランそのものが採掘されているアフリカ、オーストラリアの採掘現場の醜悪さ、原発で働く労働者、作業員の過酷さをも理解するようになった。今までは一部で知られているのみであったこうした状況が今や広範囲に共有されることになったのである。
最初の間こそは未だ曖昧な言葉であった内部被爆とか低線量被爆といった用語は、広島、長崎で長年患者の治療に当たり研究してきた良心的な研究者のおかげで、我々は原爆症で今も苦しむ患者の様子と共に、まさに現在の我々の状況を理解するために深く理解するまでに至っている。まさに民衆全体の水位が著しく高まっているのだ。当初は見分けがつかなかった、国家の都合のいい情報しか語らないいわゆる御用学者といわれるイデオローグたちは、今では誰でも一瞬にして見抜くことが可能になっている。国家、及びマスメディアは決して真実を語ることがない故に、我々は自ら学習する他はなかったのである。そしてそれは現在留まることを知らず、前へと前進しようとしている。
そして、今すさまじい勢いで自ら放射線線量計を用いて自らの回りの放射線量を計測しようとする運動が広まっている。公的機関による放射線量の測定は定点では発表されているものの、近くの公園はどうなのか、自宅の周囲はどうなのか、あるいは子どもたちが通う学校はどうなのかは、多くの地域で不明である。それを自ら調査しようというのである。私はこの動きを、自ら学習してきた過程も含めて、新たな民衆運動と呼んでおく。
この動きを民衆運動と呼ぶことはあるいは違和感を覚えることなのかもしれない。従来多くの知識人が思い描いてきた民衆運動とは、民衆自身が政治的に覚醒することであった。しかし今回の過程はそれて似ているが少し違う様相を呈している。民衆は政治的にではなく、科学的に覚醒したのである。これは予想されていなかった過程である。それは原発事故というあまり例の少ない事故に大きく規定された運動であることは間違いない。
これはまず第一に、自らの物理的状態、つまり具体的な汚染状況を正確に知ることに最大の意味がある。それを知ることによって自らの生活を考え、行動を決定するのである。第二に、今回の原発事故はこの数ヶ月で収束するものでは決していないという事実である。放射能の影響は直ちに出るものではない。数年後に、５年後に、１０年後に、２０年後に、３０年後にと想像も出来ないような長い年月にわたり徐々に症状が出るものなのである。そのことを我々はよく知っている。国家はその病状と今回の原発事故との因果関係を容易には認めないこともまた十分に知っている。それだからこそ、我々は現在を記録しておかなくてはならないのだ。古くからこのことに気づき、活動してきた反原発のグループ、あるいは自発的に本格的な調査を事故直後から開始してきた科学者のグループはこのことに十分自覚的である。水銀中毒で５０年以上にわたり闘ってきた水俣病がそうであり、近くにはチェルノブイリがそうだったように、この闘いは長いものとなる。それに我々は十分自覚的なのである。そして第三に、あるいはこれがもっとも重要なことなのかもしれないが、自分を客観的に見る訓練としてこの運動はあるということだ。自分の周囲を知り、街を知り、やがては国家を具体的に知るというこの過程は、単なる学習と違い、様々な具体的な発見の契機に満ちている。ここから我々は過去を知り、社会の仕組みに気づき、外の世界との関係に気づくであろう。科学的覚醒から始まり、そこから遡及的に得られた知識と理解を総合し、社会的あるいは政治的覚醒へとこの運動は至るであろうか。
やがて日本は梅雨に入り、そして暑い夏を迎える。日本の電力需要の３割を担う原子力発電は現在三分の二近くが停止状態になっている。電力会社は電力不足を宣伝し、脅しをかけて来るであろう。夏はこの電力をめぐる前代未聞の闘いとなる。その過程で何が起こるのか、今からは予想もつかない。初めて我々は試されるのだ。これから起こるであろうことを注意深く観察しながら、しかし私は楽観視している。

PDF (日本語）

From Shiro Yabu’s Diary

*The following is the March section of the blog by Shiro Yabu, an anti-capitalist activist living in Japan.

English translation and editing by Adam Broinowski

12 March 2011

6:49

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant and Isodine

When I heard the news that coolant at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was not circulating, I thought about what I was going to do. My first thought was that the containment vessel would be breached. My second was if radioactive substance scatters, how near or far is Tokyo from Fukushima? The next thing I did was to go to the chemist to buy something with iodine in it. There was nothing on the shelves. So I had to buy some Isodine mouthwash. I don’t know if drinking it will help. I think I’m losing it a little. Isodine is in a way also iodine. It’s better than nothing.

13 March 2011

10:32

Giving my daughter Isodine and leaving for Aichi

On the morning of 12th March, I decided to take my daughter to my mother’s in Aichi. Isodine contains 7mg of iodine per 1ml. The dosage is 14ml for adults, and 7ml for children. But iodine should not be taken in large quantities, and Isodine should not be ingested. I didn’t want to give it to her.

So we left for Aichi to my mother’s. Luckily the train was running smoothly. But by the time we arrived in Nagoya, things in Fukushima had gotten worse. I planned to drop my daughter off and return to Tokyo, but decided against it. Fukushima is too bad. They say ‘be calm, be calm’, but do they mean that we simply be calm and wait to be exposed to radiation? If you can be calm now, you must start to evacuate.

12:19

Tokaido shinkansen line is running as normal

My wife left home at 8:30am and arrived at Nagoya at 11:15. The Tokaido shinkansen (west-bound) seems to be on schedule, and now my wife’s mother and her brother’s family with their baby are driving to us. I can’t see the highway report but they should be alright.

I’m not normally so concerned about my health but radiation is different. I never imagined myself so upset over health of children and infants.

While ads on the TV nag about the harm from smoking and passive smoking, there seems to be such indifference to radiation. It’s hard to believe. I wonder how those TV commentators can comment so casually without making the distinction between internal and external exposure to radiation.

12:51

For whom and what must we ‘be calm’?

Many systems are at a stand-still in the capital, which they’re calling a ‘crisis ward’. The Japan Business Federation has called to stop work and evacuate. TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Corporation) would probably disagree with this solution.

The problem is not only the high risk of nuclear power, but also the exorbitant costs of cleaning up dispersed radioactive matter. When we are finally told about the radiation, we will criticise how TEPCO, the Ministry of Finance, and the Liberal Democratic Party exposed the people to risk. This is why the television is assuming indifference. Our immediate interests are entangled with the economy. Their financial interests are forcing us to ‘be calm’.

16:59

What’s going on with Tokai-mura by the way?

In the chaos surrounding Fukushima I forgot about [the nuclear plant at] Tokai-mura. The magnitude at Futaba-machi [town of Fukushima 1] measured ‘above 6’ while Tokai-mura measured ‘below 6’. The only news I can find about Tokai-mura is on burning cars piled on top of each other or absence of fire-trucks in town. I remember that Tokai-mura’s nuclear plant has a plutonium reprocessing plant. I hope no one has been fatally hurt. I can only hope. Damn.

14 March 2011

0:40

Annual radiation dosage

What does ‘annual radiation exposure’ mean? To say that levels at ‘fifty percent of annual radiation intake’ will not affect your health is incorrect. It would be less than pretty if you imbibed fifty percent of the allowable annual dose of alcohol or nicotine over one hour. Even if the drinker says they feel ok, their doctor would not see it like that. Whether they chose to imbibe the substance or not, it affects the likes of babies and pregnant women who have not given their consent. What does ‘a level that does not affect your health’ mean exactly? Even if it doesn’t lead to death, whatever they are doing is definitely harmful to people.

5:02

To all my friends

My friends in the Kantô area,
This may seem a bit extreme, but I’ve made a shelter for whoever wants to come to Aichi prefecture. When there’s a tsunami warning, anyone would move to higher ground. In this critical moment, life and death matters should be left to TEPCO employees and Government bureaucrats, to Hitachi, Toshiba and the Self-Defense Forces. We should move to higher ground and watch as the situation unfolds. If ‘the mountains in labor, bear a ridiculous mouse,’ all will be well. I hope it will be this way.

P.S.

The cooling system at the Tokai nuclear power station has stopped.

if the situation becomes that of Fukushima, a purge of radioactive material will start. This is the reality. What we need to do now is to not panic. Be calm, and face the reality. Please run.

20:33

No other concerns than saving energy?

TEPCO announced that ‘planned black-outs’ would commence from today. The TV focuses on bland issues like trains not running on time, and charging mobile phones. Japanese people tend to focus on the detail rather than on the big picture.

The federal and local governments are the problem. Faced with a paralysed mega-city, why are they not urging people to evacuate? This is an ‘unprecedented situation’. A thermal power plant by the sea is crippled and a nuclear power plant is erupting in Hydrogen explosions. Are they really thinking just a few days of ‘black-outs’ will fix the problems? It is appropriate to say that it will take a long time to recover electricity.

Now the concentration of people from the capital must be dispersed and gradually transplanted. Nursing mothers, babies, students on spring break, and pensioners must go first. We must urge voluntary evacuation of the metropolitan area to reduce its population. As the effects of disaster develop, material distribution will be crippled. If a shortage of food and water occurs in crowded Tokyo, social chaos will erupt. They should concentrate on using electricity for temporary street lights and railroads to move the population, instead of calling on the public to save energy.

While I feel hesitant to say this from higher ground in Aichi, a quiet panic seems to have taken hold of Tokyo. They must think calmly, and move quietly.

15 March 2011 0:09

Mass media’s judgement

It is mystery to me how media reports can loyally repeat antics and statements by the Japanese bureaucrats and Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), while also criticising the irresponsibility of Japanese bureaucrats. ‘Objective reporting’ provides evidence to viewers/readers so they can make their own decisions. Why do they even bother reporting the interests of NISA? Repeating NISA’s points will only mislead those whose personal decisions are based on the media.

History shows that the Japanese ruling class hides behind and does not take responsibility, at the time of crisis. When the command of the air was lost and people were being bombed in their homes during the Pacific War, they [the ruling elite] still vacillated about peace negotiations. It still took them a week [after the A-bombs] to offer unconditional surrender (sooner would have been better!). What possible advantage could we expect from these bureaucrats?

As people were exposed to radiation in Futaba-cho [the location of the Fukushima power plant], it was clear that the timing and range of evacuation orders by the government were inaccurate. It is no longer necessary to heed their claims that this ‘unprecedented’ situation is ‘unimaginable’.

As stated at the Citizen’s Nuclear Information Centre (CNIC), the full results of Three Mile Island [nuclear meltdown in Harrisburg, US] were only released 10 years after the fact. Nuclear experts today do not know exactly what is happening at Fukushima. It will take them decades to know the facts.

This is not the time to listen to the indecisive mumbling of bureaucrats. As conditions change every few hours, we must organize our options available today, tomorrow or the day after. I don’t mean to badger, but I must stress: the Tokyo metropolitan area is already a semi-disaster zone. It will be a disaster zone by next week.

12:39

March 15th at noon, Tokaido shinkansen runs as scheduled

Though full, the windows are open and it’s moving smoothly. On the train there are old couples, families with children, and lots of students.
Many have brought their pets. You can still get a seat.

16 March 2011 6:10

Hands up those who think Fukushima Daiichi will recover.

This morning a second fire erupted at No. 4 unit of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. At the press conference TEPCO said that they were ‘unable to confirm whether the first fire was put out’. The fire is in the north-west section of the unit – the same place as the day before. This revealed how carelessly TEPCO is dealing with the situation as their staff had only thought the fire was out by observing from afar.

At 6:45 am on 16 March, Masahisa Otsuki, the head of nuclear power management at TEPCO announced that the fire at 9:38am in No. 4 unit on 15 March was ‘naturally extinguished’ at 11am. However, a second fire was announced as having occurred at 5:45am and extinguished at 6:20am on 16 March. An apology was made for the mistake as ‘the staff had only observed it from afar.’ When asked if the first fire hadn’t been extinguished, Otsuki explained that they “could not get close enough to the reactor to determine the actual situation.”1

According to TEPCO, the staff called the fire station twice after witnessing the fire, but since the phone calls didn’t go though, they neglected to follow it up.

Normally Fukushima Daiichi holds about 800 staff, but since the danger of radiation has increased, only 70 people were left as of March 15th. The rest of the crew were made to evacuate to Fukushima Daini [the second power plant].

The situation at Fukushima Daiichi will only worsen.

It’s impossible to recover.

As they try to stem the nuclear meltdown with seawater, even if it works, how many months (or years) will it take to cool? How many people will be necessary and how many will they be able to assemble? This is a job for workers who are prepared to be exposed to radiation. No one will do this work. Even Self-Defense Force troops will be withdrawn sooner or later.

Having used up the current batch of workers, as the temperature rises in the six units which no one approach, they continue emitting radioactive materials. One day in a long time from now, they will announce: “actually, all the workers were dead that day.” The government must order evacuations while there is still time.

21:43

To Friends in the city
Conditions are terrible at the Fukushima 1 plant. Now is not the time to worry about the volume of radioactive material or the wind direction. It’s as absurd as trying to guess the size of a tsunami as it crosses your coastline. As amateurs reliant on media information, we cannot make accurate decisions. Now is not the time for brilliant intellectual statements. Your helplessness should be driving you crazy. And rightly so. You only need 130 yen to get on a train. Call me if you get caught by a conductor.

17 March 2011 12:30

0:30

Foreigners are right at times like this

I spoke with a non-fiction writer who has been interviewing Chinese mafia in Kabuki-cho [Shinjuku]. He says that all of his subjects have left the city, so there’s no work. Whether they are afraid of earthquakes or nuclear fall-out is unclear. But Tokyo is already a place of evacuation for them. Americans, French and Germans have also gone. While foreigners of various ethnicities, occupations and classes have left, only Japanese seem to be staying in the city.

While care is needed when generalising about foreigners and Japanese, it seems that the foreigners are right at the moment. People in a foreign country develop a heightened capacity for ‘crisis management’. Lacking the many securities of everyday life, their awareness and critical judgement grows sharp. They also have various channels to inquire varied perspectives and information. Gathering information only from Japanese TV would seem so naïve to them. As a person without such independence, you should look to what foreigners are doing. In times like this, foreigners are right.

2:26

An evacuation zone of 20km radius is set around Fukushima 1. But it cannot be enforced. Some people evacuate first and some evacuate last. Others take no notice of the recommendations. I would like to think that whether they are the ones to evacuate or not to evacuate, each has reasons and obligations. While these actions are two different things, they share some things in common. While I cannot be more specific, as the state abandons people, perhaps these are two emergent positions against despotism. Maybe this clarifies the definition of despotism. Not just living in nature (or environment), nor only being exposed to the world. Perhaps this is the despotism of mean-spirited life.

I am thinking.

ps
A ‘phenomenon’ or an ‘accident’? ‘Phenomenon’ and ‘accident’ are words of responsibility and preparedness. As a phenomenon, one is exposed to the world. As an ‘accident’ it is a question of living within the world. These humble words are contemptuous to despotism…

19 March 2011

0:37

What this nuclear disaster should destroy

TV shows the JDF (Japan Defense Force) helicopter at the nuclear plant, and we held our breaths as we watched as they hosed the reactor down. While this effort seems pointless, we create heroes because we know that they will die. NHK news reports that the radiation level is climbing, but assures that ‘it simply will not cause immediate health affects’. New ‘heroic spirits’ and new hibakusha are emerging in this spectacle of the nuclear city.

The lies and secrets in a complicit regime are repeated; ‘do not aggravate’, ‘do not cause panic’, ‘stay calm’. Who is being suppressed? The performance on TV is harming young women, pregnant women, mothers… those who bear children. Do these ‘specialists’ who insist there are ‘no immediate effects’ truly understand the serious [responsibility of] marriage, childbirth and child rearing? I suppose they find parents who worry when their child develops a fever stupid. These specialists are the stupidest of the stupid. They forget the bare fact that without such stupidity there would be no children born or raised.

I will not forgive you experts. This nuclear disaster will be an opportunity to destroy all of you.

17:18

Outflowing intelligence out of Tokyo

This event is too big to organize my thoughts. I am only going to think

approach it gradually. My notes from here on will be fragmented

until I get a real sense of the problem.

As a result of Fukushima, the long-term exodus of refugees from Tokyo is predictable. Publicising data from water and atmospheric tests in Tokyo will continue. But we don’t know if the exodus will stop or continue at the moment. As they are hosing down the plant, it looks like its going to be a long-term effort.

The universities and other schools in the metropolitan area will be affected. Young people are more prone to health effects by radiation. It would be nerve-wracking for young women. This will also cause a decline in foreign researchers and exchange students. Universities in Japan have no particular brand appeal in comparison to those in other countries. With the exception of Tokyo University, there will be a mainstream tendency to ‘bypass Kanto’.

Rejected by students, parents, faculty and researchers, universities will need to realign their programs. They will establish branches outside Kantô where possible. It will take 10 to 20 years for intelligence to flow from Kantô. By the time that happens Tokyo environment may recover. But the exodus and re-distribution of knowledge will create something bigger than anything Tokyo had achieved. For academics, Tokyo will become a place of the past.

20 March 2011

0:29

Playing soccer with kids

Two days ago, Nozomu Shibuya from VOL Collective came with his four-year-old son. My daughter had been bored, so it’s good that they can play. It’s better that kids play with each other. We bought a rubber ball and played soccer with the local kids in the playground, and got covered in sand.

They say that face-masks are effective to prevent exposure to radiation. They also say when you go home you must brush off all the dirt on your clothes and put them in a plastic bag. Then you take a shower. This routine is impossible for a child. Kids always get covered in dirt. What do they mean by “it doesn’t pose a risk to daily life”? Bullshit.

22:38

Two reasons why I call to evacuation

While some of my friends are still in the Metropolitan area, I’ll send one more reminder.

Three explosions; a breach in a reactor ceiling; three inoperative containment vessels; unmeasurable temperatures and pressure. Two waste dumping pools are exposed, and stand next to a cooling pool with 6400 fuel rods. This is beyond ‘the worse possible state’ any anti-nuke organisation has simulated.

If you are relying on luck without assessing or evacuating, you are being completely irresponsible. You’d better take this seriously. Even if we are unusually lucky and all the radioactive material flows into the ocean, it will not solve the problem, ever. We have been responsible and removed our friends from this gamble the atomic state is taking. In saying ‘nuclear power is safe, and there is no problem’, you become an accomplice in this hideous State gamble.

There are two things to be afraid of:
Poisoning by exposure to radioactive material.
The embarrassment that Japanese people remain ‘submissive to the state, even as a leak drips from the roof.’

This is a test of our dignity. We cannot give up yet. There are many things to do.

21 March 2011

16:06

Hegemony of disaster damages and reconstruction

When I lived in Tokyo, I’ve never had to watch TV, but I watched it all this week. It feels miserable.

I am going to call several people to make new paths for my life, not just by writing my blog entries, but also by talking with my friends in various places.

While the actual aftermath of Fukushima is yet to be seen, the current issue is the hegemonic struggle over damage and reconstruction. The Japanese archipelago will experience a rapid flow of population and community building, on a larger scale and over a longer duration than ever before. It’s not certain who is going to lead this. The state/capital may start planning a complete ‘national development’ while civilian movements will begin new projects to build communes. The tension between the Empire and multitude will intensify, through the conflict and mingling of these two. The focal point of class struggle has shifted to urban planning and urban development.

While there is no ground for optimism, we cannot always be pessimistic either. My stomach hurts.

23:42

Decommission and Mizuho Bank

Neither TEPCO nor the Government will clarify if they will decommission Fukushima 1. They barely say anything about this in press conferences. Even as the ceiling is bared to the sky, they remain evasive. Mizuho [main bank for TEPCO] will not transfer the money, or was that a system glitch? Either way, the financial/realty industry will fall into chaos. No matter hard they try, it’s only a matter of time. They deserve it.

23 March 2011

2:23

Decision to stay here permanently

I’d hoped our stay in Aichi would be temporary, but it doesn’t seem so at this point.

Radiation was detected in Tokyo’s water supply and in suburban vegetables. As fumes continue to rise from Fukushima plant, the situation will get worse. This is not an environment for raising children. My daughter will start the new semester in 10 days, so I’ve decided to have her transferred to a school here.

We’ve moved to Kasugai city, a satellite of Nagoya. When I was growing up here there were only rice fields, factories and unpaved roads, but now new apartments and large shopping centres for young families are everywhere. Though I’m not sure if we will stay here forever, but we will be okay for now. There are cars with Tama and Kasukabe number plates. Others seem to have the same idea and have moved here. Or some family might have left the fathers alone to work in the Metropolitan area. Now their kids are feeling anxious after losing their home and moving to a new place, but it will not last long. Once kids start school, they’ll forget things they left behind. In time they’ll even forget the place called Tokyo. They are going to live a life different from what we’d imagined. I’m starting to realise the power of brazen innocence; a sort of ‘divine violence’.

5:25

Damaging and being damaged in the metropolitan area

A few days ago, I received an email from Gen Hirai who criticised the situation in Tokyo that ‘those of us who are forced to stay and work in this city are certainly becoming like disposable day labourers of nuclear power plants.’ But I must stress that day labourers at nuclear plants not only get exposed to radiation but also are brainwashed [by the authorities] about the effects of radiation to the body. This means they allow their colleagues be effected by radiation as well. This also endagers the lives of local residents near nuclear plants. Radiation labourers (or ‘human resources’) are not just victims, but perpetrators and accomplices too.

Workers in Tokyo ought to ask themsleves what is their responsibility with regard to nuclear power. They need to calmly assess what choices they make and whether or not they conscious in their decision to expose others to radiation.

On TV in Tokyo, as it says that it’s ok, and it’s ok to leave women and children exposed, the levels of radiation, and the victims of radioactive exposure are being underestimated. A gross act of negligence in a metropolis of forty-million people is underway [child abandonment]. Ideally, group evacuation should begin and teachers should demand a safer environment for their students not to be exposed to radiation.

During the war, the Japanese masses made young men into suicide corps and made them dead, while vaguely knowing that they were not winning. I cannot help but be pessimistic about the decisions the descendants of these people will make, but I cannot stay pessimistic forever.

25 March 2011

0:52

Counterattack; Exodus from Nuclear Nation

I can no longer stand watching TV.

I’m hoping for a mass exodus from Kantô to Chûbu and Kansai. This weekend, I will join a discussion in Toyama with a group called “Life/Labor/Activism Network.” My colleague from VOL Shibuya will join too. I aim to emphasise the transition from passive evacuation to active exodus. We need to imagine a counterattack to the atomic State.

From the movement of people to the movement of refugees, we must aim to become vandals of the Japan archipelago. We must reconstruct urban living practice.

ps

There is a call for an action in Tokyo on the same day, so I will repost here. Friends in Metropolitan area, you must gather.

Ginza demo parade, Sunday 27 March, meet 13:45, depart 14:00

26 March 2011

18:34

Avoiding the explosion will leave a giant Killing Stone

It’s been two weeks since I took shelter in Aichi. The meltdown at Fukushima 1 continues while consuming huge amounts of water, boron and people’s flesh and blood. Meanwhile, the situation is out of control as they have no choice but to release the steam, and radioactive material endlessly spews from the destroyed pipes. It reminds me of The Killing Stone. Another criticality could produce another explosion. Such trouble this killing stone causes.

I don’t want to admit it, but it will be a long battle.

Humans will be forced to leave Tôhoku and Kantô as radioactive materials gradually swallow the area. This year I turn 40. I will spend the rest of my life fighting this killing stone.

17:48

To an unestablished, spontaneous general strike

A group in Tokyo published a statement which I’m going to repost here.

English translation is here http://jfissures.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/to-all-the-working-people-%E2%80%93-call-for-de-nuke-general-strike/

29 March 2011

0:30

Towards another meltdown

Yesterday I gave a talk at a seminar in Toyama. As I explained the current situation, it helped me clarify what I am trying to do. In summary, the current nuclear disaster in the metropolitan area will develop in a chain-reaction that will shake the entire archipelago.

As radioactive material disperses into the atmosphere, Tokyo is shaking at its foundations. Is Tokyo a base for rescuing Tôhoku, or is it itself the victim? The debate continues. As the ‘metropolitan area is safe’ drones from the government, TEPCO pressures workers to continue work. At the same time, an exodus to the west of pregnant women and parents with infants has begun. Young workers are calling for general strike. Now in Tokyo, families are torn apart as they are forced to choose whether to evacuate or not, whether to stay at workplace or not. To use the metaphor of nuclear fuel in Fukushima, the fuel cladding the market society/nuclear family, once believed to be ‘absolutely safe’ is gradually falling apart. No matter how much the government tries to control it, this movement cannot be stopped. In the Metropolitan population of 38,000,000, 1 percent means 380,000, 5 percent means 1,900,000 people. As the threads of corporate society unravel, women, children, young labourers (and foreigners) spill out and accumulate in different cities.

Another meltdown will begin; a meltdown of population that will fragment and leak from corporate society. Non-metropolitan cities will be awash with a new population and the ‘Japan’ of old will no longer exist. This huge population and intelligent potential will burn up the entire archipelago.

I am excited and feel inspired.

04:01

Don’t Underestimate Nukes

An offensive statement on the net:

It is not important who is responsible for the current situation.
The people know who is guilty of this crime.
We don’t have a future if we don’t do something about Fukushima together.
You had better think about what you can do.

What an arrogant and irresponsible statement.

Nothing can be done about Fukushima. No one can get near it. While more and more people will be exposed to radiation unless we admit this reality immediately. What does [the writer] mean by “we together”? Is he proposing to work at nuclear plant? How else could he say something this arrogant? Don’t think that you could change the reality with such a spiritualist statement. Enough self-satisfaction. Don’t underestimate the nuke. Piss off.

30 March 2011

14:16

The rehabilitation of the private

Excessive levels of iodine were measured in tap water in Chiba on 22 March.

On 29 March, independent water management groups in Northern Chiba reported that in sampled water which had been drawn from the Edo river and processed at a refinery (Nagareyama city), they found irradiated iodine (336 becquerels), which exceeded the legal limit (300 becquerels per kilo). Water from this refinery goes to [7 cities]. The refinery also manages the water supply of [3 other] cities. Residents were advised to throw out 1-2 buckets of water before use, although no water remains from the 22 March.2

There’s no meaning in publishing this a week after the discovery. What is Chiba prefecture going to do? What is the Japanese Government going to do? (As much as I don’t feel like repeating this question.)

It’s too late for surprise. This has been predicted for a long time. But this kind of prediction never shows up publicly, as a matter of principle.

On TV, several related events are shown, the most moving of which was a primary school evacuation. According to the emergency drill, staff were to evacuate students to the 3rd floor or roof of the school. But staff realised that the scale of this tsunami was far bigger than anticipated. They disobeyed instructions and left the school grounds for the hills behind the town. After they reached the hill, they saw the tsunami consume the entire school.

This episode teaches us that human life and death are governed by personal concerns. Disaster management can only provide guidelines. These are merely texts that disaster drill consultants put together within budget and time limitations stipulated by the government. Life and death are not dependent upon a successful or unsuccessful disaster prevention plan, but by an individual confronting a singular situation.

These students and teachers survived because the teachers thought ‘oh shit‘ and ignored the drill. Other disaster zones have reported similar situations. A disaster creates a utopian experience of a return to the personal within a wider context.

Nuclear power disasters are no exception. While the Government should be criticised for concealing information and acting on the spur of the moment, it will be more important that individuals will be able to experience personal ownership of their lives through the disaster. It may not be so polished as I am surrounded by total disaster, but what I (we) want to state is: ‘the private is the political.’

The Absurdity of the Atomic Age
Masatake Shinohara
(Translated by Adam Bronson)

In the essay “The Absurdity of the Nuclear Age,” published in the Asahi Shimbun in August 1982, Kojin Karatani declared that, since childhood, he had nurtured a sense that the human world would someday perish. Karatani pointed out the absurdity of the fact that humanity lived under the “nuclear equilibrium” maintained between the US and the Soviet Union. If the equilibrium is shaken just a little, the earth could be contaminated by radiation in an instant and become uninhabitable. Karatani’s point was: that humanity continues to exist under such condition is itself all too absurd.

Yet Karatani was by no means lamenting for this lived absurdity. He is saying that absurdity must first of all be recognized as a difficult-to-extinguish condition of humanity.

If the absurdity of the nuclear age is that humanity is marked by the possibility of nuclear war, then one might think that now, with the dissolution of the US-Soviet opposition and the ongoing efforts directed toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, this absurdity will be alleviated. However in contemporary Japanese society, a different kind of consciousness of absurdity is on the rise. It is the absurdity of nuclear energy.1 In other words, even after the Cold War, the absurdity connected to the nuclear, as difficult to alleviate as ever, continues to mark human existence. Or rather, it may be that the absurdity of nuclear energy has continued to exist on a different plane from that of “nuclear equilibrium.” (Of course, from the standpoint of the interrelatedness between the introduction of nuclear energy into Japan and America’s Cold War strategy, it could probably be said that the absurdity of nuclear weapons equilibrium and the absurdity of nuclear energy are linked)

Through the nuclear power plant accident, the truth of the peaceful use of the atom2 has been revealed. It ought to be said that the fact this machinery and equipment was built and run under the condition that its operations would be permitted only if accidents absolutely would not occur was, to the same extent as “nuclear equilibrium,” an absurd state of affairs. Nuclear power plants have as their condition the possibility of enormous accidents. Whether we are dealing with computers or air conditioners or anything else, things can break. Nuclear power plants are no different. But in the case of nuclear power plants, the catastrophe that can be triggered by their accidental collapse is all too horrific. Therefore, it came to be assumed that accidents could absolutely not occur.

Jinzaburo Takagi, in a text written in 1994: “Energy and Ecology,” stated it the following way. Whether or not a huge accident will occur is something no one can empirically say. Therefore, “As long as there remains uncertainty, the terror that our lives are potentially jeopardized will always hover around this use of energy.”

That the Fukushima nuclear plant was not safe was first proven by the accident that happened. If there had been no accident, then the myth of its safety would have probably remained unperturbed. That being said, the reality that our lives were potentially jeopardized would have remained, regardless of whether or not an accident occurred, as long as the nuclear plant existed. What constitutes the myth of safety comes into existence when one attempts to ignore or veil this reality.

If I think back over it carefully, the myth of safe nuclear power ought to have already been shaken. At the time of the Chernobyl accident, I was eleven, but even now I remember the shock I felt when I saw the newspaper headline. Given the terribleness of the accident, I wondered suspiciously why humans built such a dangerous thing in the first place. Despite the fact that a nuclear bomb was not used, why did a catastrophe of the same magnitude occur on the basis of an accident at a power plant? If similar accidents repeatedly occurred, wouldn’t the world come to be like “Fist of the North Star?” (a comic hugely popular among children at the time, set in a world in the aftermath of nuclear war) Though I directed these suspicions to adults, I felt frustrated when no one would answer them definitively. I recall that I was told the accident occurred because it was a dangerous country like that Soviet Union, and it would not occur in peaceful and prosperous Japan.

Much has been said about the possibility of nuclear war, but I think not so much about the potential for a nuclear plant accident. Nuclear plants, as much as nuclear equilibrium, have always been a threat to the human world inasmuch as it has been dogged by the possibility of nuclear accident. But the absurdity has never been discussed seriously and rather shrewdly veiled – even after the Chernobyl Accident.

Now in Japan the periodization of post-3/11 is dominantly used. It is true that the nuclear accident was totally different from any of the disasters we had experienced in the past, and in this sense, we have come to live in a new age. Yet the fact that we have accepted the dangerous mechanism of nuclear energy as a condition of existence and, furthermore, that we have not had a serious discussion about its danger is not itself new. Due to the accident, radioactive substances have in reality been dispersed, and the future of everyone, not least of all children, is being hijacked, but we have already been living this actuality in potentia.

3/11 is in the end only the bringing to light of the absurdity of what have become our conditions of life. In other words, the nuclear power accident is in itself by no means unprecedented. It is said that there have been accidents on the verge of becoming a catastrophe up until now, and we were always warned of the possibility of an accident. It would not even be an exaggeration to say that it was waiting to happen.

If there is anything we ought to do after 3/11, isn’t it, first of all, to rethink the question of what on earth the absurdity we have lived through is? The successive construction of nuclear power plants happened after the 1970s. I have heard that 1975 marks a drastic change in Japanese society, but perhaps it is possible to think of this drastic change and the increase of nuclear plants in a parallel relationship. Is it not possible to think of the absurdity called nuclear power worsening at the same time as the state of Japanese society also reached new depths of absurdity? If that is so, it may be that what we are experiencing now is the limit of the absurd.

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原発時代の不条理

篠原雅武

一九八二年八月の朝日新聞に掲載された「核時代の不条理」というエッセイで、柄谷行人は、人間世界はいつか滅びるという意識を、子供の頃からもっていたと述べている。米ソのあいだで維持されている「核の均衡」のもとで人類が生きていることの不条理を柄谷は指摘する。この均衡が少しでも揺らげば一瞬で地球は放射能により汚染され、誰もが住めない場所になる、こういったことを存在の条件として人類が生きていることがあまりにも不条理である、ということだ。
だが柄谷は、不条理を生きているということを、けっして嘆いているのではない。不条理が、人類にとって打ち消しがたい条件になっていることを、まずは認めなくてはならないといっているのだ。
核時代の不条理は、核戦争の可能性ゆえに人類に刻印された不条理であるとするならば、米ソ対立が解消され、核兵器の廃絶にむけた努力が行なわれつつあるいま、不条理は解決されていくと考えることもできるかもしれない。だが、現在の日本社会では、別の不条理の意識が高まりつつある。原発の不条理である。つまり、冷戦の時代以後になっても核にまつわる不条理は、依然として解決しがたい不条理として、人間の存在に刻印されている。というより、原発の不条理は、「核の均衡」とは別の水準において存在しつづけてきたといってもいいのかもしれない（もちろん、日本への原発の導入とアメリカの冷戦戦略との関係性ということからすれば、核の均衡の不条理と原発の不条理はつながっているといえるのだろう）。
原発事故により、核の平和的利用の内実があきらかとなった。絶対に事故が起こらないという条件においてのみ稼働が許される機械設備を建造し運転しつづけるということも、核の均衡と同じくらいに、不条理な事態であったというべきだろう。原発は巨大事故の可能性を条件としている。パソコンだろうとエアコンだろうと、なんであれ、ものは壊れうる。原発もそうだ。だが原発のばあい、その事故による崩壊が引き起こしうる大惨事があまりにも壮絶である。それゆえに、事故はぜったい起こりえないこととされてきた。
高木仁三郎は、一九九四年に書かれた文章（「エネルギーとエコロジー」）で、次のように述べていた。巨大事故が起こるかどうかは、誰も実証的にいうことができない。それゆえに、「そこに不確かさが残る以上、我々の生命が潜在的には脅かされているという恐怖が、このエネルギーの利用にはいつもついてまわっているのである」。
福島の原発が安全でなかったということは、事故が起こることではじめて立証された。事故がなければ、安全神話はいまだに揺らがなかっただろう。とはいえ、私たちの生命が潜在的に脅かされているという現実自体は、事故があろうとなかろうと、原発が存在しているかぎりにおいては解消されない。そういった現実を無視し、隠蔽しようとするところに、安全神話なるものが成り立っている。
よくよく思い返してみれば、原発の安全神話は、これまでにも、揺るがされていたはずだ。チェルノブイリの事故のとき、私は１１才だったが、新聞の見出しを見たとき感じたショックをいまでもおぼえている。事故の凄まじさもさることながら、そもそもが、こんな危険なものをなにゆえに人間はつくったのかと、疑問に思った。戦争が起こって核爆弾が使われたのではないのに、なぜ、それと匹敵するような大惨事が、発電所の事故によって起こるのか。同じような事故が頻発すれば、当時子供の間で大人気だった「北斗の拳」（核戦争のあとの世界を舞台とする漫画作品）と同じような世界になってしまうのではないか。こういった疑問を大人に投げかけても、だれもしっかりと答えてくれず、もどかしく思った。事故はソ連のような危険な国家だから起こったのであって、平和で豊かな日本では起こらないといわれたように記憶している。
核戦争の可能性については多くのことが語られていたが、原発事故の潜在的可能性は、そうでもなかったように思う。核の均衡と同じく、原発も、巨大事故の可能性につきまとわれていたかぎりでは、つねに人間世界を脅かしていたはずである。だが、どういうわけかその不条理は大々的には論じられず、巧妙に隠蔽されていた。チェルノブイリの事故以後も、そうだったのではないか。
日本では、三・一一以後という時代区分が、用いられるようになっている。たしかに、とりわけ原発事故は、これまでに経験された震災とはまったく異質なものであり、そのかぎりでは新時代を私たちが生きるようになったということもできるかもしれない。だが、原発という危険な装置を存在の条件として受け入れ、しかもその危険性については真剣に議論をしなかったということ自体は、今に始まることではない。事故により、放射性物質は、現実に撒き散らされ、子供たちをはじめ人々の未来が奪われつつあるが、そのような現実性をすでに私たちは潜在的に生きていた。
三・一一は、あくまでも、私たちの生活の条件となってきた不条理がいったいどういうことであるかを白日のもとにさらしただけのことである。つまり、原発事故そのものはけっして新奇なことではない。これまでにも、大惨事寸前の事故はあったといわれているし、事故の可能性はずっと警告されてきた。それは、起こるべくして起こったといっても過言ではない。
三・一一以後、為すべきことがあるとしたら、それはまず、私たちが生きてきた不条理がいったいどういうものであったかを、考え直すことではないか。原発が続々と建造されたのは、１９７０年代以後である。１９７５年を境に日本社会は激変したと聞いたことがあるが、ひょっとしたら、その激変と原発の増加はパラレルの関係にあると考えることができるかもしれない。原発という不条理の亢進とともに、日本社会のあり方も同じく不条理の度を深めていったと考えることができないか。そうであるなら、今私たちが経験しているのは、不条理の極限であるということになろう。

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