When I wrote my reflection on the issues around radiation on this blog after my first visit to Fukushima back in April, I had a whole new world opened to my eyes. That was not about energy or technology. But a question for myself: What if human beings had never assumed that we were to become autonomous. By autonomy, I mean two things. First, having control over one's own life and second, knowing everything there is to know in order to act.
How would education for children be shaped if we were to teach them to live in harmony with one another as we all are vulnerable (and even more vulnerable as we get older), and how to gain good understanding and wisdom if access to knowledge is narrow and information not available all the time? Simply, how shall we live in a world with so many sources of information but lack of wisdom, with so many means (and reasons) of mobility but lack of stability, and with so much money and resources poured into communication technologies but lack of relationships? Fukushima, perhaps, is probably ahead of the rest of us to find that answer for us.
From Narita Airport to daily newspaper, I have witnessed that radiation fills the whole nation right now, not simply Fukushima (though, we who live outside Japan hear very little about or from Fukushima now). The issue boils down to finding wisdom of living or an art of living as some gurus might say. More than enough amount of fact has been released through all kinds of media, and still many people find they do not have sufficient information to manage another day of living. Making choice for action is more than a matter of collecting information and making a rational conclusion, or gather people and make democratic consensus.
During my visit this time, two important questions were given to me. One of them was "To whose voice shall I listen?" With that profound question, I also had a privilege of capturing three different voices on radiation from their experience and I won't make judgement on these voices, but offer them as a window to understand many other voices on what's happening here in Fukushima.
I met Mr. Naoyuki Suzuki at Koza Community Church in Yamato back in April and he’s been volunteering with FVI by giving seminars on radiation in Fukushima and other parts of Japan now. I asked him to speak about his personal experience and faith journey having worked in so many nuclear plants, including the one in Chernobyl.
I’m Naoyuki Suzuki. I studied nuclear engineering at Tokai University almost 50 years ago. At that time the young generation expected with a great hope that an age of nuclear power would come soon in Japan. At the same time I started going to church and accepted Jesus as my Lord. I’m grateful that I knew Jesus when I started my career life. I have worked in radiation control field at nuclear power plants and visited almost all power plants in Japan. I have been exposed by radiation at 950 mSv in my work life. It was not one time, but gradually over a long time. I went to Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1999, 13 years after its accident. It was a consortium among British, French, and Japanese governments to provide workable solutions for another safety measure. Our main suggestion was to cover the plants with a bigger canopy again so that when the plant would be broken further, there would be no leakage of radiation. However, due to financial problems, it has not been done, yet. After I returned from Chernobyl, we had a critical accident at Tokai nuclear power plants. Then I got an assignment to become one of technical advisors of administrative office of Nuclear Safety Commission of the Cabinet office for 5 years. Through this work,I visited nuclear power plants all over the world. As for the area of Chernobyl, fields and forests have been covered with Cs-137. When I was there,Cs-137 entered into my body at the level of 370 Becquerel through foods like milk, mushrooms, and so on. Though physical half-life of Cs-137 is 30 years, its biological half-life, which means metabolism after intake to the body, is about 100 days. So it has gone completely from my body.
I met Kyoko Uwamori at the Fukushima Future Forum last week. She, a mother of a teenage daughter, had been so worried about potential problems of radiation, so she attended one of the seminars Mr. Suzuki offered in Fukushima.
My name is Kyoko Uwamori and I have a daughter in grade 8. When hydrogen explosion happened, we lived in Aizunokamatsu [a mountain area], and I was very worried about my daughter’s health. Unfortunately our national government did not disclose the information about radiation, so I began searching for myself. I started being very careful about food for my daughter and always try to make sure that my daughter wear a mask and so on. I came to Mr. Suzuki’s radiation seminar and learned many things. One thing was that he accumulated radiation throughout his adult life [because of his job], even though he did not stay in a highly radiated area for a long time. I’ve learned that now I will take my daughter to different places of low radiation risk during summer vacation time.
Pastor Toyomi Sanga lives in Koriyama, about 60 KM west of the plant. Not everyone can make up their minds so clearly as Toyomi does as you listen to her story. She helps us by clearly portraying what choices are laid before us. It’s up to each of us to decide how to live: living with freedom or living with fear. And it is not an easy choice.
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