Eleven Years of "Let’s Listen to the Voices of Fukushima!" — Voice of Ichie Watanabe
Ichie Watanabe
Nearly twelve years have passed since the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Back then, every day I was glued to the television news, devouring newspapers and scouring information on the internet. Television, newspapers and the internet told me many things, but what I wanted to know did not reach me through them. There must be people living there who had not evacuated, or could not evacuate, even after evacuation orders were issued. I wanted to know what they were thinking and how they were living. Although I thought, "I want to go to Fukushima!" I hesitated to go. Of course I knew they were in a terrible situation, so simply going "because I wanted to know" felt far too selfish.
As it happened, in July of that year I had some business in Tono, Iwate Prefecture. After finishing it, I registered with the volunteer organisation "Tono Magokoro Net" and joined in clearing debris on the coast of Iwate. We were clearing the interiors of houses struck by the tsunami. I learned that there were things even I could do for the disaster-affected areas. Then I realised that if I went to Fukushima, I could go as a volunteer.
So in August I went to Minamisoma. It was my first visit to Fukushima. The inn where I stayed was a base for a local private volunteer group. Joining them, I distributed relief supplies to temporary housing and organised events, listening to the people living in the temporary housing as we did so. I wanted others to know what I had seen and heard, so I shared it on my blog and contributed articles to magazines. But I wanted people to hear directly the voices of those locally affected by the disaster, rather than through my words. When I consulted Takashi Ito (伊藤孝) at Session House, he immediately replied, "Let’s do it." And so, in March 2012, a year after the disaster, we held "Ichie Watanabe’s Talk Gathering: Let’s Listen to the Voices of Fukushima!"
At that first gathering, we heard from Takao Otome (大留隆雄), the owner of Business Hotel Rokkaku, where I am looked after whenever I visit Minamisoma, and the leader of the local volunteer group "Rokkaku Support Team"; and from Masami Yoshizawa (吉沢正巳) of "The Ranch of Hope." I think facts told in the affected people’s own words and voices, rather than words filtered through my body, took on greater reality and seeped into the bodies of those attending. We have continued irregularly since then, roughly once every three or four months, and this February marked the forty-third gathering.
We have been able to continue for eleven years because Session House Gallery has provided a place. Of the forty-three gatherings, two took place not in the gallery but in the basement studio. One was a talk by Kenichi Hasegawa (長谷川健一) of Iitate Village, who died last year, and a screening of "Iitate Village: My Record," which he filmed himself. The other was "Honjimoyo Storytelling" (ほんじもよう語り) by Miwako Inoue (井上美和子), who evacuated from Minamisoma to Ayabe in Kyoto City. At the gallery talks too, guest speakers used video and exhibited photographs, making the content of their talks come across more vividly. Last year, Keiko Aota (青田恵子), who evacuated from Minamisoma to Otsu, also spoke while holding an exhibition of her fabric pictures at the same time.
Twelve full years since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The Year of the Rabbit has come around again. During this time the government has loudly publicised "recovery"—the Joban Line has opened, the Recovery Olympics, evacuation orders have been lifted for the recovery hub in Okuma, and so on. Yet in the difficult-to-return areas, even after twelve years, houses still have roofs left tilted by the earthquake. Houses in areas where people no longer live have been ravaged by wild animals and covered in vines, while fields have become like primeval forest. And to build facilities and parks in the name of "recovery," the satoyama hills have been cut away, quarried and excavated for soil, leaving them in a pitiful state. Some disaster survivors cannot return from their places of evacuation and spend their days feeling like drifting weeds. Among those who have returned, too, their former communities are gone, and not a few are unable to rebuild their lives.
They call it recovery when railways and roads reopen or open, and new buildings such as commercial facilities, schools and town halls are constructed. But can it be called recovery while the residents’ hearts are left behind?
Against these developments, friends working in movements to move away from and oppose nuclear power continue various activities in different places. They also hold lectures with researchers and activists as guests. I intend to continue this "Talk Gathering: Let’s Listen to the Voices of Fukushima!" where we hear the live voices of those directly affected by the disaster.
