Waving or drowning?

Like the Hibakusha, victims of the recent catastrophe in Japan are facing some prejudice and hostility. In the Fukushima region thousands of people are still displaced, having fled the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear disaster. Many of their countrymen see their flight as being 'un-Japanese' and as a betrayal of those left behind. Added to this, the refugees suffer a cultural form of survivor's guilt – just like Hiroshima.

Just as in Hiroshima, the Japanese people were kept in the dark about the recent nuclear disaster. Government officials controlled information in order to limit evacuations and to shield the politically powerful nuclear industry. As in the past, the human role in the exacerbation of the tragedy makes it harder for survivors to come to terms with what happened to them.

Steven Picou, a sociologist from the University of South Alabama, interviewed in the New York Times on 9 March 2011 explains that, 'mental distress tends to linger longer after man-made disasters, like an oil spill or radiation leak, than after purely natural ones, like a hurricane….To move past a catastrophe, people usually need to be able to tell themselves a clear story about what happened'.

In the case of Hiroshima and in the case of the recent nuclear disaster, the causes and outcomes are not clear cut and people are angry because of the misinformation they have been fed.

Japanese psychologists expect that many of their countrymen, particularly the more elderly, will attempt to manage their anger, grief and anxiety alone. Kai Erikson, a sociologist at Yale, believes that the destruction and polluting of the environment will have a negative and disorientating psychological effect, especially on rural communities where people identify strongly with the land.

Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and a recent national survey shows that suicide rates in Japan have increased in the months since the disaster compared to the same timeframe in the previous two years.

The phoenix perception

Japan has had more than her fair share of catastrophic events, having dealt with disasters like the massive Kanto Earthquake that hit the Tokyo area in 1923, killing tens of thousands and nearly destroying the city; the trauma and destruction of World War II; the 1995 earthquake in Kobe that killed over 5,000 and left 300,000 homeless and which was followed in the same year by a religious cult's release of nerve gas in the Tokyo subway.

The Japanese have done more than survive disasters – they have learned from them. Today Hiroshima stands witness to every nuclear test, recording every step the world takes towards nuclear destruction. Without the disaster prevention measures that were taken after the Kobe earthquake, the toll from the 2011 catastrophe would have been even higher.

World War II devastated Japan. By August 1945, three million Japanese were dead. A quarter of the country's wealth and nearly half of its potential income had been annihilated by Allied bombing. Nearly two-thirds of all homes in Tokyo were destroyed and at least nine million people were homeless. Yet, by 1968 Japan's economy had grown into the second largest in the world.

Most observers take this and other evidence of Japan's remarkable resilience, as reason for optimism. If Japan could be reborn after being brought to her knees by war, how much more likely is she to do it again as a vibrant modern nation? Despite this phoenix-like attribute, we should not underestimate the scale of the problems that lie ahead. Also, we should remember that Japan had help in the past.

After the war, the US took the view that Japan's economic recovery was necessary to stabilise the nation and keep the communists at bay. Some US$2 billion in economic assistance helped set Japan on a spectacular economic recovery and subsequent rise to power.

Within days of the 2011 catastrophe, 128 countries and 33 international organisations had offered assistance to Japan. Aid organisations both in Japan and worldwide also responded, with the Japanese Red Cross reporting $US1 billion in donations. The Australian Government immediately donated $A10 million to the Japan Red Cross and Pacific Disaster Appeal. Many major Australian corporations and private citizens have donated millions of dollars to charities to help Japan. Australian private companies were also directly involved in the recovery program, helping to restore telecommunications and transporting relief supplies and equipment.