We do not want the society that makes someone a hero and kills.
Kill No One: Statement On the Fukushima Nuclear Accident
“Unexpected Situation” is the phrase repeatedly used to rationalize deaths of tens of thousands of people caused by the recent disaster. This man-made calamity, I repeat, the worst man-made calamity is being rationalized with the single phrase, which still leaves hundreds of thousands individuals exposed to radiation and millions’ livelihoods destroyed.
The current state was never unexpected. Many people have repeatedly taken assumptions and given warnings over possibility of this very situation. The severe accident at the nuclear plant, hydrogen explosion and the massive radiation dissemination, following earthquake and tsunami, had been publicly warned by many, not limited to anti-nuclear activists or nuclear experts.
The disaster was folded within the capitalist system itself.
In order to support the urban energy consumption of Tokyo and other big cities, millions of people outside metropolis are violently exposed to radioactivity. All electric companies in Japan, except for the one in Okinawa, have always kept steady profit by destroying the livelihoods of rural communities. The Japanese government, too, is unequivocally responsible for supporting the corporations by permitting local monopolization, and laying out the legislative system beneficial for them to increase the number of nuclear plants. Electric companies and Japanese government must pay their debt now.
The government and TEPCO (The Tokyo Electric Power Co) must publicize all of the concealed contents of necessary labor being performed at the Fukushima plant. What kind of workers are running across which part of the plant for watering the reactor; who connect the pipe joints; who open the valves; who wipe radioactive splashes off, and who orders to do so (…). This demand is not for creating a heroic tale, but it is for us to overcome the ugliness of praising the plant workers as if they were the victimized hero in Kenji Miyazawa’s utopian tale or returning national spirit. We ought to distance ourselves from this disgusting cold-blooded fact that we are asking the nuclear plant workers, for the sake of “millions of lives,” to commit themselves to do the work that we ourselves are never willing to do. Instead we should support the rejection of labor that forces workers to face death.
Now we are about to become “nuclear disaster victims.” The first victims are those who have already been exposed to radiation while working at the nuclear reactors, and then those who will have to face long-term health risks from the explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi Reactors. But the nuclear disaster will not end at that. The accidents will continue hammering the agriculture of entire Tohoku region for years to come, and will boil-up the prices of safer products across the nation and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the urban poor will certainly be excluded from the distribution of safer food. Commercial businesses are closing down, because of the planned blackout in response to the lack of electricity, and the urban poor will suffer cut-downs in jobs and income; in consequence they end up reducing their buying power. We all are disaster victims.
We demand Japanese Government and TEPCO an immediate closure of all the nuclear power plants across Japan.
Cease all business that devours human life.
TEPCO must compensate all the nuclear disaster victims.
TEPCO must compensate all those exposed to radiation for their medical and daily expenses to insure their recovery from the health damages they suffer.
TEPCO must compensate for all financial losses of businesses that unavoidably shut down their operation following the accident.
They must compensate for all financial sufferings of those who were forced to wage cuts and unemployment.
We call for all those who have not suffered immediate effects of the earthquake and tsunami. Let us get out from
the never-ending loop of information radiation: overwhelming spectacle of tsunamis and fires, numbers that convey water levels in the reactors, comments made by proxy scholars and specialists repeating, “no immediate effects to your health.” This information radioactivity gives us an inevitable helplessness that we don’t have an option but to pray, that forces us to silently justify the excuses by the government and TEPCO attempting to obscure who and what system are responsible for causing this catastrophe.
We believe that it is imperative for us to immediately nullify the information radioactivity、and begin to name and prosecute those who are truly responsible.
March 17, 2011
All Freeters’ Union
