Japan Rises to the Challenge

Not a Bolt from the Blue

Some people have suggested that one reason for the catastrophic effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami was that the scale of these events simply exceeded anything that could have been reasonably expected. But the Pacific coast of the Tōhoku region has experienced comparable tsunamis several times in the past—and some that may have been even larger. The topography of the region’s numerous bays and inlets tends to amplify the effect of earthquakes, producing huge destructive waves that reached heights of almost 30 meters after a quake in 1886 and 24 meters after another in 1933. The recent disaster was therefore hardly a bolt from the blue. Certainly professionals involved in disaster prevention and preparedness should not be using the unpredictability of the disaster as any kind of excuse. This is an issue of state security—how to protect the lives and property of the Japanese people.

The three-part disaster—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant accident—has done considerable damage to Japan’s international image. As a highly earthquake–prone country, Japan has long been a world-leader in fields relating to disaster prevention, notably quake-resistant engineering. Japan has also been proud of its advanced technologies for the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Many people in Japan liked to think of technologies designed to provide “safety and peace of mind” as one of the country’s strengths. But this disaster has shattered the myth of Japanese safety. Foreign media coverage praising the dignified behavior of people in the disaster area may have contributed to positive views of our country abroad, but overall the damage to Japan’s reputation has far outweighed the gains.

The Japanese people have a history, however, of pulling together to overcome difficulties and find a way to recovery. This is not the first major challenge the Japanese have faced as a people. In the mid-nineteenth century, as the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate crumbled and the Western powers began to encroach on Japan’s borders, and again less than a century later with Japan’s defeat in World War II, the country faced crises that threatened its very existence. In both cases, the Japanese rose to the occasion. They didn’t give up and sink into apathy. They solved their problems one by one and eventually emerged triumphant from the crisis.

If Life Gives You Lemons . . .

The disaster that befell Japan on March 11 was a major blow, and it is important to acknowledge it as such. Clearly we need to do everything in our power to provide relief to the thousands of people affected by the disaster and work to rebuild the devastated parts of the country as quickly as we can. However, I believe the disaster also represents an opportunity for national revival.

Japan has now endured two “lost decades” since the bubble economy burst in the early 1990s. The country’s international position has been on a downward slope for some time now. It is fair to say that by the time the earthquake struck we had reached a point at which our fate would be sealed if we kept sliding downhill. We faced a national crisis that was perhaps even more serious than those that had come before, inasmuch as the critical nature of the situation lay hidden beneath the surface.

This was the impasse that Japan had reached when the earthquake struck. If we are to cope with this unprecedented state of affairs, the Japanese people must once again band together to forge a path forward. Fortunately, the crisis seems to have given rise to a widespread sense of determination and “can-do” spirit. They say God never gives us challenges that we cannot overcome. In Japanese we have an old saying Wazawai tenjite fuku to nasu, literally “Turn misfortune into good fortune.” Or, as people sometimes say in English, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

(Originally written in Japanese based on a March 29, 2011 interview.)