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Three Simple Steps

Maeda Shota (Fukui National College of Technology)

Do you remember what we saw on March 11th in Tohoku, Japan? You might have been there and saw it with your own eyes. You might have watched people on TV who were helpless and unable to do anything and said, "How terrible…." We all mourned the people who lost their lives and prayed for those who lost their family.

When we look back on the unprecedented disasters, we find the nuclear plants accident the most serious of all, because that was not just a natural but also a man-made disaster. I would like to talk about what we should have done, and have to do with those problems by focusing on three parts; the government, scientific experts, and common citizens like you and me.

One of the jobs of a government is to administer a country; in other words, it has to do their best to resolve any problem and make the country better. Scientific experts have to face what is actually happening before their eyes, find better ways, and let the world have what they want. Then what is the job of common citizens? I think it is to watch what has happened and happening, and get the government and experts to hear our voices so that they can go in the right direction.

What do you think about the responsibility? According to a dictionary, it is a duty to take care of something, and therefore you may be blamed if the thing goes wrong. When I came back to Japan in July, I found that many people were blaming the government and the experts for the breakdown of the nuclear plants and their mistakes, urging them to resign. It could be what the dictionary says about the responsibility, but our objective must not be to make them resign because it doesn't solve anything. The responsibility does not rest on one person's shoulders. Every person has shoulders on which to carry their own responsibility.

Now let me ask you. Are we really doing our jobs? Are we really carrying our responsibility? When a nuclear plants causes a problem, do you know what to do, what information to get, where to escape, what kind of medicine to take, and how to remove the radiation? Experts have to assume as many possibilities as they can and prepare for them. The government should only let those experts do their right jobs and it has to tell us whatever they know to protect us. I doubt that they had done their jobs well enough before March 11th, and I also doubt that they have been doing their jobs sufficiently after March 11th. I'm not here to complain about it, but here I'd like you to think because we haven't done our job either.

Although one TV reporter after another severely blamed the government and the experts for their negligence, it never criticized our behavior. It said as if we were just victims. However, there is a huge misunderstanding. Have we kept our eyes on what they did and tried to correct their direction so far? Do you think we have done our job?

So today, I would like to suggest three simple steps to change this situation. First; be interested in what happened and is happening. Second; think about it by yourself and discuss it with the people who are also interested in. Third; raise your voice to tell the government and experts what you think and to ask them whatever you want to know.

You might say, "We cannot understand what the experts say." That's true. We need someone who understands both experts and us and who can explain for us. We don't have to be experts. We just need to know what is useful for us, what are the merits and demerits, what are the risks and the solutions for them. The government and the experts has hidden what they didn't want to show us, and tried to make us believe what they say. We even follow the ideas of the mass media blindly without having any doubt on them. If we had taken those three steps, we could have avoided such a horrible disaster. We cannot leave everything to the government or the experts.

I hear many people saying," Nuclear plants are dreadful." It could be true. But nuclear plants enable us to secure electricity supply without relying too much on foreign fossil fuels or without emitting too much CO2. It gives us a lot of advantages. But there are some risks as you well know. So I want you to know nothing is perfect and there is a risk in everything. That's why we have to know, think, discuss, and decide.

There are still so many problems, and there will be many more problems we have to face. In order not to let the same thing happen, we MUST change our behavior. If we take three simple steps, the government and the experts will also change their behavior. It's often said, "The government is best which governs least." In other words, the country is best where the people know what to do and do their best. Do not neglect your job. Do not ignore your responsibility. Do not think, "Someone will make a change." It is not someone else, but YOU who make a difference and make a new future. Now, what are you gonna do?