Washington Post Opinion Piece: Why I’m Not Fleeing Japan
Paul Blustein of the Brookings Institution has written an opinion piece in the Washington Post explaining why he will not be evacuating from Japan:
I admit that when news broke about the power plants I wondered whether dangerous particulates might drift to our home. But when I read past the headlines, I learned that the risks were negligible for virtually all 125 million residents of the Japanese archipelago (except, of course, the heroic plant workers).
I read, for example, that after the Chernobyl disaster, most deaths resulted from children in the surrounding area drinking milk from cows that had grazed on contaminated grass — a blunder the Japanese aren’t going to repeat. I came to realize that even a “core meltdown” — something that I had always assumed spelled doom for millions — didn’t necessarily mean much adverse effects on human health, certainly not for people living distant enough for the particulates to disperse. Radiation, I learned, is a rather weak carcinogen. Even among the hibakusha, as survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known, cancer rates were not a lot higher than among the general population.
The extent of the troubles at the nuclear plants is still uncertain. But it hardly seems sensible for people like us to pack up and leave. Nor does it seem sensible or fair for people here or abroad to act as if Japan is a hotbed of fissile material. All those heartfelt expressions of sympathy for quake victims aren’t going to mean much if overreaction to the nuclear mess worsens Japan’s plight.
The mood here might not be conducive to tourism for a while. My wife, who is Japanese, has been brushing away tears night after night as she watches televised interviews of people from the stricken coastal areas. Their anguish is the proper focus of attention.
All the more imperative, then, that perspective be kept. If foreigners recoil at Japanese vacations, job postings, products or people because of irrational fears about radiation, they will deepen and prolong the trauma that nature has inflicted. In a few months, Japan should be its recognizable self, maybe even brimming with vitality stemming from a renewed sense of national purpose. The trains will once again be astonishingly punctual; the food will be delectable and plentiful. Once that happens, foreigners will hopefully recognize that Japan — with its Great Buddha and so many other wonders — remains an extraordinarily safe place.
The rest of the article can be read here.
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