Tanohata: Women against nukes

7 Septembre 2015

September 2, 2015

INSIGHT: Women in Tohoku village refused to play host to nuclear plant

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/column/AJ201509020011

By TOSHIHIDE UEDA/ Senior Staff Writer

TANOHATA, Iwate Prefecture--A sandy beach filling a gap in the cliffs and a badly damaged seawall came into view soon after I embarked on a sightseeing ship along the coastal area of this village, which has received the moniker of “Alps of the sea.”

Tanohata, located along a northern stretch of the Sanriku coast, has a modest population of about 3,700. Its coastal area is known for its superb natural views, including the cliffs resulting from long-standing crustal deformation that uplifted the landmass by 200 meters, and a series of strange rocks and bizarre stones generated by erosion from the rough Pacific waves.

The 9-meter-high, 378-meter-long seawall, completed in 1969 to protect the village’s Aketo district from tsunami, was overwhelmed by the wall of waves spawned by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

The giant blocks of concrete that lie on the sandy beach attest to the destructive force of the tsunami, which was more than 20 meters high. The quake and tsunami disaster left more than 30 people dead or missing in the village, including one life lost in the Aketo district, according to officials in the village government.

The village government has decided to preserve the seawall as a monument to the disaster. A plan was approved in February to have the central government cover the cost of associated building works.

“Objects built to save human lives have their own limits,” said Norikatsu Watanabe, a senior official in the village government’s policy promotion division who is involved in the monument project. “The destroyed seawall conveys that message.”

'SPELLBOUND' BY NATURAL BEAUTY

History associated with the sandy beach and the seawall of Aketo is not just about the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The villagers were divided in 1981 over a plan to construct a nuclear power plant in Aketo.

“I will be positively promoting a plan to host a large-scale electric power source, including a nuclear plant,” a chronicle of the Iwate prefectural assembly, published by the assembly, quotes Tadashi Nakamura, governor at the time, as telling the prefectural assembly in October of that year.

“There is a need to study suitable locations that could host a large-scale power source and promptly determine if there are locations suitable for hosting one.”

The prefectural government commissioned a Tokyo-based foundation to study suitable locations for hosting a nuclear plant and Aketo emerged as a “viable candidate.”

Hisa Iwami, 97, was a leading figure in the opposition movement at the time.

Iwami moved from Osaka during the early postwar period when she married the head priest of Hofukuji temple, which is located to the side of the Tanohata village government office. Tanohata at the time was a village without a doctor.

Iwami, who was a licensed nurse, was asked by the village government to “supervise public health in newly reclaimed settlements.” The village was dotted with 12 settlements developed after the war, which were home to more than 1,200 people.

Iwami obtained additional licensing as a public health nurse and commuted to newly developed settlements on foot in the capacity of a “development public health nurse.” She did everything to improve the health of the residents there, such as attending to childbirths, looking after the sick, giving advice on child care and giving cooking lessons.

“I didn’t find it hard to do,” Iwami said. “Tanohata has a sky, rivers and flowers, all authentic. I was spellbound by the beauty of that natural world.”

After retiring from her job at a health center, Iwami became the head of a liaison council for women’s associations in the village. Then came the proposal to host a nuclear plant.

“Most men in the village were in favor of the plant,” Iwami said.

The prefectural government emphasized that a sum of 3.15 billion yen ($25 million) would be received if a nuclear plant were to be built. The village government at the time had an annual budget of about 2 billion yen. The offer must have looked tempting.

But women became united under Iwami, perhaps because they had shared their joys and sorrows with her in a quest for a more healthful life. The women remained opposed to the plan and called for “preserving clean nature.”

The prefectural government published the results of its study in March 1982. Tanohata was not among the four areas along the Sanriku coast that were deemed suitable for hosting a nuclear plant.

Nobody knows if that was the result of the opposition movement led by Iwami and others.

No nuclear plant has since been built in Iwate Prefecture, including in the four areas that were deemed suitable. The natural world that “spellbound” Iwami is a key tourism draw of the village.

SPIRIT OF PEASANT UPRISING

Tanohata was also the scene of a peasant uprising. People twice revolted against the Morioka feudal domain government in the mid-19th century during the late Edo Period (1603-1867). The uprising, known as Sanhei Ikki, went on to embroil the Sendai feudal domain government and succeeded in having most of the people's demands accepted.

Kichiro Hatakeyama, 77, who long worked for the village government, is a fifth-generation descendant of Tasuke Hatakeyama, a leader of the uprising. He said he vividly remembers Iwami from the days she was campaigning against a nuclear plant.

“Iwami and others were facing up seriously to the issue of the nuclear plant every day,” he said.

Hatakeyama said the starting point of the spirit of the uprising consisted of “courage, passion and unity.” Perhaps a legacy of that spirit was blooming in the minds of the village’s women at the time.

“It is not cash alone that counts,” Hatakeyama said. “We could be evacuated far away now if a nuclear plant had been built in Aketo.”

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The author, based in Fukushima, wrote on other issues.

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