Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Fukushima
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 11 Apr 2011
Akifumi Fujita - TRANSCEND Media Service
A Centennial Appreciation of the Life and Work of Japanese Physicist Mitsuo Taketani
“But the warnings from the people who suffered nuclear genocide on two cities, Hiroshima-Nagasaki, fell on muffled ears.” (Two Human Made Disasters: Japan and Libya, 21 March 2011,TMS) Thus Professor Johan Galtung points out very precisely an implication of the severe accident of Fukushima nuclear power plants caused by quake and flood on 11 March 2011 in a historical perspective.
The year 2011 happens to be the centenary of a Japanese physicist Mitsuo Taketani(1911-2000), and I cannot help recalling his life and work facing the crisis of the Japanese society in terms of technology and human existence, because he was one of the most enthusiastic disciple of nuclear physics and at the same time the most relentless critic of nuclear technology. I was fortunate enough to have some talks with him in Tokyo in his late years.
In his article in 1982, Taketani wrote as follows, “What conditions are necessary in order that the experience of the Atomic Bombing becomes the experience not only of Japanese people but also of human beings? We should grasp clearly that the implications of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two-fold. The first is that it was the final result of the Second World War, of which the Japanese people were responsible in some way. The second is that it was the beginning of a possible future war leading to the total annihilation of human beings. To forget the war responsibility in the Second World War leads to an assertion that Japan should remilitarize and have nuclear weapons.”
Taketani entered Kyoto University in 1930 when the Japanese militarism was prevalent. In fact in 1931,Manchurian Incident took place and it was the beginning of Fifteen-Year War which lasted until the unconditional surrender of Japan in 1945. In 1935, Hideki Yukawa issued the famous paper “On the Interaction of Elementary Particles.” Taketani readily recognized the importance of the paper from his scientific and philosophical methodology called “Three- Stage Theory” and became the collaborator of Yukawa’s meson theory. After graduation from Kyoto University, Taketani participated in the movement of “World Culture” in Kyoto. In 1935 some intellectuals in Kyoto began publishing periodical journal titled “World Culture” in which they protested against militarism and protected the freedom of thought.
In 1936 the Japanese armies began full-scale invading in China, and domestically the Special Police began arresting leftists and liberals including members of “World Culture” for the suspicion of violation against Peace Preservation Law enacted in 1925. Taketani was also arrested in 1938 and when he was released from imprisonment for eight months in 1939, he knew the discovery of nuclear fission. On 8 December 1941, the Pacific War began. In 1942, he got involved in the project of producing nuclear bombs in Japan. His way of thinking about it was as follows: Even if we want to make atomic bombs in Japan, it could never be realized.
But if we make theoretical and experimental investigations in detail on how it can be realized, we will be able to know the conditions of its making. Then we will be able to predict when the USA succeeds in making atomic bombs and it will be one condition for the termination of war.” He predicted that the USA would succeed in making the atomic bomb in five years. When he read Potsdam Declaration (declared on July 26, 1945), he thought that the USA, having already made atomic bombs, would drop them. But he could not do anything about it for he was taken in prison for the second time. Just after the end of the war, he wrote that the atomic bombs were “a bolt from the blue sky over Japanese brutality.”
After the end of World WarⅡ, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers overwhelmingly dominated by the USA. During the American occupation of Japan, scientific and technological policies were implemented by ESS (Economic and Scientific Section), one of the special staff sections which were under control of GHQ/SCAP. Under the guidance of ESS, Science Council of Japan (SCJ) was established in 1949. It was the supreme body of scientists elected by a free election of qualified scientists. After the Peace Treaty was concluded and made effective on 28 April 1952, Japanese scientists began discussing on the stage of SCJ on how to proceed with nuclear investigations which had been prohibited during the occupation. Among the scientists, Taketani expressed the most radical opinion as follows: “the Japanese people, the only victim of the atomic bombing in the world, have the right to implement nuclear study for peaceful end. For this purpose of the Japanese people, every nation has the obligation to help. Every nuclear study proceeded in Japan must be disclosed.”
On 8 December 1953, US President Eisenhower made a famous speech “Atoms for Peace” at the General Assembly of the United Nations. In responding to this call, some politicians, of whom the most notable Yasuhiro Nakasone, proposed the budget of 235 million yen for building nuclear piles. It passed the Diet very quickly in March 1954 and this was the official beginning of development of nuclear energy in Japan. In protest to this undemocratic way of making decisions on the part of the government, SCJ made an appeal to the public stating three principles for peaceful use of nuclear energy. These three principles, i.e. principles of democracy, autonomy and openness, were enacted in the Atomic Energy Act in December 1955. It must be remembered that this enactment was possible because of strong pressure from civil movement all over Japan against the test explosion of hydrogen bomb conducted by the USA at Bikini Atoll in March 1954. A Japanese fisherman named Aikichi Kuboyama who was heavily contaminated with radioactive fallout from the explosion was driven to death half a year later.
But the three conditions for peaceful use of nuclear energy, the principles of democracy, autonomy and openness, have been hollowed and violated in the whole history of nuclear development in Japan. It has been led by the state and conducted exclusively on the principle of business enterprise. Little consideration has been paid on safety. To me, Fukushima seems the final result of the history of exploitation of nuclear energy in Japan. Warnings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have fallen on muffled ears all along. What has been lacking for such a long time that has been spent in a certain period of human history?
Finally let me quote the words expressed by Taketani in 1943:
Words (involved in the Pacific War)
Human reason
Can surely find a way out,
If it encounters difficulty of any kind.
Now the reality
Makes my heart extremely sad,
Human affection towards human beings
Encourages superb reason of humanity, and with it
Will surely find a wonderful way out.
_______________________
Akifumi Fujita is a member of TRANSCEND Japan.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 11 Apr 2011.
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