{"id":5766,"date":"2010-01-18T23:51:48","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T14:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=5766"},"modified":"2010-01-25T00:06:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T15:06:06","slug":"on-the-15th-anniversary-of-the-kobe-earthquake-my-first-activism-in-japan-eyewitness-essays-when-i-volunteered-down-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=5766","title":{"rendered":"On the 15th anniversary of the Kobe Earthquake: My first activism in Japan: Eyewitness essays when I volunteered down there"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0As the Japanese media has been blitzing lately (dovetailing with the events in Haiti, although NHK refuses to put it as top news when there are Center Shikens affecting Japanese students out there), yesterday, January 17, was the fifteenth anniversary of the Kobe\/Awajishima Earthquake that claimed over 6000 lives.<\/p>\n

The Kobe Quake has special significance for me personally. \u00a0A third of my life ago, I was so enraged by the GOJ irresponsibility (an NHK program last night from 9PM cataloging the science behind the 15-second temblor still refused to mention how the highway overpasses also collapsed because of shoddy construction work (tenuki kouji<\/em>); commentators blamed it all on sea sand vs. mountain sand) that I went down to Kobe for a couple of weeks at my own time and expense to help out as a volunteer. \u00a0I of course wrote the events up, and they are amongst my first essays charting my nascent activism in Japan. \u00a0Here are links to them all:<\/p>\n

Artery site<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.debito.org\/activistspage.html#kobequake<\/a><\/p>\n

Thoughts just after it happened:
\n<\/strong> https:\/\/www.debito.org\/kobequakeone.html<\/a><\/p>\n

My eyewitness account going there:
\n<\/strong> https:\/\/www.debito.org\/kobequakenarrative.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Stupid Economist editorial on the event, with my letter to the editor:
\n<\/strong> https:\/\/www.debito.org\/kobequakeeconomisteditorial.jpg<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.debito.org\/kobequakeeconomistletter.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

Letters to the editor both as critical opinion and as eyewitness reports which got sanitized when published in the Hokkaido Shinbun (all at artery site):<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/www.debito.org\/activistspage.html#kobequake<\/a><\/p>\n

Opinions as on the aftermath in the Western media:
\n<\/strong> https:\/\/www.debito.org\/kobequakeupdate.html<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.debito.org\/kobequakeupdate2.html<\/a><\/p>\n

In sum, the Kobe Quake gave me a major reason to stay in Japan: \u00a0I found fellow activist types who went down in the freezing cold to help out as best they could, for no other reason than because it gave them an inner glow as human beings. \u00a0That glow is still with me today, and it brought to an end the previous feelings I had about Japanese society (thanks to a stint as a Japanese businessman), where everyone was an economic animal and nobody cared about anyone else as long as they accrued wealth to themselves. \u00a0Interpersonally, I was wrong, and Kobe proved it.<\/p>\n

But it was also my first taste of media-manufactured consent and control of public opinion. \u00a0Even fifteen years on, it’s a pity the media is still unwilling to face the truth and expose the people who made it worse through their negligence.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the time capsule. \u00a0Arudou Debito in Sapporo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Japanese media has been blitzing lately (dovetailing with the events in Haiti, although NHK refuses to put it as top news when there are Center Shikens affecting Japanese students out there), yesterday, January 17, was the fifteenth anniversary of the Kobe\/Awajishima Earthquake that claimed over 6000 lives.<\/p>\n

The Kobe Quake has special significance for me personally. A third of my life ago, I was so enraged by the GOJ irresponsibility (an NHK program last night from 9PM cataloging the science behind the 15-second temblor still refused to mention how the highway overpasses also collapsed because of shoddy construction work (tenuki kouji); commentators blamed it all on sea sand vs. mountain sand) that I went down for a couple of weeks at my own time and expense to help out as a volunteer. I of course wrote the events up, and they are amongst my first essays charting my nascent activism in Japan. Here are links to them all:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,4,13,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-media","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}