震災から５年 心は一つ、じゃない世界で

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 11
EDITORIAL: The voices from Tohoku must be heard 5 years after the disaster
（社説）震災から５年　心は一つ、じゃない世界で

Exactly five years have passed since March 11, 2011, when Japan was struck by what has been described as the biggest postwar national crisis.
On that day, the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami ravaged wide areas in the northeastern Tohoku region and triggered the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
　戦後最大の国難といわれた東日本大震災と福島第一原発の事故が起きた「３・１１」から、５年がたつ。

Reconstruction work is continuing in coastal areas of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. Many residents are still struggling to rebuild their shattered livelihoods.
　宮城県や岩手県の海沿いでは工事の音が鳴り響く。だが、暮らしの再建はこれからだ。

Around 170,000 people, mainly residents in Fukushima Prefecture, are living away from their homes as evacuees.
福島県をはじめ、約１７万人が避難先での生活を強いられている。

People in the affected areas are still reeling from the aftermath and fallout of the devastating natural disasters and the harrowing nuclear accident.
　震災と原発事故は、今もなお続いている。

But how many people in other parts of the nation far from the stricken areas truly understand the harsh realities in communities battered by the disasters?
被災地から離れた全国で、その現実感を保つ人はどれだけいるだろう。

GAP WIDENS BETWEEN AFFECTED AREAS, OUTSIDE WORLD
　■深まる「外」との分断

Immediately after the disasters occurred, everybody’s heart went out to people in the affected areas. Many Japanese talked about “mutual support” and the “ties” that bound them with the victims. The kanji for “kizuna,” meaning “human bonds,” was chosen as the Chinese character that most powerfully symbolized the year.
　直後は、だれもが被災地のことを思い、「支え合い」「つながろう」の言葉を口にした。年の世相を表す「今年の漢字」に、「絆」が選ばれもした。

But we now wonder if all of the sympathetic feelings expressed back then were genuine. In the disaster-stricken areas, many people are lamenting the growing psychological distance with the rest of Japan.
Various emotionally charged issues have divided communities in the affected areas.
　あの意識ははたして本物だったろうか。被災地の間ではむしろ、距離が開いていく「分断」を憂える声が聞こえてくる。

They include forcing residents to leave the places where they have lived for a long time, and constructing levees that separate the land from the sea, which has supported their livelihoods.
　住み慣れた土地を離れる住宅移転。生活の場である海と陸とを隔てる防潮堤。

Debates over whether to preserve or remove remnants of buildings destroyed by the disasters have raised complicated feelings: a desire to forget what happened mixed with a determination to never forget.
「忘れたい」と「忘れまい」が同居する震災遺構。それぞれの問題をめぐり地元の意見は割れてきた。

Such divisions threaten to destroy harmony among community members. The problem is most acutely felt in Fukushima Prefecture.
　人間と地域の和が壊れる。その痛みがもっとも深刻なのは、福島県だ。

Disputes over the effects of radiation have shaken residents’ values and judgments. The problem has been compounded by the fact that Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, paid different amounts of compensation to victims based on radiation levels in their areas.
Families and communities have been split into opposing groups.
　放射線の影響をめぐり、住民の価値観や判断は揺れた。線量による区域割りで東京電力からの賠償額が違ったことも絡み、家族や地域は切り刻まれた。

Some residents are working hard to repair the severed ties, and a variety of efforts are under way to heal wounded communities. They include a program to guide visitors to deserted towns and a project to provide information about Fukushima to people who voluntarily fled their communities in the prefecture.
　ささくれだつ空気の中で、修復を求めて奔走する人たちはいた。無人の町を訪問者に案内したり、自主避難者向けに福島からの情報発信を始めたり。さまざまな活動が生まれた。

Sachiko Bamba, a resident of Minami-Soma city, has worked with doctors to organize more than 80 study sessions to help citizens learn about radiation.
　南相馬市の番場さち子さんもその一人だ。医師と一緒に放射線についての市民向け勉強会を８０回以上重ねた。

Her project is driven by the belief that acquiring accurate knowledge about radiation helps people make educated decisions about their futures and assume a positive attitude toward life.
まずは正しい知識を得る。それが今後の生活の方針を納得して選び、前向きになる支えになると考えた。

Bamba and other like-minded people are concerned that residents’ struggles to overcome the huge challenges over the past five years remain largely unknown to people in other parts of the nation, creating widening perception gaps.
　番場さんらがいま懸念するのは、５年にわたる苦悩と克服の歩みが、被災地の「外」に伝わらず、認識のギャップが広がっていることだ。

They still receive questions from people outside Fukushima Prefecture on whether local residents must wear masks when they go out or whether rice produced in Fukushima Prefecture is safe for eating.
　「福島県では外出時にマスクは必要か」「福島産の米は食べられるのか」。県外から、そんな質問が今も続く。

The safety of various farm products from Fukushima Prefecture has been confirmed through constant measurements of airborne radiation and human exposure doses as well as continuous efforts to decontaminate polluted areas and check radiation in all foodstuffs.
　空間線量や体内の被曝（ひばく）の継続的な測定、食材の全量検査、除染作業などさまざまな努力を重ねた結果、安全が確かめられたものは少なくない。

But people outside the prefecture are not receiving much information about such improvements and progress.
だが、そうした正常化された部分は、県外になかなか伝わらない。

Last year, a man outside Fukushima Prefecture who called himself an anti-nuclear activist criticized a mother for remaining in Koriyama and supposedly exposing her child to health risks. She was deeply disheartened by the simple, inconsiderate and ill-founded argument against living in Fukushima that was based on his opposition to nuclear power.
　郡山市に住む母親は昨年、県外の反原発活動家を名乗る男性から「子供が病気になる」と非難された。原発への否定を無頓着に福島への忌避に重ねる口調に落胆した。

“How long will this kind of nonsense continue?” she uttered to herself.
「まだこんなことが続くのか」

STUDENTS SEEKING WORDS FOR COMMUNICATION
　■「言葉」を探す高校生

It is probably inevitable that differences in perceptions will appear over time between people in the disaster areas and those in the rest of the nation.
　時がたてば、被災地とほかとの間に意識の違いが生じるのは仕方のないことでもある。

To make our society less vulnerable to disasters, however, it is vital to constantly narrow such perception gaps. The positions of people currently struggling with hardships and those who are not may be reversed at any time.
　だが、災害に強い社会を築くには、その溝を埋める不断の努力が欠かせない。いま苦境と闘う人と、そうでない人とは、いつ立場が変わるかも知れない。

People in Fukushima Prefecture want to share their experiences over the past five years with the outside world. They believe the facts about the divisions caused by the nuclear disaster and their efforts to overcome them should be part of the lessons learned by the entire nation.
　福島の人びとが「この５年」を外に知ってほしいと思うのは、原発事故がもたらす分断の実相と克服の努力を全国の教訓として共有すべきだと考えるからでもある。

People in the prefecture are continuing their quest to find ways to achieve this goal.
　模索は続いている。

At Futaba Future School, a prefectural high school that opened last spring in the town of Hirono, Fukushima Prefecture, theater is a required course.
　福島県広野町に昨春開校した県立ふたば未来学園高校では必修科目に演劇を組み入れる。

The course is taught by reputed playwright Oriza Hirata, who has instructed his students to “express as they are the discrepancies in feelings due to different positions and unsolvable issues.”
　指導する劇作家の平田オリザ氏が生徒たちに課したのは、「立場の違いによるすれ違いや解決できない課題をそのまま表現する」こと。

At the outset of the course, Hirata told the students: “Let me tell you something. Nobody in the world understands things about Fukushima and you.”
　授業の冒頭、平田氏は言う。「言っとくけど、福島や君たちのことなんて世界の誰も理解なんてしてないからね」

The challenge facing the students is how to communicate their feelings to indifferent people. Tackling this challenge requires them to ask themselves whether they can really imagine the feelings of others.
　関心のない人に、どうやったら自分の思いが伝わるか。それは同時に、自分が他者の思いを想像できているかを自問することにもなる。

Bamba of Minami-Soma has also set up a study group to learn from TEPCO executives. She decided to stay in contact with the operator of the crippled nuclear plant to learn more about the company, which is responsible for rebuilding the devastated communities in the prefecture.
　番場さんは、福島担当の東電役員を招いた勉強会も始めた。事故を起こした東電とあえて交流するのは、最後まで福島の再生に努める責任を負っている相手のことを知るためだ。

In this world, people’s hearts are not one. History is littered with many examples of painful divisions among people, including the cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only cities to suffer a nuclear attack, communities afflicted by pollution-caused diseases like Minamata disease, and Okinawa Prefecture, which has been forced to bear an excessive burden of hosting U.S. military bases.
　この世は、「心は一つ」ではない。歴史をみれば、分断はいくつも存在した。原爆に苦しんだ広島と長崎、水俣病など公害に侵された町、過大な米軍基地を押しつけられた沖縄――。

Various areas around this nation have been suffering on their own and fighting the pain caused by misunderstandings and perception gaps. Exchanges are growing between Fukushima Prefecture and other areas grappling with these problems.
　重い痛みを背負い、他者との意識差に傷つき悩みながら闘ってきた全国の地域がある。いま、そうした地域と福島とで交流する催しが増えている。

START WITH THINGS THAT CANNOT BE EASILY SHARED
　■伝わらないことから

If people living in different places and thinking about different issues want to connect with each other, they need to start talking about things that they both do not understand and continue their dialogue.
　住む場所も考える問題も違う人間同士が「つながる」ためには、「互いにわからない」ことから出発し、対話を重ねていくしかない。

“A desire to communicate is only born out of an experience of being unable to communicate,” Hirata says. “From this point of view, children in the stricken areas who have experienced the disaster, the mutual help and the divisions have the potential to play leading roles in reconstruction efforts and open up a new future for our society.”
　「伝えたい気持ちは、伝わらない経験があって初めて生まれる。その点で、震災と助け合いと分断とを経験した被災地の子どもたちには、復興を担い、世の中を切りひらく潜在的な力がある」と平田氏は言う。

Every Japanese should pay fresh and serious attention--and respond--to the messages people in the affected areas are sending out.
　被災地からの発信を一人ひとりが受け止め、返していくことから、もう一度始めたい。