{"id":3701,"date":"2012-10-01T08:30:58","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T16:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=3701"},"modified":"2012-10-01T08:30:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T16:30:58","slug":"getting-beyond-the-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/getting-beyond-the-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting beyond the reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend Bob Stilger writes today from the radiation fields of Fukushima where he has been joining people for the past year in the work of remaking lives after the tsunami and the meltdown. \u00a0It’s worth heading over to his blog<\/a> to follow his ongoing discoveries there, but here are some good bits from today’s posting:<\/p>\n

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People are learning how to co-exist, and more, with the radiation. \u00a0 One story I heard was about a town that wanted to have a festival with an outside play area for their children. \u00a0 Playing on the ground has become prohibited. \u00a0 They spent days and days cleaning one park so that it was radiation free \u2013 now, one morning \u2013 so the children could play. \u00a0 Tomorrow will be a different story. \u00a0 I thought of a learning center in south Texas that partnered with Berkana for a time \u2013 Llano Grande. \u00a0 When I visited there once I listened with interest as teachers organized a trip. \u00a0 One of the things they took into account in their planning was who was an illegal alien and who wasn’t. \u00a0 Special arrangements had to be made for the illegals. \u00a0 That was just the way it was. \u00a0 Others somewhere might be arguing about immigration policy, but at the community level you just work with what you have. \u00a0 So it is in Fukushima. \u00a0 You work with what you have.<\/p>\n

My most amazing session of the day was in the town of Minamisoma. \u00a0 It was a community of 70,000 people. \u00a0 As the radiation settled more than 50,000 were forced to leave. \u00a0 Gradually people have been allowed to return and now the population is around 50,000. \u00a0 Part of Minamisoma is costal and there the tsunami damage has been untouched since 3.11 because of the radiation \u2013 it still looks exactly like the costal areas in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures did in the weeks after 3.11. \u00a0 But people have returned because it is their home. \u00a0 They have returned to build something new together.<\/p>\n

Early in 2012 some friends got together and decided to hold a future festival. \u00a0 More than 1000 people from the community participated. \u00a0 Music performances, presentations, dialogs \u2013 many different activities to engage people and invite them to think about their future together. \u00a0 At the end of the day one of the organizers, a woman who runs a local laundry offered a toast: \u00a0 before 3.11 we had a reputation for being quiet and just waiting for the government to do what they wanted. \u00a0 Now we know we must do it ourselves. \u00a0 We cannot wait for government. \u00a0 We must join hands and create a future together. \u00a0 And that’s what they are doing.<\/p>\n

In June the opened a Future Center on a corner of a neighborhood. \u00a0 People started to use it immediately. \u00a0 Those who organized it said we don’t actually know what a Future Center is, but we know we need a place to create a future together \u2013 so we started.<\/p>\n

The leadership circle is a delight \u2013 a truck driver, a laundress, a dairy farmer, a nurse’s aid, a bartender \u2013 ordinary people who have come together because something had to be done. \u00a0 One had been evacuated from Minamisoma to a town several hours to the north. \u00a0 It took her more than a year to be able to make her way home. \u00a0 Another spoke of how his family has been torn apart \u2013 he and his wife want to stay here, in their home with their children. \u00a0 His parents accuse him of killing his children and have moved north into Miyagi. \u00a0 He thinks they will never speak again. \u00a0 But these people have stepped forward because they must. \u00a0 This is home. \u00a0 There are dangers \u2013 but there are dangers everywhere and this is home.<\/p>\n

They know this is long term work. \u00a0 One person spoke of how we hold individual future sessions and that is good. \u00a0 Things happen in them, but what we are really doing is working to gradually change the mindset of the community. \u00a0 We are helping ourselves realize that we can and will create a future together.<\/p>\n

They are just ordinary people who are working together to create a life. \u00a0 With each other. \u00a0 Now.<\/p>\n

Any person, any where in the world who promotes nuclear energy should be required to come and spend a week in Fukushima. \u00a0 They should be required to walk through Itakemura and experience its silent desolation. They should be required to talk with the parents who take days to make a playground radiation free for a few hours so their children can play outside again. \u00a0 They should be made to look at a future made invisible and then explain to people what they will do differently and how they will solve the problems of the soft underbelly of nuclear energy \u2013 dealing with the waste.<\/p>\n

These people are strong. \u00a0 They will figure out how to live in a healthy and resilient way here in Fukushima. \u00a0 They will not be swayed by people who they think know what’s best for people who live here. \u00a0 It is their own future. \u00a0 They know they will make it together, working with what they have. \u00a0 They are amazing.<\/p>\n

via Fukushima: Beyond Reacting \u2013Bob Stilger’s Notes from Japan #36 ~ October 1st :: New Stories<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Bob Stilger writes today from the radiation fields of Fukushima where he has been joining people for the past year in the work of remaking lives after the tsunami and the meltdown. \u00a0It’s worth heading over to his blog to follow his ongoing discoveries there, but here are some good bits from today’s posting:   People are learning how to co-exist, and more, with the radiation. \u00a0 One story I heard was about a town that wanted to have a festival with an outside play area for their children. \u00a0 Playing on the ground has become prohibited. \u00a0 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[49,30,22,48,34,16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc","category-coho","category-collaboration","category-community","category-flow","category-leadership","category-organization"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-XH","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3702,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions\/3702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}