The Role of Civil Society
- Chika Watanabe
Chika Watanabe “The History of International NGOs (INGOs) in Japan”
Watch the video of the interview
The Role of Japanese International NGOs
The Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC), a networking and information center for NGOs in Japan, identifies the first international NGOs (INGOs) in Japan as Christian medical groups that traveled to China in 1938 to provide care to refugees who were forced to flee by the Japanese military invasion (JANIC 2007). A couple of decades of inactivity followed due to the Second World War and its aftermath, but in the late 1950s, new aid activities began to emerge. By the 1960s, the first INGO-type organizations were established, such as the Organization for Industrial, Spiritual, and Cultural Advancement (OISCA, 1961), the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP, 1968), and the beginnings of the Asia Rural Institute (ARI or Ajia Gakuin) in 1960. The precursor to the government aid agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was also established in 1962 (under the name of Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (OTCA)). In the 1970s, the growth of INGOs continued, particularly those with liberal and advocacy orientations. A number of them appeared in response to the large number of refugees from Indochina and Cambodia who arrived to Japan during this time period. Throughout the 1980s, development aid INGOs grew in number, as well as those addressing environmental, human rights, and other issues. The 1990s saw the greatest increase of INGOs, partly due to the impact of global calamities such as the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide, which raised public consciousness on the need for international aid interventions. The Kobe Earthquake of 1995 and the upsurge of volunteer activities afterwards also spurred the growth of nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations in general, particularly due to the creation of the 1998 Law to Promote Specified Nonprofit Activities (“NPO Law”), the first legal framework for nonprofits in Japan (Osborne 2003). This new law enabled groups to register as formal organizations, which facilitated their cooperation with other organizations and government agencies, the expansion of funding possibilities, and “a shift in state-society power balance” (Pekkanen 2003:53). Nevertheless, nonprofits in Japan remain operationally and financially small compared to Euro-American contexts: as of 2011, about half of the approximately 44,000 registered nonprofit organizations had an annual income of 50,000 USD or less (Cabinet Office 2013).
The late 1990s and early 2000s were also the beginning of professionalized emergency INGOs in Japan. In addition to INGOs that had been working with refugees in Southeast Asia since the 1970s and 1980s such as Shanti Volunteer Association (SVA), new organizations such as Japan Emergency NGO (JEN, 1994) and Peace Winds Japan (PWJ, 1996) appeared on the scene. These INGOs worked in war-torn countries such as the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, often in the midst of armed conflicts, and responded to natural disasters around the world. In 2000, Japan Platform was created out of the lessons learned in Kosovo, where Japanese INGOs realized that multi-lateral cooperation between NGOs, governments, the business community, media, and the academic community was essential for conducting effective aid activities. Thus, Japan Platform today is composed of members from NGOs, corporations, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who administer funds and resources that can be mobilized rapidly by member NGOs in times of disaster and emergency aid.
When a calamity strikes, the Japan Platform Board of Directors and INGO representatives meet within 24-48 hours, if not earlier. Interested domestic NGOs and INGOs submit proposals to conduct preliminary assessments and implement emergency relief activities, which are approved by the board (they are rarely rejected since consultations happen before decision-making). Funds are dispensed in a very short amount of time. Unlike Western-based INGOs such as World Vision and Save the Children, which tend to have extra funds for emergency situations, Japanese INGOs do not have extra resources that they can quickly tap into. Moreover, whereas other types of funds such as from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and corporations—the two biggest sources of funding for most Japanese INGOs—take time to process, the moneys available through Japan Platform has made rapid responses by Japanese INGOs possible. Although some observers are concerned about the links between corporate interests and NGO activities that became visible in the wake of the 2011 disasters (e.g., Robertson 2012), it is a fact that without such financial backing, either through or outside of Japan Platform, professional nongovernmental aid organizations in Japan would not be able to exist or respond to emergency situations. Moreover, if one follows the collaboration between corporations and INGOs ethnographically, it becomes clear that it is not simply the government and corporations that are setting the humanitarian agenda. Humanitarian and disaster aid in Japan is made up of a set of exchanges and deliberations that move between local people's concerns and state interests in complex ways.
Overview of JEN
Japan Emergency NGO (JEN) was established in 1994 in the midst of the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. It began as a consortium of different Japanese INGOs to respond to the refugee crisis and other humanitarian needs in this region, but it eventually became one organization and expanded to projects worldwide. As of 2013, it conducts relief and rehabilitation efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Sudan, Haiti, Japan, and Jordan for Syrian refugees. Its projects are funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government schemes, corporate donors such as UNIQLO and Ajinomoto, the UN, and individual donations. Although JEN is not a religious NGO, the Buddhist-based new religion, Risshō Kōsekai, has also been a long-term supporter, given the religious group's participation in the initial consortium in the former Yugoslavia.
JEN's activities include infrastructural projects such as the reconstruction of schools, but it focuses mainly on “soft aid” activities that enable “efforts [to restore] a self-supporting livelihood both economically and mentally” among people affected by conflicts and disasters. A characteristic activity was, for instance, a workshop for fishermen in Sri Lanka to make and mend fishing nets after the tsunami of 2004, which took away their livelihoods, family members, and even entire communities. Instead of handing out already-made fishnets, JEN provided the raw materials so that the fishermen could engage in an activity that helped them regain their sense of self-reliance. The men were able not only to create the material resources necessary to restart their fishing activities, but also to use the workshops as spaces of healing. To this end, JEN hired social workers to facilitate these activities and encourage conversations that might help the fishermen process their losses and strengthen relationships with their neighbors. All of JEN's activities aim in these ways to encourage both economic self-reliance and psychosocial care.
Although JEN's projects are usually outside of Japan, the organization has also conducted activities in Japan. The first was a rehabilitation project in Niigata, an area north of Japan, after the Niigata Chūetsu Earthquake in 2004. JEN focused on a small aging community in a rural area and sought to revitalize the community by tackling the effects of the earthquake, but more importantly, the long-term problem of depopulation. JEN and the villagers worked together to implement volunteer programs that brought urban participants to help with agricultural and other labor, and to encourage villagers that their village was worth keeping alive. Six years later, young people and families had moved to the village. The villagers decided to manage the volunteer and other revitalization programs on their own. Thus, in 2010, JEN closed its Niigata project, although it continues to maintain relations with the villagers. When the March 2011 disaster happened, people from this community were among the first to contact JEN to offer their help in the devastated areas of Tohoku.
Japanese INGOs in Tohoku after March 11, 2011
When the earthquake struck on March 11, 2011, Japanese INGOs quickly took action. Unlike in most other disaster situations in the developing world where the United Nations coordinates relief activities, in this case, the Japanese government facilitated nongovernmental and volunteer aid activities through the quasi-governmental Volunteer Centers of the Social Welfare Council (Shakai Fukushi Kyōgikai, or shakyō). Unfortunately, the administrators at the municipal and shakyō offices were themselves victims of the disaster, and the coordination of the various groups and individuals proved to be a challenge. As Leo Bosner, a former employee of the US government's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) found in his research in Japan in early 2012, prefectural and municipal officials were expected to be the first responders to disasters, but they received almost no training in disaster response (Bosner 2012). Furthermore, he points out that “the government did not appear to have a plan for incorporating NPOs [nonprofits] or donation management into the disaster response” and it relied too heavily on news reports rather than information from on-the-ground specialists at disaster sites. This led to the misallocation of relief items, and in some cases, the government's rejection of goods that were in fact much needed on the ground. Bosner also found that the actual experts in disaster aid were found outside of the government agencies in charge of managing the response, such as in INGOs and the fire service, but the government did not draw on their expertise.
Staff members at INGOs such as JEN had ample knowledge managing and implementing large-scale disaster aid projects. However, seen in the same rubric as “volunteer groups,” the government relegated them to simple activities such as mud and debris removal through the Volunteer Centers. Thus, there was a general sense among INGO aid workers that their programmatic expertise from years of experience worldwide was not used to the fullest extent, echoing Bosner's findings.
Despite these challenges, as soon as the disaster hit, JEN staff prepared to go to the most severely affected regions of Sendai and Ishinomaki city along the coast in Miyagi prefecture. Although there were some delays due to the sudden threat of radiation coming from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, staff members from Tokyo were in the region by the thirteenth, distributing food, clothes, and other needed items identified through their assessments. On March 25, 2011, JEN established its Ishinomaki office and hired local staff members who have since been conducting a variety of livelihood assistance and other rehabilitation projects. As time has passed, JEN staffers have been able to cultivate trusting relationships with local communities, enabling the implementation of mid- and long-term projects beyond the tasks allowed by the government. Programs involving volunteers have also continued, similar to the Niigata projects that aim to address wider problems of rural depopulation in conjunction with disaster rehabilitation efforts.
The interview that follows is an excerpt from a conversation that took place at the JEN office in Tokyo with the Secretary General, Ms. Keiko Kiyama, in January 2012.
For more information please visit: www.jen-npo.org.
References
Bosner, Leo 2012 Can Japan Respond Better to its Next Large Disaster? The Asia-Pacific Journal 10(21)(1). Electronic document, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Leo-Bosner/3754, accessed May 25, 2012.
Cabinet Office 2013 “Let's Get to Know NPOs (Statistical Information)” [NPO wo shirou: tōkei jyōhō]. Electronic document, https://www.npo-homepage.go.jp/about/npodata.html, accessed December 8, 2013.
Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC) 2007 NGO dēta book 2006: sūji de miru nihon no NGO [Data Book on NGOs 2006: Japanese NGOs Seen Through Numbers]. Tokyo: JANIC.
Osborne, Stephen, ed. 2003 The Voluntary and Non-Profit Sector in Japan: The Challenge of Change. London: RoutledgeCurzon.
Pekkanen, Robert 2003 “The Politics of Regulating the Non-Profit Sector” In The Voluntary and Non-Profit Sector in Japan: The Challenge of Change. Stephen Osborne, ed. Pp.53-75. London: RoutledgeCurzon.
Interview with Keiko Kiyama, interviewed by Chika Watanabe
Note: In January 2012, when this interview took place, JEN had finished their work with emergency relief and had begun working on providing livelihood assistance and the renewal of community events like tea and coffee hours (ochakkonomi in local dialect) in the temporary housing established after the March 11disaster. At present, in the spring of 2015, they are involved in psychosocial care for children, livelihood assistance, and community revitalisation.
Could you tell us a little bit about the work JEN is doing in Tohoku?
On March 11, when the earthquake and tsunami struck, our first thought was that we had to get help out there. Naturally, we were also affected by the disaster, but on the eleventh we found ourselves busy getting things ready. The first group went out on the thirteenth. In the first few months, in what's known as emergency relief, the support we provided was primarily essential supplies and helping out with things. And by things I mean, for instance, dispatching volunteers to help clear the mud the tsunami had caked on to houses, that kind of thing. That's the kind of emergency relief with which we started, but now things are moving in the direction of getting things back to normal.
JEN also does work overseas. Has that been different to what you've been doing in Japan, or have they been similar?
They've been surprisingly similar. I felt the same way when we were providing relief during the Chūetsu Earthquake in Niigata in 2004 —that what we do overseas can be put to use domestically as is. When we go overseas, the assumption is that the cultures are different, so we should not impose our own ideas onto people. I believe that, since we are people who will eventually leave, success means being able to withdraw aid as soon as possible. When you try to achieve sustainable results, based on the idea that you're going to eventually leave, the important question is how to promote activities based on local people's agency and ownership. All of this was the case in Niigata, and it is now what we are attempting in Tohoku. While we're focusing on Ishinomaki in Miyagi at the moment, the environment in which the people of Ishinomaki originally lived and the one we lived in is different, and the culture that had developed there over time is different as well. Obviously we speak Japanese, but there are dialects and words particular to the region, and even if we get to talk to people, if we only do this while thinking about the kind of lives we lead in Tokyo, we'll never understand their needs. In the sense that the support we offer is to get people to become more actively involved, I think the work we've been doing overseas to make people self-reliant is exactly the same as what we're doing in Japan.
Is the earthquake in Tohoku comparable to the one in Chūetsu?
Obviously in Chūetsu the people the earthquake hit were severely affected, but in terms of the region and areas, I think the damage was more limited there than in this case. If there hadn't been a tsunami following the earthquake, I don't think as many people would have died as have at present. So many things have been damaged by both the earthquake and the tsunami that, in terms of degree and scale, the damage is different. But as the individuals involved are precisely that, individuals, even though in Ishinomaki alone almost ten thousand people have died and others remain unlocated, they each have a family. In terms of one-to-one involvement, I think they're the same.
When someone feels positive, it affects someone else, and I think that getting the entire region back on its feet is what happens when you make all the people inside it feel that way. Naturally, there are cases where people feel better because the area has been revitalised and such, but I think it's important to focus on both. It's obviously pointless to try and make all of Ishinomaki feel better, but by giving people back their lives, one person at a time, as things ease up, it eventually starts to spread, and I think that's when a town starts to get its spirit back.
What exactly do you think you do to make those affected by the disaster feel better?
While it pains me to say it, I don't think what those affected by the disaster lost is something they will ever get back. For the families that have lost loved ones, sad as it is, they'll never see them again. But even as you hold on to that sadness as you move forward, if you can get your hope for the future back, and if you can feel like you're not alone in this, you also feel like maybe you can keep on going.
Which isn't to say that there's nothing to be done, and we just give up on the people whose houses were washed away. But those people themselves have given up on the idea that there is anything to be done, and if they don't look toward something else, they'll remain trapped in that grief forever. They can't take the next step so long as they're stuck wondering why they had to lose these things. Because it's important for these people to accept this themselves, to come to terms with it, efforts have to be made that provide them with something that makes this possible. While JEN has, for a very long time, been talking about “psychosocial care and supporting self-reliance,” we believe that a certain amount of emotional recovery is an important prerequisite for the process of becoming self-reliant. In order to bring about that kind of recovery, it's necessary to feel that you've come together with the people around you to accomplish something. And that comes about when you feel that you are truly connected with other people, when you feel that other people understand the grief you're going through, that kind of connection. While people have been talking a lot about recovering kizuna for this sense of connection, we believe that it's absolutely vital that people get back this connection or kizuna as a psychosocial one.
There are, for example, movements in the temporary housing for this purpose. Particularly in the case of Ishinomaki, as the number of people affected by the disaster is exceptionally high, this meant that even the people at the municipal office were in an extraordinary state of disarray. It was terrible. While it would have been great for people who had become close in the evacuation zones to be relocated together when moved into temporary housing, there just weren't enough people at the city office to arrange it. And as a result, the relocation of people from the evacuation zones was all done by lottery to decide where each individual household should go. In these really small towns and cities, you want to listen to people who only move in community units and move them in those units, but in Ishinomaki this wasn't possible and the people who were moved into temporary housing together didn't know each other. Obviously, they said hello to each other, but it's part of the local culture to be unassuming, and we've heard that even if people wanted to invite someone over for tea, they were worried that it might seem like they were taking the upper hand in the situation. And so, JEN invited everyone to have a cup of tea together at an ochakkonomi, and they all came drink tea and introduce themselves in a more formal setting. After that they started going over to each other's houses, and then people became friends, and could share what was weighing them down. It seems that it was a matter of people meeting up to share what was getting to them.
I see. But the areas affected are very large, and there are limits to what a single person or group can do. How do you continue your work given those limitations?
That's also something that's been on my mind. That we're dealing with such wide area, with this many people, that it's this severe. If it had escalated gradually then people would have been prepared for it, but it happened so quickly that it ended up being the way it has. Everything changed overnight. And so we had to rush, because we wanted to support more people, quickly, over a wider area. We know that's not really possible. But I had a teacher once who used to tell me whenever I was struggling with a dilemma, “Light up even a corner of the world.” Whenever I heard this, I thought that there was truth in it, this idea of ‘lighting up even a corner of the world.’ When you want to help support people in the way they live their lives, a portion of time and materials is necessary. My little story isn't going to heal anyone's heartbreak but, even if we assume that it could, this would still only be limited to a certain number of people in a given area, and after I told them this story, they would all go to their own homes, where the same kind of life is waiting for them. If we assume there is a limit to the amount of people it can affect, even if measures are taken to change the way people do things, then there's nothing to do but do what you're doing now, with all your heart and soul, and believe that this will have a ripple effect. You do it all the while thinking that when you meet another person, that nothing exists apart from them. You do it that way, person by person, politely, properly. You light up even just a corner of the world. Even if, in this vast darkness, I can light up only one little corner of the world, then someone can carry on from there, in the space lit up, and can light up another corner. Convinced that if we kept it up then before we knew it things would light up, we stopped being in such a rush to fix things.
What can you do exactly to expand the effects of this ‘lighting up a corner of the world’?
What's important for JEN is, like we say, whether or not the project is about supporting self-reliance. Can the people involved in that project establish JEN's three watchwords for self-reliance, can they involve themselves in the community, and can they come up with solutions? This is actually something the people can do themselves, but because they find themselves in situations that make them think they can't, JEN is involved. I don't think the really big issues are ones that can be solved. But if you take those big issues and break them down, they become a more manageable size. You take what you can, bit by bit, and if people come along who feel like they can really solve one of the big issues, the community starts to work alongside them.
One example of this is fishing nets. We're giving support with fishing equipment right now, but it isn't just a matter of just handing it over, like ‘here you go,’ but of making sure that you show people how to use the equipment and how they can use it to get their livelihoods back while also trying to form a bond with them. If people's emotional state is any worse than it is already, then even if they want to really make a go of it with the fishing then there will still be days where nothing goes right, and days when they're just miserable. You have good days, and you have bad, but to have to suffer from a bad catch or a day when the fish won't bite, after you've already lost everything in the tsunami, makes people tend to give up and there's no point in them going on. This loss of self-confidence, this giving up, isn't something you can stop, but if people have strong bonds, if they have kizuna and people to look after them, and if you can make sure that they have friends, then I think it's easier for people to get back on their feet. And so it's not a matter of just giving fishing equipment, but annoying people by asking whether or not everyone's using the equipment they've been given together, or asking people to hurry up so we can eat their oysters. We end up being quite harsh. We expect people to engage with it out of a kind of resentment they feel toward us, a kind of, ‘I'll get you something to eat since you're bugging me so much’ attitude. We try to involve ourselves with the idea that, since they're the ones who grow the oysters, we're just people who want to eat them. For a start, we don't know the first thing about growing oysters; people have to develop methods of producing a better product by themselves, because they're the ones who have, from the get-go, been capable of doing this. And even when we do get to eat them, if the oysters aren't good, we have to just come out and say it. When we say it, we get people to try harder to produce something better. In the end, when they've managed to produce something truly delicious and they cry tears of joy, maybe it's because they realize that there was a reason for all the work they put into it. And when you put something wonderful out there that people all over the world can make use of, then the scope of the future you see in front of you sort of pans into widescreen. At first circulation comes back within Japan itself, and as a result that might lead to expanding globally. We are accompanists, and our partner performs the main role. It's important to us how our partner put things in motion, and when they do that and things go well, we're happy. To take joy out of this, or to put it in everyday terms, the joy we get out of something like being able to experience many successes, is, I think, connected very much to a sense of independence. That kind of involvement is something that can only be done with a limited number of people. When people keep that up, when they do things because they take an interest in it, the people around them begin to do the same. It's a small level of involvement, but still, I think it sets the light in motion.
Speaking of light, the impression I have of what JEN is doing in Ishinomaki is that the local staff take centre stage and are doing a variety of jobs shared between them. I thought that that kind of thing might be the reason why people are starting do so well there.
JEN began with the former Yugoslavia. There were no jobs for refugees and so we started from the idea of taking on as many refugees as possible. We didn't consciously do this to make them feel better. But we realized that just the very fact of being made refugees is extremely psychologically damaging. Through their work at JEN, these people began to do things for other people. That's what draws out psychological strength. What I'm always surprised at is that at the interview stage these people are completely depressed, pale, have no ambition, but after one or two months working at JEN, they begin to look much better. That is, just as you're saying, in doing things for other people, their own lives begin to light up. Because those affected are also emotionally devastated, what I want, and what JEN is actively devoted to achieving, is for them to start to feel better by doing things for other people.
There's still a world of possibilities out there for young and old alike, and it makes me happy if we can help draw those possibilities out. The ideal is that people start to get back on their feet while thinking that they've been given nothing by JEN. Obviously, we do a wide range of things, but I'm inclined to think that it's the people who can think to themselves that they're getting nothing from us that are probably most self-reliant. Because the support JEN provides isn't the kind that's given, but one that supports, the shortest way to get survivors to be self-reliant is to have a variety of voluntary projects that give them the sense that they're doing everything themselves. Even if you take people somewhere and have them to experience something, and they end up thinking this way on their own, then of course people will go, but it's not a matter of telling people they should go, but of putting it out there in a way that tells them that they should go if they might be interested in what's there. And, when people want to have a look at something because they find it interesting, and then decide that they want to do this thing or that thing, and can act on it, then this means that though the impetus may have come from JEN, the person decides for themselves what they want to do. They have a sense of ownership in what they go on to do. If they feel that sense of propriety, it's sustainable, they change things, and there's a high rate of success.
And what would you like to do following on from this?
While I really don't like the division of people who support and people who are supported, what we who have the opportunity to provide support have to remember is how necessary it is to have local people be in charge. At the same time, obviously getting things back to the way they were is what we try to do, but these places were already in the process of depopulation. Even if we could restore, 100%, how things were, all that lies beyond that is further depopulation. And so, if the local people have to hope for something, I think, fundamentally, that it would be better if they hoped to work together for a different future. They say that there are ‘three things’ necessary for village renewal — young people, outsiders, and idiots. Which means that you need the reckless energy of young people and the different viewpoint of outsiders, along with the blissful ignorance of idiots. If we can put those three things out there in some form, I think the end result is village renewal.
“Build back better” is a phrase used a lot in the world of emergency aid, but in places originally underpopulated, if you just build it back it's not going to get any better. The original meaning of build back better is to build a better place than before, but this unfortunately doesn't extend to making it an economically and materially better place. And that being the case, we outsiders think that there's nothing to do but create a different future. But to tell people whose heads and hearts weren't looking for it that now is the time for change, and that now, when people have been emotionally devastated by the disaster, that we should do something new, is extremely difficult. This is precisely the reason why local people must have an active role, and why I also think it's important to support people being able to shape their own future. What kind of future we can make together, for these places damaged by the disaster that have been emotionally and physically weakened, is the challenge facing those who support and those who are supported, the challenge facing everyone. And yet if we don't do this then nothing will change, and all that's left is hope. It's inconceivable for us to do nothing just because it's difficult, and so it's important that we take things one step at a time.
You often hear people in Tokyo say that disaster is a chance, and sometimes it feels as if people don't actually understand how difficult the situation is. I get the sense that maybe the fact that there are struggles, and that the local people are frustrated, is being ignored. I feel like maybe what's needed isn't necessarily just connections or kizuna... but what do you think?
I feel like it's the same as environmental issues. And incidentally, I think the expression “being kind to the earth” is a misunderstanding; we are alive because the earth is kind to us. Putting up with insufferable circumstances and living in horrible conditions doesn't necessarily mean that you have a keen sense of the environment. But if you're earth-friendly because you really want to do be, and because it's fun, then what you get out of that is people who are actually ecological, and a way of going about things that doesn't destroy the environment.
At the moment, people are being divided into those who support, and those who are supported, which means those ‘poor survivors’ of the disaster. But, as has been said before, if you take the country known as Japan as a single body, when the left hand is injured and no longer works, but the right still functions, it feels as if the whole body is healthy just because the right is. The entire system of Japan could only be put in motion so long as Eastern Japan was a part of that body. If it's damaged to the extent it has been, this doesn't mean there's no effect felt elsewhere, even economically. It's not true that just because the right hand is undamaged that nothing has happened. What the left has been holding on to comes to be placed on the right, and to think that this means the right hand has become more active in response is also a mistake. This is precisely why sustainable renewal of Eastern Japan is beneficial for the whole country. And so it's just not a matter of kizuna or ganbare, of connection or giving it your all, but of what we can do ourselves. Those of us in Tokyo, people in Kyushu — I want us to think about what we can do.
And I don't think this is just the case for Japan. If we expand this idea, that somewhere out there in the world there are people like this, dying, then you realize that it doesn't make any sense. You come to imagine people living together on the same planet. I think we can give more than a passing thought to imagining that we can change the way things are now, which tells us that just by virtue of being born in a poor country, people have to live with heartbreak. The idea that you can convert anything into money and put a price on things is a bad habit. Maybe the chance we have is to change that.
The people who live in Tohoku as well as the people who were there sightseeing, aren't finding any joy or value in something that's purely monetary through volunteering. It's a difficult thing to express, because it can't be converted into money. I think that though many people understand that this is a difficult thing to express, they just pretend that they don't. If this weren't the case, that people find something that isn't money in the volunteer effort, then the idea that so many would take pleasure out of volunteering in such a terrible situation, or would exhaust themselves for other people while putting up with bad food, would make no sense. People enrich their own lives by doing things for other people, for that support to be more direct makes the people who receive it happier too. Think every day about what you can do for someone far off, try doing what you can. Even if you fail, when you get it in your head to do it differently next time and try harder, I think that can change a person and society as a whole. I think that's caused this change in values.
In the wake of the present incident, a lot of things have been talked about under the bracket of ‘Japan.’ How do you think we can think about relief and this disaster from an international perspective?
In terms of the flow of information, and economically, Japan isn't isolated in the slightest. And so, if you look as Japan as a single person, it may seem like a matter of the left hand being injured, but if you look at the whole world as a person with a single body, Eastern Japan, and Somalia too, are injured. Haiti is still injured. The entire body is riddled with wounds. So in supporting places that we're involved in, first by using what we're directly involved with to positively influence the people around us, it's my hope that those people influence other people who influence other people, and that goes on to change the world. That's why, in that sense, I think Eastern Japan has become a wakeup call for a lot of people living in Japan. Looked at on a global scale, given that it was a large disaster that occurred in a developed country, I wonder if it hasn't been an important chance for an awareness to spread out through the developed world.
Everyone wants the people close to them to be happy. In English people often say, “I wish the best for you and your loved ones.” Who are these “loved ones”? They may be your family. Maybe your friends as well. The people who matter to your friends should also be important to you. And so, when you speak about just how far out your nearest and dearest are, then isn't a matter of that term extending to the entire world?
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I feel like for relief, a lot of it comes from the feeling that people want to do something, and a lot of support comes from the desire to give support in a way that makes someone else happy. Superficially, for instance, you could give someone a sweet to make them happy. But when everyone has sweets it's impossible to eat all of them. In that case, I'd like people to think about what would make people happy whether or not they got a sweet or not. Maybe it's more the case that these people want to give other people sweets. This means it's not a matter of wanting to give, but of wanting to receive. That's the kind of support I want to give. The idea of getting to eat oysters I talked about earlier is part of that support. In other words, it's important to provide a role for people so that they can feel like they're doing something. There is no one who can't be useful, but, when they lose their faith in themselves, or are feeling down, then they get convinced that that's the case. There are many people who have lost their confidence simply from the experience of losing pretty much everything they had managed to get, loss of that degree. People might feel like, “Oh, I used to buy this and that by myself, with money I saved and put aside myself, but now I have to be given everything.” So in order to get people to believe in themselves again, it's important to support without giving. It's support, but it's a strict kind of support. Presenting people with requests like, “Do this for me, please” — I think that's probably a good way to go about giving aid.