Fukushima Mon Amour(*)

This post goes a little beyond the ordinary, generally more light-hearted purpose of this blog, but I need to vent… I am finding the news coverage of the recent dramatic events in Japan positively sickening. What kind of a douche can in his right mind draw a comparison between the possible meltdown at Fukushima power plant and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and go on to add “as the only people to have experienced an atomic bombing, the citizens of Japan are rightly scared of radiations and their possible effect on human health”? I am asking, people. Because it is our responsibility, not just as readers, but as citizens of this planet and repositories of the soul of mankind, to keep in check these miserable doom mongers and sensationalism brokers that dare to call themselves journalists, and to voice our disapproval and disgust. I am filled with revulsion by the shameless exploitation of this human drama and by the total lack of respect afforded to those who are in the midst of it. News report after news report, same ignorant verbiage, the same senseless cackle… They won’t shut up unless you stop listening.

Great tragedies are beyond words. Dignity calls for silence.

Do me, do yourself, do the Japanese people a favour – turn off the TV, switch off the internet, stop hiding behind your newspapers. And start acting. Today.

 https://donation.redcross.org.hk/onlinedonation/user_donation.asp

(*) Hiroshima mon Amour (Japanese title 二十四時間の情事, 24 jikan no jôji or « A 24-hour liaison ») was written by Marguerite Duras and filmed in 1959 by French movie director Alain Resnais; the movie recounts the story of an actress starting a relationship with a Japanese man she meets while filming a movie on peace in post-war Hiroshima. The central themes of the movie are the duty of memory and the utter impossibility for words to capture the essence of great human tragedies.