Text Fwd: Nuclear disaster: a bitter pill for humankind

Hankyoreh
[Column] Nuclear disaster: a bitter pill for humankind
By Kim Sun-woo, poet and novelist
Posted on : Mar.22,2011
　
My first response to news of the Japanese earthquake was fear and horror. This was followed by pity and distress. There was an old woman who, the moment she was rescued from the scene of the disaster, said, “I’m sorry, I have caused you trouble.” Those words struck against my heart, which had been blocked with such an intense fear, and it was at that point that my tears began to flow. I saw my image reflected back in that old woman. Composure, consideration for others, kindness - all at once she awakened me to all the things I wanted to learn.

It seems that what makes a person cry is another person. In good times and bad, people cry and laugh through people. As individuals who come into this world with nothing and leave with nothing, the greatest asset we could be said to possess is our capacity for love, compassion, and sympathy. I believe this may be the most unyielding strength that has allowed human history to continue on this planet even amid a never-ending stream of disasters both natural and made by humans.

Now we need to take another step forward from this disaster. However unpleasant an experience this enormous disaster has been for all of humankind, I believe now that it could also serve as truly good medicine, depending where we go united in this pain, and how. The time has come for us to put a powerful check on a world environment and human avarice that take us closer to crisis every day. The pain Japan is enduring right now may be the cross that prompts an awakening in humankind. An earthquake, a tsunami, and then a nuclear disaster. This is something that could happen anywhere on Earth. Had it happened in South Korea, we would have suffered even greater devastation, given how ridiculously underprepared we are.
I recall the words of Franz Alt, the ecological economist who asked, “Does there need to be another major nuclear accident for us to change our atomic energy policy?”

Today, in the 21st century, we find ourselves in the midst of tremendous environmental catastrophes, racing toward the crisis of codestruction. Within this troubling ecological crisis, there are places on this planet where people are living next to potential atomic bombs. Yet because they are cheap and convenient right now, we go on about “developing nuclear energy that is absolutely safe no matter what happens,” even going so far as to attach the deceptive descriptor of “green energy.”

It was Japan, in the early spring of 2011, that stripped away all of this fanciful myth amid tremendous suffering. As the scales fell away from our eyes, discussions toward the halting of nuclear development began to ferment in every corner of the world. In point of fact, these discussions should have taken place a long time ago, and nuclear development should have long ago disappeared from the face of the Earth.

Essentially, Fukushima happened because we failed to take any lesson from Chernobyl. If we cannot learn anything from the situation today in Japan, a country that created and fostered the myth of “the world’s best nuclear power plant safety,” where will the next catastrophe strike? Will there be any future left for humankind afterward?

Embarrassingly, the Korean government, amid all of this, has been focused on loudly proclaiming that there is no problem with any of the country’s nuclear power plants and that they are utterly safe. It has announced its intent to spur on the exportation of constructing more nuclear power plants. All around us we see an ignorance that fails to grasp any of the inner meaning for the future in this disaster.

The reason people all of the world are eager to help Japan right now is probably because they sense that the catastrophe is not Japan’s alone. We must turn it into an important turning point. The decision is ours: codestruction or coexistence. One also gets the sense that amid the order of the universe, there are some tormented individuals who are pondering how to awaken an ignorant humankind suffering the profound illness of technology worship and digging its own grave.

It is not about Korea helping Japan, but about humankind helping humankind, and about helping our future selves and other children. One thing exists because of the presence of another - if the latter is annihilated, so too is the former. We are neighbors living right up against one another, linked together on the pale blue dot that is the Earth. We must show our strength. I can see the pure face of hope that comes after a great sadness. Do not forget. Together we can.
　　
The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh.