Disaster and the Rhetoric of Sacrifice -- Sightings

The ongoing disaster in Japan has caught the imagination of the world.  It has given the world a new perspective on Japan and its people.  We see people seem to take things in stride, don't loot, follow directions, etc.  Of course there's another side -- a culture that includes principles of honor/shame has made it difficult for the government and corporate leadership to be forthcoming about the real threat of the damaged nuclear plants.  It goes to show you that cultures are complex!  We've also been watching as a small group of volunteers risk their lives to try to fix the damaged plants.  There is a cultural element to this as well that raises questions of how we understand and honor those who sacrifice their lives for others.   Beyond all of this we've heard words about divine judgment from American and Japanese figures.  Yuki Miyamoto, a Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University helps us understand the complexity of the situation in this Sightings piece.  I invite you to read and respond.

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Sightings 3/24/2011

Disaster and the Rhetoric of Sacrifice

-- Yuki Miyamoto

Nearly two weeks have passed since a catastrophic earthquake and violent tsunami devastated northeastern Japan. Officials are struggling to calculate the still-mounting death toll and to assess the full scope of destruction, while efforts to avert meltdowns at crippled nuclear power plants intensify. Natural disasters, so often worsened by human failures, activate our religious imaginations.

Too often in times of crisis explicit religious expressions are appalling. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina stimulated an outpouring of hateful sentiment; the hurricane was deemed by some to be God’s punishment for homosexuality in New Orleans. In 2010, Pat Robertson infamously attributed the earthquake in Haiti to the Haitians’ “pact with the Devil.” Now, in connection with Japan’s current plight, right-wing firebrand Glenn Beck has speculated that the quake and tsunami were a “message from God.” To this he added, with telling ambiguity, that he is not “saying” that God caused the earthquake, but also not “not saying” it.

Religious rhetoric has also cropped up in Japan. Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara has claimed that the calamity is a “divine punishment.” “Japanese politics,” Ishihara remarked, “is tainted with egoism and populism. We need to use the tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has attached itself like rust to the mentality of the Japanese people over a long period of time.” Ishihara, a conservative politician whose troubling record also includes racist and sexist comments, later retracted his remarks and offered an apology.

More subtle than such explicit remarks, however, is the religious aura developing around the group of Japanese persons working to contain radiation and incapacitate nuclear reactors on the verge of meltdown. Dubbed by the Western media as the “Fukushima 50,” (though the group comprises more than fifty workers), these volunteers are dousing the burning reactors with water at close range. As the Guardian has put it, the Fukushima 50 “are the nuclear power industry's equivalent of frontline soldiers, exposing themselves to considerable risks while about 800 of their evacuated colleagues watch from a safe distance.” Here aptly analogized with soldiers, these volunteers evince a will to sacrifice themselves on behalf of their country.

As Chris Hogg of the BBC notes, Japan is fond of “heroes who sacrifice everything for the greater good,” in this case a country steeped in a tradition that holds the nation as sacred. Dying for the nation thus evokes a religious sensibility. For example, a Japanese newspaper reported that one woman sent a text message to her husband on the team, saying: “Please be a savior (kyuseishu) of Japan.”

The risks of the Fukushima 50 are indeed of heroic proportions, a fact I appreciate all the more from my comfortable vantage point here in Chicago, thousands of miles from the accident site. At the same time, an unsettling feeling has crept upon me—a feeling that recalls the unease I have experienced at the Yasukuni Shinto shrine in Tokyo, where soldiers who died for the “sacred” Japanese nation-state, which emerged in the nineteenth century and is embodied in the deific emperor, are enshrined. Deifying soldiers who have given their lives on behalf of the country, however, has the effect of glorifying and upholding, rather than challenging, the conditions giving rise to the disasters of war.

Within this religio-political tradition, civilians may also be granted the status of deity after death in Japan. For example, in the Saga prefecture of southwest Japan, one shrine is dedicated to police officer Masuda Keitaro, who devoted himself to treating those suffering from cholera in 1895. He himself eventually fell victim to the epidemic he was fighting and passed away. Since containment of the disease coincided with Masuda’s demise, the officer’s death was deemed a sacred sacrifice, and he was enshrined as a protector of the villagers from disease.

The present threat of illness is of a different sort, but like Masuda, the Fukushima 50 are widely hailed as “sacrificial” heroes for their noble and necessary endeavors. Without wanting to diminish the genuine dedication and risk of this group, however, one might call critical attention to the problematic religious underpinnings of the worshipful attitude with which they are being treated, for such attitudes may mask a latent nationalism that sees the nation as sacred and therefore infallible; such attitudes—hardly unique to Japan—may explain in part the Japanese government’s reticence about the full extent of the threat of nuclear disaster.

Whatever the case, the religious tradition and sacrificial rhetoric that inform such attitudes threaten to divert attention from investigations of what “necessitated” the risk, and potential deaths, in the first place. The glorifying rhetoric of sacrifice in service of the greater good potentially deflects attention from the task of interrogating the conditions that gave rise to disaster—in this case, the matter of nuclear power: its threat to individuals, communities, and the global environment.

We do not know, of course, if the Fukushima 50 will someday be enshrined as deities for their sacrifices. But perhaps the best show of gratitude we might now offer would be to turn a critical eye to our own complicity in the disaster to which they respond. Japan has for too long relied on uranium and plutonium for energy, notwithstanding the fact that there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste, nor to make the power plants that convert these elements into usable energy entirely secure.

In gratefully considering the risks and efforts of the Fukushima 50, we must move beyond potentially-distracting religious rhetoric and sensibilities to remind ourselves who is accountable for their lives, and why we have so far failed to choose a safer energy alternative that would not require such risks.

References

Max Blumenthal, “Blaming Katrina on Gays, Israel, and Man-on-Horse Sex,” Huffington Post, September 5, 2005.

Nicholas D. Kristof, “Some Frank Talk about Haiti,” New York Times, January 20, 2010.

Elizabeth Tenety, “Glenn Beck: Japan earthquake ‘message’ from God,” The Washington Post, March 15, 2011.

Tania Branigan and Justin McCurry, “Fukushima 50 battle radiation risks as Japan nuclear crisis deepens,” Guardian, March 15, 2011.

Chris Hogg, “Japan Hails the heroic ‘Fukushima 50’,” BBC News, March 17, 2011.

“Tokyo shōbō chō: Hibaku to tatakai hōsui—kazoku ‘kyūseishu ni’” (“Tokyo Fire Department: Watering and battling against radiation exposure—‘be a savior,’ said the wife,”) Yomiuri Online, March 21, 2011.

Komatsu, Kazuhiko. Kami ni natta hitobito: Nihonjin ni totte “Yasukuni no kami” towa nani ka (People who became gods: What ‘Yasukuni Deities” means to Japanese) (Tokyo: Kobunsha, 2006).

Yuki Miyamoto holds a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School and is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University. Her book Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility After Hiroshima is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.

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This month’s Religion and Culture Web Forum is written by D. Max Moerman and entitled “The Death of the Dharma: Buddhist Sutra Burials in Early Medieval Japan.” In eleventh-century Japan, Buddhists fearing the arrival of the "Final Dharma"--an age of religious decline--began to bury sutras in sometimes-elaborate reliquaries. Why entomb a text, making it impossible for anyone to see or read it? And what do such practices teach us about the meaning and purpose of texts in Buddhism and other religions? Max Moerman of Barnard College takes up these questions with responses from Jeff Wilson (Renison University College), James W. Watts (Syracuse University) and Vincent Wimbush (Claremont Graduate University).

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Worst Earthquakes‏ in History

Worst Earthquakes‏ in History

1. Chimbote, Peru: 1970

Estimated Deaths: 70,000. Richter Scale: 7.9

2. Messina, Italy: 1908
Estimated Deaths: 72,000. Richter Scale: 7.2

3. Pakistan: 2005
Estimated Deaths: 86,000. Richter Scale: 7.6

4. Sichuan, China: 2008
Estimated Deaths: 87,587. Richter Scale: 7.9

5. Ashgabat, Turkey: 1948
Estimated Deaths: 110,000. Richter Scale: 7.3

6. Kanto, Japan: 1923
Estimated Deaths: 142,000 Richter Scale: 7.9

7. Haiti: 2010
Estimated Deaths: 222,570. Richter Scale: 7.1

Week of Compassion Response to Japan Quakes and Tsunamis

From Week of Compassion, the Disaster Relief arm of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). 

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An 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest recorded in Japan's history, has triggered a tsunami affecting northern Japan, killing hundreds. The tsunami triggered warnings throughout Asia and coastal areas of the US and Latin America. Evacuations were reported in coastal areas in the US, including Oregon. Waves that hit Hawaii early today did not cause major damage, according to news reports, but we will continue to monitor the situation.

The worst-hit area in Japan was the northeastern port city of Sendai, which was the closest metropolitan area to the quake's epicenter. Officials said up to 300 bodies were found; the death toll there and elsewhere is expected to rise, the New York Times reported.

Week of Compassion, through our partners, is closely watching the situation along the U.S. Pacific Coast and around the Pacific Rim. We have been in touch with our regional ministers along the West Coast in the case that needs emerge should the tsunamis cause damage. In addition, Church World Service domestic response teams are monitoring the situation in Hawaii and the West Coast.

Through Global Ministries, WoC has already responded to our primary partner, the United Church of Christ in Japan, with an initial emergency response grant and will continue to be in close touch with them as they respond to this devastating tragedy.

We offer you this beautiful prayer written by the Rev. Dr. John Tamilio, pastor of Pilgrim United Christian Church in Cleveland, Ohio, in hopes that you might find it helpful as you pray for our sisters and brothers in Japan.

If you are moved to respond to this humanitarian crisis, please donate online.

Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership in times like these. I send you my heartfelt gratitude.

Note:  Not mentioned here is the possibility of a meltdown at one or more nuclear plants -- making this an even more problematic disaster.  Ministries like Week of Compassion work with groups already in the country so this aid gets right to work.

The Character of Nations

In an age that values cleverness over wisdom, it is not surprising that many superficial but clever books get more attention than a wise book like 'The Character of Nations' by Angelo Codevilla, even though the latter has far more serious implications for the changing character of our own nation.

The recently published second edition of Professor Codevilla’s book is remarkable just for its subject, quite aside from the impressive breadth of its scope and the depth of its insights. But clever people among today’s intelligentsia disdain the very idea that there is such a thing as “national character.”

Everything from punctuality to alcohol consumption may vary greatly from one country to another, but the “one world” ideology and the “multicultural” dogma make it obligatory for many among the intelligentsia to act as if none of this has anything to do with the poverty, corruption, and violence of much of the Third World or with the low standard of living in the Soviet Union, one of the most richly endowed nations on earth when it came to natural resources.

The Character of Nations is about far more than the fact that there are different behavior patterns in different countries — that, for example, “it is unimaginable to do business in China without paying bribes” but “to offer one in Japan is the greatest of faux pas.”

The real point is to show what kinds of behaviors produce what kinds of consequences — in the economy, in the family, in the government, and in other aspects of human life. Nor do the repercussions stop there. Government policies are not only affected by the culture of the country, but can in turn have a major impact on that culture, for good or ill.

Written in plain and sometimes blunt words, The Character of Nations is nevertheless the product of a man whose knowledge and experience span the globe, extending into economics, philosophy, and other fields, as well as encompassing the wisdom of the ancients and the follies of the moderns.

The book is an education in itself, more of an education than many students are likely to get at an Ivy League college. However, its purpose is not academic but to clarify the issues facing us all today when “the character of the American way of life is up for grabs perhaps more than ever before,” as the author puts it.

While nations differ, particular kinds of behavior produce particular kinds of results in country after country. Moreover, American society in recent years has been imitating behavior patterns that have produced negative — and sometimes catastrophic — consequences in many other countries around the world.

Among these patterns have been a concentration of decision-making power in government officials, an undermining of the role of the family, a “non-judgmental” attitude toward behavior, and a dissolution of the common bonds that hold a society together, leading to atomistic self-indulgences and group-identity politics that increasingly pits different segments of society against each other.

Those among the intelligentsia who say that we should “learn from other countries” almost invariably mean that we should imitate what other countries have done. Angelo Codevilla argues that we should learn from other countries’ mistakes, especially when those same mistakes have repeatedly produced bad results in many countries and among many very different peoples, living under very different political systems.

Putting ever more economic decisions in the hands of those with political power is just one of those mistakes with a track record of producing painful repercussions in many countries around the world. These repercussions have included not only serious economic losses but, even more important, a loss of personal freedom and self-respect, as ever-wider segments of the population become supplicants and sycophants of those with the power to dispense largess or to make one’s life miserable with legalistic or bureaucratic harassment.

We in America have taken large steps in that direction in recent years, and are accelerating our moves in that direction this year. Getting some clearer sense of what this risks is just one of many reasons to read The Character of Nations.

WRITTEN by Thomas Sowell at National Review on June 10th, 2009

Real American Hero: Donald Rudolph

They are leaving us now on a daily basis, the American armed service veterans who served and fought during the greatest military conflict in the history of the planet Earth. The youngest of the men and women who served their country, whose efforts secured freedom and democracy for generations to come, and who have survived to continue as living representatives of those long-ago days are now in their 80's. On May 30th, 2006, the advancement of age and the ravages of illness finally took from us a man who the Imperial Japanese could not. On that date, 85-year old Donald Rudolph of Minnesota died from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He left behind his wife, Helen Rudolph, who remains with us for now to tell the story to their three grandchildren of a man on whom "the fellas in his platoon relied on for leadership" and who he had said was doing "his duty to protect them because they were going to protect him." The story of Donald Rudolph, particularly his actions on February 5th, 1945, is one that deserves to be known and remembered by all Americans. On that day few realized that the world was entering the final months of what had been a conflict which had raged across the globe for more than five years. Just a few weeks earlier, American forces fighting in the Pacific theatre against Japan had stormed the main island of Luzon in the Philippines and began a 110-mile drive on the capital city of Manila. They were involved in the process of liberating island-by-island the territories that the Japanese had invaded, conquered, and subjugated over the past few years. On that early February day, Don Rudolph was a Sergeant and platoon leader with the Army's 20th infantry, Sixth infantry division which was engaged in a pitched battle for the heavily fortified town of Munoz. Rudolph was administering first aid to a wounded soldier when his platoon suddenly came under heavy fire from a group of Japanese who were concealed in a culvert. He grabbed his rifle and some grenades, and moved forward with his men supporting him with their own rifle cover. He reached the culvert safely and was able to take out three of the Japanese soldiers there, and then he began to make his way across open ground to attack some pillboxes which were housing Japanese machine guns. On reaching the first he tossed a grenade through an opening there. Not thinking the job done, Rudolph then tore the cover off the pillbox with his bare hands and dropped another grenade inside. He moved on to a 2nd pillbox and utilized a pickax to bust it open, then took out its combatants with rifle fire and another grenade. He continued to move along the pillboxes, taking out six more, when suddenly a Japanese tank arrived and began to attack their platoon. Sergeant Rudolph leaped atop the tank and dropped a grenade through the turret, killing the Japanese crew. In the aftermath, for his actions he was given a battlefield commission to the rank of Lieutenant. On August 23rd, just ten days before the Japanese would formally surrender, President Harry S. Truman presented Lt. Donald Rudolph with the Medal of Honor stating that in acting in "complete disregard for his own safety" Rudolph had "cleared a path for an advance which culminated in one of the most decisive victories of the Philippine campaign." Unlike many of his fellow service persons in his 'Greatest Generation', Don Rudolph went on to live a long, healthy life. He finally retired from military service in 1963, and was later marching in a Minneapolis Veteran's Day parade in 1969 when he was interviewed and said "When I see that flag, it does something to me inside. I want to jump up and salute." What a sentiment. It is important that we not only share his sentiment, but that we also remember to jump up and salute the real American heroes such as Donald Rudolph whose actions have made and continue to make freedom possible both in the United States and around the world. NOTE: This is the continuation of the 'Real American Heroes' series remembering U.S. military heroes, all the entries of which you can view by clicking on to that below label. Thanks as always to the www.mishalov.com website.

Pearl Harbor Ignited Nation in Faith

I was trying to think of an appropriate way to blend my usual 'Sunday Sermon' article with a remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day. I could have just went with two separate articles, but there had to be many connections between faith and the events of December 7th, 1941 when the Japanese attacked the U.S. Naval forces at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This sneak attack, which directly ushered America into World War II, resulted in President Franklin D. Roosevelt calling that Sunday morning "A date which will live in infamy!" Hawaii was a U.S. territory at the time, it would not become a full state until 1959, and it was a major American naval outpost in the South Pacific. The United States had never been attacked directly from an outside enemy, considering the Civil War as a purely internal struggle. So as the 353 Japanese bombers continually descended over Pearl without warning on that peaceful, sunny Sunday morning and began their devastating bombing and strafing runs, the significant American forces stationed there were taken completely by surprise. The Japanese inflicted tremendous damage that morning in an attempt to keep America from influencing their plans to dominate Southeast Asia. Numerous American ships and aircraft were destroyed and damaged, while 2,402 Americans lost their lives at Pearl and another 1,282 were wounded. The Japanese were allies of the Germans, and Hitler and his Nazi regime was already engaged in overrunning Europe. The Americans had tried to stay out of the war to this point, but in the aftermath of the attack at Pearl, Hitler declared war on the United States as an ally of Japan. At that time the U.S. was not the most powerful nation on earth, it was a budding military power that was still trying to fully emerge from the internal struggle of its lengthy economic Depression of the 1930's. America's passions were enflamed by this attack and the deaths of so many young servicepersons, and the nation was rallied to open their eyes to the full scope of the danger in sitting back and not engaging the Nazis and the Japanese Imperialists. When you look closely at the basic elements of the key nations in the titanic struggle that was WWII, one stands out above all to any person of faith. The Germans and the Japanese cultures were overrun by Nazis and Imperialists, and in Italy the Socialists were in charge. Combined they were known as the 'Axis' powers who wanted to spread their ideologies and power, and none had a place for God. The Americans and British and the rest of what became known as the 'Allies' were largely God-fearing nations who frequently called on their faith to sustain during difficult times. That faith should always be appreciated by anyone who analyzes the eventual victory of the Allies in this epic struggle. A victory by the Allies signified a victory for freedom, democracy, and religious faith over the purely secular Axis regimes. Americans flooded their churches during these periods, praying for the health and safety of their loved ones, and for victory for our side. At home, they drew strength from this faith and forged one of the greatest industrial responses that mankind has ever seen, turning America's manufacturing capabilities from civilian purposes to military, allowing us to eventually overtake what had been a military superiority for the Axis at the outset. On the battlefields, in the skies, and on the seas, American military personnel were overwhelmingly Christian, prayed regularly, and turned to their faith during the difficult battles and circumstances in which they found themselves. I have no doubt that the one true God hears the prayers of His faithful. He allows our free will and our human choices to lead events here on earth, but he will intervene at the worst times when the direction of humanity itself is at stake. I have no doubt that God Himself intervened at numerous key times to give an ultimate advantage to the Allied forces in World War II. He granted us this intervention because we did not turn our backs on Him, and in fact turned even more towards Him during this difficult time. The lesson that we can learn is that it is important to turn to the Lord during difficult times in both our national and personal experiences. But we should also not return to a spiritual malaise when things are going well. Man's nature has always been to drift away from God when things are going good, thinking that we are doing well without Him when the truth is that it is His very blessings that put us in such a good position. We all need to turn more to God, in good times and in bad. Pearl Harbor became a rallying cry for the 'greatest generation', but there is question as to whether today's America can possibly respond in the same way to an existential threat, such as that from Radical Islam. We have drifted steadily away from God as a society and a nation since the end of WWII. We need to remember on this Sunday, December 7th, that Sunday morning 67 years ago, and never forget the blessings that God has given our nation throughout its history. God bless the living Veteran survivors of that fateful day. Their work, their sacrifice, their faith lives on now in fame, not in infamy.