So what did Minamata mean to you ?
C.W. Nicol
In the early 197O'S I was working for the
Environmental Protection Service of Environment
Canada, as Emergency Officer, West Coast.My
job was to deal with sudden environmental
accidents such as oil spills, and was only
too aware of the costs and difficulties in
some cases the impossibilities of cleaning
up pollution. One of the jobs I had done
for the Canadian government was to travel
to the Seto Inland Sea to see the damage
and the efforts to clean up the oil spill
from Mizushima. It horrified me.
Before getting this job I had twice lived
and studied in Japan, and loved the rich
coastal ecology, with its marvelous bidiversity,
and the marvelous seafoods. I was, though,
aware of pollution problems.
I'll never forget teaching a certain chemical company's senior and middle class executives English as a part-time job to help me through my studies. As their was a chemical company, I thought they would need to handle some specialist words, words that I thought they would come up against at some time from a concerned public. I was soon stopped and told that "Environmental pollution does not effect our daily lives, and we do not need those words." I got angry then and called them ignorant and stupid, and walked off the job.
Surely, no company official in Japan would say that to me now, not after Minamata.
Above the desk in my North Vancouver office, I had a lovely but sad photograph of a mother holding her crippled daughter in the bath. The love and tragedy emanated from that photograph and every visitor to may office saw it. Underneath in big letter I had written : REMEMBER MINAMATA.
Yes indeed, remember Minamata. That picture and that message told me of what I really had to do, to protect the environment from poison, Minamata, cont. to protect the public, and especially the young, from being crippled by industrial greed, corruption, carelessness, ignorance, and all the evils that were the true cause of the Minamata Tragedy.
The picture made me sad and angry, yet in some way it gave me courage when I had to deal with people who might think they were more important and powerful than a young and minor environmental official.
I've read dozens of articles and several books about Minamata, and as I am not a victim, nor have I researched Minamata personally, I hesitate to writecand yet, that one picture altered my life, and still today I write and speak fiercely about environmental destruction of any kind. It gets me into a fury. What would any father want to do to somebody who would poison and cripple his child? Tell me truthfully, what would you do?
It still astounds me, this saintly patience of the people of Minamata who lost loved ones, lost health, lost a livelihood that would have continued for centuries had this gross travesty of justice and social sense not been committed.
Yet the tragedy continues, and is spreading to developing nations all over the world, and Japan could and should be doing more to help educate and prevent the increasing and deadly problems of pollution. Surely, this is our challenge for the next century, and if we don't face and meet that challenge what future does humankind have?
If the knowledge and experience gained by the Minamata Tragedy is wasted, that will be a crime even worse than the original one, and we should all take both the blame and the consequences. I for one that I will never, never forget Minamata.
C.W. Nicol
C.W.Nicol was born in Southern Wales in 1940. At the age of 17, after graduating from a high school, he went to Canada with his former high school teacher to do research on Arctic wild animals. At the age of 19, he came back to England to enter a university. Being fascinated with Arctic area, he withdrew from school the following year. He moved to Canada to work as a technical officer of Canadian Fisheries on the Arctic area, he visited Japan in 1962, and received Karate training for two and a half years.
In 1975, C.W.Nicol came to Japan as the vice-director of Canadian pavilion for Okinawa Marin Exposition. He has been in Japan as a writer ever since he resigned from Canadian Government in 1978. From 1980, he has lived at the foot of Mt.Kurohime in Nagano Prefecture, engaging in variety of cultural activities and writing activity, attaching importance to nature. He is the author of more than 90 works.
gTwelve Arctic Explorationsh, gC.W.Nicolfs Account of Young Daysh, gA Cry of the Wildh, gMy Wild Lifeh, gC.W.Nicolfs Record of Natureh, gA Story of Arctic Crowsh, gMOGUSh, gYugyoh, etc.
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