Will We Learn?
Timothy S. George
For almost half a century now, we have heard that we must learn from Minamata so that there will be "no more Minamatas." But what is Minamata, and what are its lessons?
From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Chisso Corporation's chemical plant dumped mercury into the sea, destroying the ecosystem, destroying the livelihood of fishing families, tearing the social fabric, and poisoning tens of thousands of people who consumed fish and shellfish in which the mercury had been concentrated. Nearly 2,300 people have been certified and compensated as official victims of Minamata disease (roughly one-third of these are still living), and over 10,000 have been designated as affected by the disease enough to be eligible for lower one-time compensation payments.
The early lessons from Minamata were not positive. In the first few years after the official discovery of Minamata disease in 1956, Chisso learned that it could rely on local and national elites to allow it continue to pollute, and to "solve" the problem with token "sympathy" payments to victims and "pollution control" equipment that did not remove the mercury from its waste.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, citizens-both patients and their new national network of supporters-expanded the possibilities of Japan's postwar democracy when they learned to use the media and the courts to force a more equitable solution that compensated certified victims and found Chisso legally responsible. For the second time, the problems of Minamata disease seemed to be "solved."
But much was left undone: many victims remained uncertified, the government had not been found legally responsible, and Minamata's economy and society remained damaged. In the 1990s, a third "solution" provided lower compensation to many more patients, but only-in an echo of the "sympathy payment agreement" of 1959-if they promised not to apply for certification or to take the government to court over its legal responsibility for the disaster. At the local level, movements to reconcile and rebuild in Minamata made progress, but there were divisions over how best to do this while keeping alive the memories of the tragedy.
"Minamata," like "Hiroshima" or "Vietnam," has become much more than a place name. It is a word that has come to stand for the dark side of high growth, for the rise of the citizens' movement in postwar Japan, and for the persistence of the problems of modernity. It is too early to say whether "Minamata" might also come to stand for humanity's ability to learn from its mistakes.
Timothy S. George
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Rhode Island; historian, living in Rhode Island, USA.
1955 Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
1996 Ph.D., History, Harvard University
Professor George has lived in Japan for a total of over 15 years since 1962. He lived with his family in Minamata from 1993 to 1994 while doing research.
His major publications include:
Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for
Democracy in Postwar Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2001)
Japanese History and Culture from Ancient
to Modern Times: Seven Basic Bibliographies
(second edition, co-authored with John W.
Dower) (Markus Wiener, 1995)
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