Playing the blame game

Put in a deliberately vague way: Whenever an event occurs that results in a large loss of either human lives or economic stability, people often look for a scapegoat, someone else to pin responsibility on. Sometimes the identity of this entity is obvious — enemies of the state, a greedy corporation, or even a blundering, seemingly incompetent individual.

It's difficult to blame "Mother Nature" for the problems that humanity has — Governor Ishihara called the disaster "divine retribution" and was severely reprimanded for his allegations, and in a society that seems to have complete control over the forces of the earth, it seems difficult for people to believe that humans have not (yet) domesticated and presided over nature too, hence the desire to look for an actual individual to lay the blame on.

It should come as no surprise, then, that people are looking for someone to blame for the issues that have arisen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors over the past couple of months — issues that have driven some people out of their homes and even out of the country, issues that have made the implementation of new standards such as actively practising Cool Biz and turning off lights in order to adhere with setsuden regulations. Other than energy conservation, however, is a widespread — if not somewhat subdued — concern about radiation levels in and around the Kanto region.

As summer draws nearer and the mushimushi weather rapidly approaches, people remain dedicated to finding someone to blame for their necessary forgoing of air conditioning — or aircon, as we so cutely call it in Japanese — and delayed trains. In order to find an appropriate scapegoat though, it is important to look at the major players in the game: There's the Tokyo Electric Power Company — otherwise known as TEPCO — the workers who were in charge of maintaining the reactor, the government, and of course, the Japanese people. The only way to blame the Japanese people though is to fault them for relying on nuclear energy, hardly a valid argument in this case — albeit one that has caused many a protest.

Let's break it down, then, shall we?
TEPCO owns and is thus in charge of maintaining the nuclear reactors — some people believe that they should be held responsible for the released radiation because they pushed the government to allow them to use the reactors another 10 years. The New York Times, which originally broke this story, alleges that the regulatory committee was aware that there were flaws in the reactors' systems, but still pushed for an extension of use otherwise.

Using this same argument, people also hold the government responsible because they were the ones who originally approved the decision not to decommission the reactors as originally planned, and maintain that Japan would not be facing issues with radiation had the reactors been swapped out as they were supposed to.

Others say that it was the workers who were at the plant who are responsible for the radiation that has been released into the air — it was the employees' responsibility, they claim, to ensure that the safety systems worked fine. Some of the workers did run away, it's true, but many of them did not — these were the heroic individuals that later came to be known as the Fukushima 50 — and we can hardly blame them, since they worked to help out.

So what is the government doing in response to this? According to Japan Subculture, the Japanese police have begun investigating TEPCO under the charge of professional negligence. Well, that's an interesting argument — and one of the most recent ones too. It remains to be determined whether they will actually find anything, but it is interesting to see where a public entity — the Japanese police force — is attempting to place its blame. It's hard to say at this point whether there will be any consequences, but if the police investigation discovers anything, TEPCO administration officials are looking at being charged as criminals. And it wouldn't be the first time that they have been accused of deliberately holding something back from the press, so with a track record like theirs, they seem to be the perfect victims.