2012, in a word: mu-seki-nin

I think the man has got it right. This is an excerpt from writer Roger Pulvers' special essay for the Japan Times:



"In Japan, it's customary at the end of each year to choose a word that best describes the esprit of that year. My choice for 2012, hands down, is "musekinin."

Musekinin means "irresponsibility"; but the Japanese word is somewhat stronger in tone than the English one, more akin to "a total absence of responsibility," or "a lack of a sense of liability."

In the general election on Dec. 16, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was elected in a landslide on the pledge to pump a mass of new money into the economy in order to jump-start it out of its stalled misery. But this is precisely what the LDP did when it was in power in the 1990s, pouring tens of billions of yen into public-works projects that left Japan with much often-useless concrete infrastructure and the mother of all national debts. Why, one asks, would such a policy work now, when the debt is already galactic in size and most local governments have no appetite for old-fashion pump-priming?

The LDP answer to anything blocking its way is the same as that given to tank-soldier Shiba, as the mentality has not changed in three-quarters of a century: Run 'em down.

No matter that the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, was followed by events at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant leading to three reactor meltdowns, because the LDP government is now poised to okay the restart of most of the country's dozens of idled reactors. And that despite adequate safety checks, which should have been conducted before the plants were built, not having been carried out.

It is ironic, too, that both major parties — the LDP and the then-ruling Democratic Party of Japan — kicked off campaigning in the recent election, which began on Dec. 4, in Fukushima.

The residents of that prefecture have been treated like the unwanted. They have been deprived of information and sufficient compensation. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the owner and operator of the stricken nuclear plant, has simply wished they would go away — which, with time, they will, one way or another.

As with the millions of Asian victims of Japanese aggression prior to the end of World War II in 1945, the policy adopted after the events is to mollify with ambiguous and insincere apologies ... and wait until the last one dies.

The same "run 'em down" attitude is again, basically, not far from being the mindset of the corporate bosses in the nuclear industry — or, if not run 'em down, then "run 'em out" — which is what they did to the people of the radiation-affected districts of Fukushima Prefecture.

In this way, politicians, bureaucrats and the corporate elite are evading responsibility for either the collapse and stagnation of Japan's economy or the contamination of its land, air and water, and what that has meant for people's livelihoods.

They have not apologized in any meaningful way nor have they shown any true sense of responsibility for these two catastrophes of mismanagement and cover-up regarding the real causes of the economy's collapse and the nuclear disaster. Their solution is to return to the status quo ante, dig in their heels, pick up their antiquated weapons — the only tools at their disposal — and carry on fighting.

This is what is meant by musekinin as we approach what may be the point of no return that this country faces in 2013."


(for the full essay, including the reference to Ryotaro Shiba's Manchuria experience of being told "run 'em down", please go to The Japan Times online, 12/12/30)