We feel your pain: Japan

By F.J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, FEB. 1. Ms. Isona Kakuchi was away at ballet lessons when I called her to apologise for having learnt a little late about the noble thing she and her class of 20 at the Sacred Heart School did on Tuesday.

The sixth-grader lost no relatives or friends in the Gujarat quake. The 12-year-old daughter of a Sri Lankan mother and a Japanese father did not know anybody there, as I learnt from her mother. But, fired up by the images of the plight of children in the quake-devastated region, she and her classmates went on a collection drive. Just as they did a year and a half ago following the earthquake in Turkey.

``She feels great for having done this, and they got themselves a free-dress (no uniform) day at school,'' her mother told me when I asked what impulse her daughter was driven by. It is irrelevant how much was collected and where they sent the savings from their piggy bank. The Indian Embassy told them that they were open round the clock, and that they could also send their donations to the Red Cross.

The class was not alone in the collection effort. It is surprising to observe the tectonic shift in the once utterly apathetic people who did not see the pain in others' lives. A 17- member medical unit from the Japanese Government's Disaster Relief Team is in India and an advance team of 200-strong defence personnel is on its way. But the real story is of the huge number of volunteer units who removed themselves from their work and place of living to go almost 7,000 km away to help in the relief operations. And it is a story much different from those of the Swiss or say the British, the Americans or the French, all of whom have a history of such service.

In 1923, Japan was struck by the great Kanto earthquake. Around 1,43,000 people perished and many of those were left in Yokohama migrated to build Kobe. One would think that having undergone such an experience, the island nation, already used to living as in a global village, would develop a tradition of community outreach services. But it was not to be.

Japan rebuilt itself after the war, and the 1980s saw the ascendancy of an economic superpower and with it the disgusting debasement of fundamental human values among a people well- satiated, well-fed, well-employed and well-paid.

``It was like we lived in a goldfish bowl,'' said Dr. Masami Shimomura, when we went fishing. Pointing to a fish in a pond, he said, ``We are like that, not moved by anything, not concerned with anything but our immediate lives and certainly unwilling to influence change.''

Ironically, it took just half a minute before 6 a.m. in Kobe's winter of 1995 to change that. The world's richest and most mechanised nation was paralysed into inaction after the earthquake because the Murayama Government did not know how to act.

There was no manual, no book. The Health Ministry and the doctors association prevented foreign doctors from landing because they had no Japanese medical degree, which the law required.

The Swiss sniffer dogs? What about their quarantine? The Japanese took weeks to respond to an official Indian request seeking a destination for blankets, pullovers, bandages and the like that Ms. Isona's soulmates mobilised with their pocket money.

The Japanese public couldn't stand it any longer. They forced the Government to drop the rules. Bands of volunteers took leave, even quit their jobs and moved to Kobe by their thousands on foot or on bicycle to share their rice bowl. The Japanese were transformed. Since then they have formed thousands of NGO groups providing succour to Mexico, Mongolia, El Salvador, Turkey, and now India.

After seeing TV documentaries, the Japanese would frequently ask Indians if many of their countrymen really drank water from dirty streams. When this correspondent went to Kobe within three days of the quake that claimed 6,000 lives, it was an extremely common sight to see people drink from streams while others washed their socks or plates.

My mind raced back to the Iraqi-Jordanian border. In 1990, after Mr. Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait, many foreigners fled Kuwait. Millionaire gold merchants and day-wage labourers fought for the same slice of bread handed out by volunteers.

Tragedy is a great leveller. It was Kobe that spawned the young Japanese volunteer, in say Bhuj, who can now proudly tell a saved Indian, ``I am here because I want to be. Because I feel your pain.'' Hopefully, like Japan, now the Indian Government too can get an autonomous disaster relief organisation.

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