「差別のあるところに公害が起こる」（原田［2007:123］）
http://www.arsvi.com/w/hm06.htm
“Pollution Damage happens where there is Discrimination” — Masazumi Harada
“Any distinguishing characteristic, whether social or biological, can serve as a pretext for discrimination and thus a cause of suffering…” — Paul Farmer
Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power. University of California Press, Berkely: 2005 (p. 46)
KouGai公害: the word for pollution used by Masazumi Harada and Ui Jun[1] is deep. A direct translation might be Public公 Damage害. I think of KouGai as a compact way of saying Destruction of the Commons by way of industrial pollution. Perhaps the concept should be expanded to cover pollution in mental and emotional spheres. Maybe we need discrimination and hierarchy to destroy the environment, something along the lines of what Murray Bookchin writes about. That the domination and destruction of nature started with the domination and destruction of people by people…
[1] Ui Jun’s 5 Principles
… The second principle is that third parties do not exist, for there are only two possible sides to these controversies: the side of those who suffer and the side of those who cause their suffering.
… The final principle is that “all organizations based on concentration of power at the center” are generally useless in solving pollution problems and will eventually prove a stumbling block. All successful anti-pollution movements, he argues, are decentralized, based on the full, voluntary, and spontaneous cooperation of their members.
Hopefully the upcoming Hollywood movie will direct attention toward Minamata, and the lessons we can learn from Masazumi Harada, Jun Ui, Michiko Ishimure, Masato Ogata… I am also looking forward the graphic novel, The Minamata Story: An EcoTragedy (author’s site)
Minamata’s OtomeTsuka: Stones Commemorating and Lamenting all Life Lost to Industrial Pollution