Events and Updates

Pictures from Fukushima Photo Exhibition in Delhi.
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Friday 27th September

CNDP members talking to students about Fukushima. New Delhi [Friday October 4, 2013]

Let’s raise alarm on the deepening crisis in Fukushima: a call for global solidarity

Join the Hydrangea protests by fasting every Friday.
Prepare for the upcoming ‘Fukushima is Here’ global event.
Raise awareness about Fukushima in your community.
Think what you can do at your own level to raise voice.
Join others locally/virtually to coordinate a chain of protest actions

Dear Friends,

Fukushima is far from being over. It is getting worse. With thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive water threatening to contaminate the Pacific ocean and even topple the crippled reactor, and 1400 tonnes of lethal spent fuel lying atop reactor no.4, Fukushima today is one of the biggest challenges humanity is faced with. The ongoing accident has not only proved nuclear safety an oxymoron, but has also highlighted the complacency, inefficiency and callousness of the industry-government nexus in a country like Japan which is regarded as very advanced – both in terms of technology and management. Such cover ups, denials, and unaccountability are not confined to Japan, but communities facing the radiation hazards along the entire nuclear chain have experienced it in every country of the world that has adopted this technology.

While the crisis in Fukushima aggravates, we are also witnessing an attitude among the governments and nuclear promoter agencies like the IAEA to reverse the lessons of Fukushima and the upsurge of popular disapproval that the accident had generated initially. The nuclear establishments everywhere are trying to manufacture a sense of normalcy, nuclear industry is busy projecting fictitious claims of nuclear renaissance, and the corporate media has resumed repeating its old pro-nuclear cliche’s. However, concerned citizens and the presently/potentially affected communities are protesting despite all efforts to gag such voices. Massive protests have recently forced the governments to abandon nuclear plans and shut down reactors in the US and China, while Taiwan is heading for a popular referendum on nuclear power. Common people in India, mostly farmers, fisherfolk and tribals are bravely facing brutalstate repression for their peaceful movements against nuclear projects that stand to threaten their safety and livelihoods.

A coordinated international protest is required today to highlight the worsening situation in Fukushima and to raise awareness about the catastrophe’s lessons. We all need to raise our voices together to demand an end to nuclear insanity. We should learn from the experiences of horizontal mobilisations in the recent years and start a chain of imaginative actions at personal and collective levels.

We, some self-motivated friends, from US, Canada, France, Australia, Belgiumand other countries are willing to do some actions. Linked through human connectedness and our concerns for a safe, sustainable, equatable and better world, are starting a fast every Friday starting week in solidarity with the hydrangea ongoing Fridays in Japan where friends have been protesting and praying for a nuclear free world. We are doing this to raise awareness in our own countries and to underline the shared concern. We have been following the unfolding catastrophe in Fukushima since the beginning and it has made us realise the value of shared dreams and struggles to save our planet.

We would observe fast on Friday and would try reaching out to people through various means that we hope to experiment with and learn along our way. We would urge others also to expand this chain and initiate their own imaginative actions according to their convenience and local contexts.

Here are some tentative actions that we have thought, to make this initiative more effective:

– collect solidarity message for Fukushima in our communities and send them to friends in Japan.
– prepare information brochures/pamphlets on Fukushima and distribute it while we are on fast.
– put up photo exhibition on Fukushima on the venue where we observe our fast. Friends can choose any public/cultural/religious place to observe the fast.
– the Friday fasts can be continued for any length decided by friends according to their own convenience, capacity or local social/political context
– we would jointly and independently share our experiences and urge others to join, share their suggestions and solidarities.

This is an open call from our hearts, to rise up and speak out about Fukushima. We understand that actions like these can only sustain and succeed if there is flexibility and space for everybody to improvise and take forward the chain.