#michikoishimure — Public Fediverse posts

.> Towards the end of the 1950s, the people in a small fishing village on Minamata Bay in Kyushu, Japan, began to suffer from a terrible disease.
.> Their limbs were paralysed, their lips unmovable; and they cried aloud like dogs howling in madness. Japanese scientists discovered that this strange disease was caused by waste from Chisso Corporation's factory, located in Minamata City, which had polluted not only the coastal waters but also the fish and the shellfish.
.> There was one woman visitor to this fishing village who made calls on these poor victims. She was Ishimure Michiko, a poet and housewife. She kept records of all she saw and heard during her visits to the victims. Among those she visited were a blind boy who could not talk but fumbled for a baseball bat with which to hit at stones; a fisherman's wife who, longing to live a healthy life once more and to go fishing with her husband, died in convulsive agony; a beautiful little girl who lived a death-like life; and an old man who died in madness, rending the wall and hitting his head against the head-board of his bed.
.> In profound sympathy, understanding and anguish, Ishimure Michiko wrote her documentary account, Kugai Jodo (Pure Land Poisoned Sea), which was subtitled 'Our Minamata Disease.' This documentary brought the true results of industrialisation vividly to the attention of the Japanese people, and an enormous reaction ensued. The book openly and effectively questioned the 'productivity-first and profit-first' attitude of industrialised Japan.
.> Ishimure Michiko herself organised a civic group to assist victims of Minamata Disease and launched a movement to secure adequate compensation for them from Chisso Corporation.
.> (N.B. This extract uses the Japanese convention of putting the family name first and the personal name second.)

.> Source: Adapted from Matsui, Y. (1975) Protest and the Japanese Woman, Japan Quarterly, 22(1), pp. 31-32.

.> The resistance of local and national authorities and the chemical industry was stubborn. Ostracized by unaffected residents whose living depended upon the polluting company, and over protestations even of relatives, Mrs. ISHIMURE persisted. A collection of essays by her and others, Waga Shimin�Minamata-byo Toso (Minamata Disease�My Dead People), was published in 1972. A second book, a compilation of her own perceptive writings previously carried in leading magazines and newspapers, Rumin no Miyako (City of Drifters), was in its third printing within a month after publication in March 1973.
.> As scientists, publicists and committees of concerned citizens have gained hearing in Tokyo, the Health and Welfare Ministry belatedly has acted. Though the chemical industry has begun corrective measures, the battle still is not won. As Mrs. ISHIMURE chronicles it, the Minamata tragedy is only a part of the ongoing struggle between the simple innocence of fishermen and farmers and the tyranny of mass industrialization that threatens to dehumanize society.
.> In electing MICHIKO ISHIMURE to receive the 1973 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes her as the "voice of her people" in their struggle against the industrial pollution that has been distorting and destroying their lives.

.> A shy, frail housewife and aspiring poet, MICHIKO ISHIMURE became a determined documentarist when "businessmen with no conscience" allowed toxic waste to pollute her community. Arousing the public will, she demonstrated how exacting search for fact can overcome bureaucratic inertia and hostile industrial interests.
.> Minamata was a naturally beautiful but poor fishing and farming center when one of Japan's pioneer chemical companies established itself there in 1908. Growing into a great chemical complex before, and especially after, World War II, the company became the principal employer and dominant influence in local politics and government.
.> Official non-interest attended a puzzling "cat's dance disease" that spread through Minamata nearly a quarter century ago, causing frenzied cats to die or drown themselves. Nor did officials show concern when people, especially fisher folk, were afflicted with a crippling and disfiguring disease that also was often convulsive and fatal. An exception was the late Dr. Hajime Hosokawa of the chemical company's hospital, who, in 1957, enlisted research assistance from Kumamoto University Medical School. Their finding that the "mysterious disease" was a central nervous system disorder resulting from eating fish contaminated by mercury waste discharged into Minamata Bay was suppressed, though the City Hospital had to build special wards to accommodate the patients.
.> Impelled by her Buddhist upbringing to act against callous harm to life, Mrs. ISHIMURE quietly sought out the stricken. Her penetrating portrayals of their lives and agonizing illnesses within the context of a stratified society were first published in a small literary magazine in Kumamoto, Kyushu. When assembled into a book, Kukai Jodo�Waga Minamata (Pure Land�Poisoned Sea) in 1968, these poetic essays commanded national response.