地震及其引發的海嘯，不僅是衝擊和蕩滌人類的居住環境，也衝擊和洗滌人類的心靈。這不，日本大地震及海嘯讓一些垃圾突然變得乾淨和純潔，道德感和同情心如同神馬般的突起一塊浮雲。乾淨了，純淨了，畢竟是好事；但什麼事都要拔高，就很『文革』了，像什麼『是人都知道：日本地震是人類共同災難』這樣的假大空口號，很容易讓我想起那個時代的一些荒謬。

災難就是災難；日本的災難就是日本的災難。從人類的基本情感出發，大家都會為災難中的死難者感到沉痛；而從道義或是高點說從人道主義的角度，國際社會也就是世界各國，一定會對災難地區伸出援手。在當今世界，救災就難已經成為慣例，無需更多的言語去對此演繹了。知道什麼是慣例嗎？

『是人都知道：日本地震是人類共同災難』，這看上去有些聲嘶力竭。難道不認為日本地震是人類共同災難的人，就不是人了？剛才在看NBA，NBA照打，顯然，並沒有把日本地震當成是人類共同的災難。日本地震對於美國人的影響，甚至還不如海地大地震。

如果日本地震是人類的共同災難，那麼這個人類包不包括中國？應該包括的吧，那麼依次邏輯推論，就是中國的災難了，那麼，逢中必反的朋友，你們是沉痛還是幸災樂禍？同樣，說人類不包括中共，也說不過去。畢竟，中共政權是美國的戰略合作夥伴；畢竟，美國與中共執政的中國的關係，是世界上最重要的雙邊關係。如果中共不屬於人類，那麼美國是在和魔鬼打交道？千萬不要低估美國人的智慧。這樣以來，日本地震是人類的共同災難，也就是中共的災難，那麼，反共的朋友，你們是沉痛還是幸災樂禍？

我說過，老毛的一個偉大之處很多人沒有注意到，這就是在自覺或是不自覺中，把自己的敵人打造成和自己一樣。我在前面說過，什麼事都要拔高，就很『文革』，由此也自然想到當年的紅衛兵小將的那種胸懷祖國、放眼世界的那什麼。

災難就是災難，日本的災難就是日本的災難，從人類的基本情感出發看這樣的災難，足以！有人提出什麼從『人類共同命運體』看日本大地震，這也同樣是很大很空很假，這倒讓我想起大東亞共榮這類的口號。我之所以說這樣的口號很大很空很假是因為，首先，人類社會是否是一個命運共同體？當然，人類社會面臨的災難，對於不同的族裔、國家和個人是一樣，但命運是共同的嗎？當然不是！

利比亞難民如何與日本地震災民同命運？基督教、伊斯蘭教及佛教，能結成命運共同體嗎？各自的神，是不會答應的。至少在目前，是不存在所謂的『人類共同命運體』的，這樣的說法也根本不成立，最多算是一個願望，還不知道是美好還是不美好。但是，當共同的災難來臨的時候，人類還是可以團結協作的，這是另外一個問題。中國是有風雨同舟和同舟共濟這樣的說法，而前提是大家同處於一條船上的時候；下船了，該掐，還是要掐的。在人類歷史的長河中，大多數的情況還是千帆競渡、百舸爭流。

那麼，是否存在人類共同的災難？存在，一定會存在，比如，某小行星要撞擊地球。現在，如果說存在人類的共同災難，那一定是日本的核事故。日本核電站的問題，正在持續進行，也會有大量鮮為人知的問題不斷被披露。可以有的基本結論是，日本地震海嘯災區的幾個核電站的幾個反應堆出事了，還發生了爆炸，核泄漏是確定的，已經有些人被核輻射了，正在擴散的核輻射雲將到達美洲，等等。

在日本地震海嘯發生後不久也就是美國時間3月11日，日本時代周刊（Japan Times Weekly）前編輯Yoichi Shimatsu新美國媒體（New America Media）撰文：題目是『日本的海嘯和核電站：人類而非自然製造了這次危機（Japan's Tsunami & Nuclear Plants: Humans, Not Nature, Made This Crisis）』，我把英文全文附後，作為本文的結束。相信讀過此文後，對這次日本的災難，會有新的思考。

---------------------------------------------------------------

Japan's Tsunami & Nuclear Plants: Humans, Not Nature, Made This Crisis

New America Media, News Analysis, Yoichi Shimatsu, Posted: Mar 11, 2011

The Wave, reminiscent of Hokusai's masterful woodblock print, blew past Japan's shoreline defenses of harbor breakwaters and gigantic four-legged blocks called tetrapods, lifting ships to ram through seawalls and crash onto downtown parking lots. Seaside areas were soon emptied of cars and houses dragged up and back out to sea. Wave heights of up to10 meters (33 feet) are staggering, but before deeming these as unimaginable, consider the historical Sanriku tsunami that towered to 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) and killed 27,000 people in 1896.

Nature's terrifying power, however we may dread it, is only as great as the human-caused vulnerability of our civilization. Soon after Christmas 2004, I volunteered for the rescue operation on the day after the Indian Ocean tsunami and simultaneously did an on-site field study on the causes of fatalities in southern Thailand. The report , issued by Thammasat and Hong Kong universities, concluded that high water wasn't the sole cause of the massive death toll—230,000 people dead. No, it's buildings that kill—to be specific, badly designed structures without escape routes onto roofs or, in our greed for real estate, situated inside drained lagoons and riverbeds or on loose landfill. In today’s Tohoku disaster, an ultramodern Sendai Airport sat helplessly flooded on all sides while nearby a monstrous black torrent swept entire houses upstream.

Other threats are built into the vulnerabilities of our critical infrastructure and power systems. The balls of orange flames now churning out of huge gas storage tanks in Ichihara, in the prefecture of Chiba, might never have happened if technical precautions had been properly carried out.

Most people assume that the meticulous Japanese are among the world's most responsible citizens. As an investigative journalist who covered the Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake and the Tokyo subway Sarin gas attack, both in 1995, I beg to differ. Japan is better than elsewhere in organizing official cover-ups.

Hidden nuclear crisis

The recurrent tendency to deny systemic errors—"in order to avoid public panic"—is rooted in the determination of an entrenched bureaucracy to protect itself rather than in any stated purpose of serving the nation or its people. That's the unspoken rule of thumb in most governments, and Japan is no shining exception.

So what is being silenced after today’s 8.8-magnitude earthquake on orders from the Tokyo government? The official mantra is that all five nuclear power plants in the northeast are locked down, safe and not leaking. The cloaked reality is that at least one of those—Tepco's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant—is under an emergency alert at a level indicative of a quake-caused internal rupture. The Fukushima powerhouse is one of the world's largest, with six boiling-water reactors.

Over the decades, the Japanese public has been reassured by the Tokyo Electric Power Company that its nuclear reactors are prepared for any eventuality. Yet the mystery in Fukushima is not the first unreported problem with nuclear power, only the most recent. Back in 1996, amid a reactor accident in Ibaraki province, the government never admitted that radioactive fallout had drifted over the northeastern suburbs of Tokyo. Reporters obtained confirmation from monitoring stations, but the press was under a blanket order not to run any alarming news, facts be damned. For a nation that has lived under the atomic cloud of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, total denial becomes possible because the finger on the button is our own.

People are the best defense

Despite the national addiction to nuclear power that keeps the neon lights bright over Shibuya's famous corner, Japan still remains the most prepared of all societies for earthquakes, tsunami, conflagrations and other disasters. Every work unit, large or small, has an emergency response plan. Today’s Tohoku quake hit on a workday afternoon, meaning the staff in every factory and office could act as a team to quell small fires, shut the gas lines, render first aid and restore communication systems. Even in most homes, residents have a rechargeable flashlight plugged into a socket and emergency bottles of water.

Northeast Japan is better prepared than other localities because, in the wake of the Kobe quake, the regional Keidanren, or federation of industrial organizations, sponsored a thorough risk-management and crisis-response study. Tohoku Keidanren staffers, who had known of my reporting on the San Francisco and Kobe quakes, asked me to write an article prioritizing disaster preparations.

First on my list was a people-based communications network, such as the citizen's band radio that enabled Northern Californians to self-organize after the 1989 quake despite power blackouts. That pointed directly led to the quick licensing of new mobile phone towers equipped with back-up batteries. Second was independent power generation inside all major factories so that these large facilities could recharge batteries, provide lighting and pump water for their neighborhoods and, if necessary, offer shelter, sanitation and medical care. These systems must be routinely used—at least on weekends— so that the equipment is regularly checked and the staff stays familiar with their operation.

Third, and most important, is the ability of individuals to rally as self-sustaining communities. In Kobe, society collapsed under a sense of personal defeat. In San Francisco, by contrast, neighbors reached out as friends and opened their doors, food stocks and hearts to victims and their kin. Without compassion, each of us is very much alone indeed.

As participants in communities who can suddenly find themselves naked before unthinkable hazards, we must act to defuse the deadly "bomb" that provides us lighting, energy for appliances and air-conditioning. Prevention of the next Chernobyl or Three Mile Island begins when we stop naively believing in the cost efficiency of uranium (and, for that matter, the cleanliness and healthiness of "clean" coal).

Japan has vast untapped reserves of offshore wind energy, the only practical alternative to nuclear power and fossil fuel. Yet the nuclear lobby, coal companies and oil majors have strong-armed the government and industry to stubbornly refuse to invest in advanced and efficient turbine engineering, including magnetic-levitation rotors that eliminate the need for energy-sapping bearings. At certain stages of societal evolution, there arrives an unmistakable message to leave behind our worn-out security blanket and surf the wave of the future. The tsunami is just such a signal arising from the ocean's depths to awaken Japan, as a global technology leader, to push much faster into a cleaner, greener and safer world.

Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, has covered the earthquakes in San Francisco and Kobe, participated in the rescue operation immediately after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and led the field research for an architectural report on structural design flaws that led to the tsunami death toll in Thailand.