震災から学ぶ英語表現 Katsunobu Sakurai
- 2011.04.27 Wednesday
- 21:50
JUGEMテーマ:日記・一般
(1)ホーホケキョと朝を告げる鳥
(2)近所の朝のツツジ その1
(3)近所の朝のツツジ その2
(4)畑の傍で見つけた花 その1
(5)畑の傍で見つけた花 その2
Time誌が選んだ、世界の100人のうち、二人目の日本人の紹介をします。
Katsunobu Sakurai The mayor who shamed Japan
TO BE A JAPANESE POLITICIAN is to spend your career exercising restraint. There' the somber suit, the gray demeanor, the vague words that defy position taking. But as radiation wafted from the earthquake-and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant toward the city of Minami Soma, some 15 miles (25 km) away, Mayor Katsunomu Sakurai, 55, abandoned the usual politesse. In an 11-min. video posted on YouTube two weeks after the March 11 natural disaster, the leader dashed out at Japan's political and economic establishment, which had ignored his frantic calls and, as a result, left thousands of local residents stuck in a nuclear no-go zone.
"With the paltry information given by the government and [plant operator] TEPCO, we are left isolated ... and are being forced into starvation," Sakurai charged. "I beg you from my heart to help us."
His plea resonated across the world, leading many to ask how a country so celebrated for efficiency had failed its most vulnerable citizens. As Japan continues to struggle with its nuclear crisis, it is finally addressing the bureaucratic hubris that led to it as well.
Hannah Beech, Time's Beijing bureau chief