Among all the Westerners in Japan, none were so unusually alarmed by the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear reactor crisis than the French community in Tokyo. The first communique from the French Embassy reassured the people, telling them that the Japanese authorities have the situation in hand.
But then the media in France went into a frenzy, alarming the public about a meltdown and radioactive winds and more calamities. Frantic calls were made to relatives in Japan, and the French Embassy issued a second communique, stating that if it is unnecessary for you to be in Tokyo, they advise that you travel south of the archipelago or return to France.
Akin to a mass migration of lemmings, French people left the capital. Meanwhile, other Embassies, notably the English and the American, continued to reassure its nationals to go normally about their lives in Tokyo, and that they would be informed if there were other necessary steps to take.
We ask, who or what has set off the alarmist nature of Japan’s crisis, panicking the French people? Who would most benefit from this situation? Aside from the usual two-penny journalists who sensationalise the news in order to sell newspapers, I would put the blame on the Ecology or Green party and supporters thereof. They have the most to gain with fear-mongering in the news.
In their campaign to have nuclear energy eliminated from France, the Ecology Party and/or its supporters amplify the Fukushima crisis, without considering that this crisis was brought on by the unusual combination of earthquake and tsunami, two unforeseen natural calamities, and not by some human error or technological mishap, which would warrant an assessment.
One French journalist in Japan had posted on his Facebook wall that he had been directed to write this and that, and denies responsibility for the information. So based on this, can we say that the journalists write “news” to manipulate the opinions of the public to serve someone’s political agenda? He had also previously stated that “Westerners know more information than the Japanese,” a claim that is arrogant and unlikely to be true. It is his “feeders,” people with an agenda, supplying him with information and disinformation, true or baseless, with which public opinion will be manipulated with. If disinformation means “knowing more information than the Japanese,” he and similar journalists are mere ignorant pawns in the greater scheme of things, a boule de suif.
And so with exaggerated news alarming the electorate, Sarkozy wisely sent government planes to “evacuate” French nationals, further reinforcing the feeling of panic. But the majority of the French who were repatriated were not from the calamity-stricken area, but from a city 400km from the epicentre, infrastructure-wise unaffected by the earthquake nor the tsunami, and 250km far from Fukushima’s nuclear reactors, Tokyo.
While the ideals of the Ecology party may be commendable, their under-handed alarming of the public by sensationalising the news is contemptible. They may have captured the vote of the unsophisticated electorate, but with actions that are dishonourable.
Political agendas can serve both good and bad purposes, but there are also serious consequences wrought by the alarmist nature of the news of the events in Japan. For business enterprises that rely on good news and political-economical stability, the news-scares have literally scared off business in and with Japan. It is a collateral damage that is unfortunate but one where I would personally raise a fist to, at half-wit journalists and the media who do not intelligently assess information fed to them to print and disseminate to an unwary public.
March 27, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Copy/paste from a Facebook post:
Témoignage d’un Français: Le tremblement de terre du 11 mars 2011
… Pour finir, si vous regardez les infos françaises, il faut absolument que je vous dise :D’arrêter tout de suite. Ils racontent n’importe quoi et j’hésite même à porter plainte contre X pour mise en danger de la vie d’autrui (la mienne, en l’occurence, quand ils m’ont obligé à consoler ma mère en pleurs au téléphone pendant une réplique de magnitude 6).
Que le niveau actuel de radiations à Tokyo est plus faible qu’à Paris, Agen ou Toulouse.
Que les Japonais portent toujours des masques, pas pour se protéger des radiations, mais parce que c’est la saison du pollen.
Que les Japonais portent des parapluies quand il pleut, pas pour se protéger des retombées radioactives, mais pour ne pas être mouillés.
Qu’il n’y a pas de centrale nucléaire s’appelant “Eggman Shibuya”, et qu’il s’agit d’une boite de nuit.
Que la radioactivité de l’eau a bien atteint 210Bq/l à Tokyo pendant une journée (maintenant c’est retombé a 30Bq/l), mais que le Japon a des normes beaucoup plus strictes qu’à l’étranger et que la dose maximale sans danger pour la santé humaine a beau être de 300Bq/l ici, elle est de 3000Bq/l en France et dans les autres pays (soit dix fois plus).
March 27, 2011 at 10:04 pm
An email from a dear friend:
… pendant que je lisais ton message j’écoutais les nouvelles à la radio et une fois de plus c’est la catastrophe au Japon. La côte et la mer sont complètement polluées et vous ne pourrez plus manger de poissons pendant des dizaines d’années, plus de riz non plus. Vous êtes traumatisés. Mais jamais les journalistes ne nous montrent une photo de Tokyo, ni ne font des interviews de tokyoïtes donc comment savoir la vérité.
Mais je pense que cela est une directive du gouvernement parce que tant que l’on nous focalise sur le Japon, nous ne pouvons rien dire sur la guerre en Lybie, sur tout ce qui va mal dans notre pays et là il y aurait beaucoup à dire….
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