On March 25, 2011, the author asserts that the Fukushima nuclear accident was a man-made disaster caused by the fatal decisions of Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Citing the investigative report in Weekly Asahi, the article exposes how Kan’s misguided actions, especially his post-earthquake visit to the plant, critically worsened the situation.
The author emphasizes that the real cause of the crisis lies in the egoism of elites, not in the ordinary workers who never betray the nation.
The government’s failures resulted in unnecessary deaths in evacuation shelters and prolonged suffering for hundreds of thousands of victims.
The essay calls for abandoning sentimentality, recognizing the truth, and removing leaders whose incompetence endangers the nation.

The nuclear accident was man-made.
On March 25, 2011.

The day before yesterday, for the first time in a long while, a Kyoto University graduate whom I know visited my home.
It was truly a welcome visit, like a Christmas Eve present.
In the wide-ranging conversation we had, the topic turned to how I came to publish my book.
By coincidence, one copy of my book happened to be on the bookshelf.
I had decided on the cover design while I was hospitalized at Kitano Hospital.
Kitano Hospital is a major hospital virtually equivalent to Kyoto University’s medical school hospital.
In a style reminiscent of The Great White Tower, the department head and five or six young doctors would make their rounds through each patient room.
While several design proposals for the book cover were arriving from the publisher, the doctors came around for their second round.
When I told them I was trying to decide which design to choose, one of the young doctors said:
“Mr. Kisara, may I take care of it for you? I’m good at this sort of thing.”
I entrusted the decision to him immediately.
That is the story of how this cover came to be, which I told to my visitor at the beginning.

This morning, reflecting on how grateful yesterday’s visit had been, I opened my book for the first time in a very long while.
Until now, I had always felt embarrassed about my own book.
That is why I had not reread it much.
I now realize that this was a great loss.
My book had been displayed for about a year on the social-economics shelf of the Umeda main store of Kinokuniya, alongside the works of prominent thinkers such as the late Taichi Sakaiya and Yoichi Takahashi.
The person in charge at Kinokuniya displayed my book because, though it would not be a bestseller, he believed it would steadily sell a certain number of copies.
One day, the book disappeared from the shelf, so I asked the staff why.
“We were confident it would consistently sell a certain number of copies, but unexpectedly, sales were poor…”
As my readers know, that outcome was inevitable.
This is because I am completely unknown in the world of public commentary.
Moreover, for reasons known to my close friends and readers, I was compelled to publish under the pen name “Kenji Akutagawa,” which made things even worse.
Had I published under my real name, many acquaintances and friends I had met through business surely would have purchased the book.
On June 1, 2011, I announced in this column that publication had been decided for December 1 and encouraged readers to purchase it.
At that time, searching “the turntable of civilization” yielded over twenty million results, and pages one through seventy were filled with chapters of this column in various languages.
Then the criminal in question created more than a hundred worthless blogs titled things like “Driving Service” and “Secretary Service” on various blog platforms, launching a reverse-SEO criminal attack on this column.
After a page of nonsensical descriptions, those blogs simply reposted my chapters without permission.
With such garbage, the criminal filled pages one through ten of the search results.
Suddenly, the number of search results for my column dropped to one-hundredth of what it had been.
The criminal then began committing further outrageous acts on Twitter, calling me “Kenji Akutagawa, the swindler writer” or “Kenji Akutagawa, the crooked real estate agent.”
To put it simply:
Imagine a small, unknown but genuine Japanese confectionery shop in a corner of a shopping street.
This is the age of the internet—everyone has a smartphone.
If a criminal writes slander such as “That store uses such-and-such ingredients,” the shop would instantly go bankrupt.

Upon rereading my book, I felt deeply.
This book is, as the Kinokuniya staff had perceived, a masterpiece.
That this masterpiece was buried by the criminal is an unforgivable crime against the world and humanity in the 21st century.

The nuclear accident was man-made.
March 25, 2011.

All of my readers should read Weekly Asahi immediately.
Those of you who are proficient with computers must, without delay, help form public opinion to force the immediate resignation of Naoto Kan—by posting on every site and exposing the true nature of this outrageous man.
As my readers know, I was the first person in Japan to criticize Kan’s post-earthquake inspection as a fatal and reckless act.
It was also I who wrote immediately after the DPJ presidential election last September that things would not work out under him.
And it was I who declared with 150% certainty that the World Cup would never come to Japan.
Read today’s newly released issue of Weekly Asahi: “The Ruinous Prime Minister’s Office That Drives the Nation to Misery—The Whole Story. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Was a Man-Made Disaster!”
Read the thoroughly investigated facts and the truth.
This is no time to say it is troublesome.
It is the facts and truth that matched exactly what I had predicted.
I named this administration “the murderer cabinet,” and it turned out to be exactly that.
There is no longer any need for restraint.

I too lost the mother I loved more than anyone in a tragic and sudden way.
That is why I had held back my criticisms.
But this is not such a matter.
This is a truly appalling situation.
As for who should replace him, it goes without saying.
Even the editorial writers of the major newspapers—who for two years have been complicit in this disaster—understand this perfectly.
They simply cannot say it out loud.
Some among you may also still have doubts after being misled by the media.
Even I, more than thirty years ago, was made to believe in some corner of my mind that Takashi Tachibana was right during the uproar over Kakuei Tanaka.
Such is the terrifying power of media manipulation.

If any of you still harbor such doubts, trust my inner eye.
As I have long written, ninety percent of workers will never lead a nation astray.
It is always the ten percent of elites who do.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, all the blame lies in the egoism they inevitably possess.
Readers will understand that I have written this many times.
But the person who brought about this catastrophic situation was, exactly as I had predicted, this man—Naoto Kan.
As mid-level DPJ lawmakers say, what he did “deserves death.”
Because he is exactly the sort of man I had been writing about.
The result is the current situation in Fukushima.
And that is not all.
As you know, in the evacuation shelters, elderly people died in clusters of dozens.
The hundreds of thousands of victims—men, women, and children—who showed such extraordinary decency to the world were forced to suffer unbearably, not only for one week but now into the second.
The cause of all this lies in the character of this man.
This is no time or situation for sentiment or sympathy.

Earlier today, there was something called a prime minister’s press conference.
But why is he unable to give a speech that touches the hearts of the people in a time like this?
Because he is not a statesman.
No—because the facts thoroughly verified by Weekly Asahi today are the truth.
If a person who has committed such incompetence were able to deliver a grand speech at such a moment, he would be nothing but a true swindler—a true villain, one of the countless real con artists roaming society.
He cannot possibly speak words he has no right to utter.
He is incapable of doing so.

Bureaucrats inevitably become precedent-bound and inclined toward avoiding responsibility.
The reasons are as previously described.
A true statesman is someone who, equipped with experience, discernment, firm conviction, and philosophy, protects the national interest, national wealth, and the people—and is prepared to die for them, never for himself.