Australia's Atomic Past

オーストラリア・ニュージーランド文学会創立 40 周年大会特別講演（要約）（2019年11月２日、於・日本女子大学目白キャンパス） Australia’s Atomic Past: Memories, Mistrust, and Policy Legacies Professor David Lowe Deakin University / Australia and Visiting Chair in Australian Studies, University of Tokyo 2019年11月2日（土）に日本女子大学目白大学で行われたオーストラリア・ニュージーランド文学会の創立40周年大会に、東京大学アメリカ太平洋地域研究センター客員教授のデイヴィド・ロウ先生をお招きし、“Australia’s Atomic Past: Memories, Mistrust, and Policy Legacies”と題してご講演をいただきた。ここではご講演の要約と、講演後の本学会会員三名（サワダ・ハンナ・ジョイ、一谷智子、小杉世）によるコメントも併せて掲載する（コメント後に活発な議論も行われたが、これについては割愛させていただく。） *** Australia’s Atomic Past: Memories, Mistrust and Policy Legacies (Abstract) Professor David Lowe The Australian Government has recently commissioned a parliamentary inquiry considering the prerequisites needed for generation of nuclear power in Australia. Previously in 2019, Australians briefly, and mostly clumsily, revisited some of the lines of earlier debates they had about the potential gains and dangers of developing the nuclear fuel cycle for power generation. These debates were stirred partly by debatable claims about casualties (and inferred lessons) made in the popular HBO television mini-series, Chernobyl, recalling the nuclear plant disaster of 1986 and partly by the publication by Defence expert Hugh White of a book, How to Defend Australia, asking if it was time for Australians to consider arming themselves with nuclear weapons. With a mind for the clumsiness of debate that followed and for the lack of historical content therein (even quite recent developments) I explore in this paper 南半球評論 8 2019 whether the legacies of Australia’s nuclear past, including the great secrecy surrounding testing of weapons in the 1950s and 1960s, and subsequent clean- ups, have impacted in particular ways that have ongoing ramifications for policy relating to uranium mining and nuclear energy. I draw on a range of sources, including an 800-page government inquiry from 2006. The clashes between atomic energy advocates and objectors that were recorded in this exercise revealed Australia’s ‘history problem’ in policy consideration of nuclear energy. Exasperated advocates of nuclear energy failed to appreciate how readily and powerfully the dark legacies of atomic weapons testing in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s could be invoked. The combination of Australian and British government secrecy and neglect for soldiers’ and civilians’ health associated with the tests (especially Indigenous groups affected), and ongoing revelations of this and its legacies is not easily brushed aside. This is especially evident in easily-accessed forms of protest such as film, popular music such as Midnight Oil songs, teacher’s education kits, a Royal Commission Report from the mid-1980s, and a recent (2017) travelling art exhibition, Black Mist, Burnt Country. I conclude that the secrecy around governments’ involvement in atomic testing and its legacies is likely to be seized on regularly and likely to nourish what is a reservoir of public mistrust, even if some of the accusations made claims made by anti-nuclear forces are demonstrably exaggerated. There is no easy recovery from this legacy for a government today bent on serious policy discussions about the possible commissioning of nuclear energy in Australia; but a start might be to acknowledge some of the main dimensions of what has been kept too secret for too long, and acknowledge the grievous mistakes that led both to suffering and to a powerful cocktail of popular mistrust in government actions. Summary of comments by Sawada Joy to the lecture As a New Zealander based in Tohoku, Professor Lowe’s lecture on Australia’s atomic past prompted me to re-examine the ways in which New Zealand and Japan as well as Australia have responded to nuclear technology. Rebecca Priestly points out in her work entitled Mad on Radium-New 2019 9 南半球評論 Zealand in the Atomic Age (2014) that while New Zealand is widely known for its nuclear free policy today there were times in the past at which New Zealanders made pro-nuclear moves. New Zealand was supportive of the search for uranium as a means of boosting the nation’s economy following WWII but declined opportunities to set up a nuclear reactor due to the prohibitive cost it entailed and chose to focus on agriculture instead. New Zealand also initially supported nuclear testing carried out by Britain but refused a British request to test on New Zealand territory. Opposition to nuclear testing was subsequently fueled by fears regarding the consequences of radioactive fallout and how New Zealand might be affected. The eye-witness accounts of J force members who had seen the atomic wasteland of Hiroshima first hand and the exhibition of The Hiroshima Panels painted by Maruki Iri and Toshi which was held at Auckland Art Gallery in 1958 had alerted New Zealanders as to the consequences nuclear technology was capable of bringing about. The exhibition of The Hiroshima Panels drew a total of 20,855 visitors, equivalent to one in 20 people living in Greater Auckland at the time and left an unmistakable impact on the arts of New Zealand. The horror the paintings imparted reverberates in choral music composed by Douglas Mews entitled Ghosts, fire and water (1972) and a woodblock print by Dame Robin White entitled Remembering Childhood nightmares (1986). Meanwhile No Ordinary Sun (1964), a poem written by Maori poet Hone Tuwhare, based on the devastation which met his eyes when he passed through Hiroshima as a member of the J force was often recited at the anti-nuclear protests which progressively gained momentum. By the time France started nuclear testing in 1966, New Zealand was strongly opposed. Visits by American nuclear ships continued to stir protest throughout the 1970s to 1980s, eventually culminating in the passing of nuclear free legislation in 1987. Professor Lowe’s lecture directed my attention to the costs which have similarly been borne by aboriginal communities in Australia, New Zealand’s neighbors in the South Pacific and populations in the geographically remote regions of Japan. The persistence with which advocates of nuclear technology have tested on land other than their own and avoided taking personal risk is 南半球評論 10 2019 startlingly alike. In light of these parallels, the capacity to imagine oneself in the circumstances of those who have suffered, demonstrated in White’s woodblock print Remembering Childhood Nightmares which depicts a nuclear cloud enveloping New Zealand skies takes on profound importance as a deterrent to further suffering. Summary of comments by Tomoko Ichitani to the lecture Professor David Lowe’s lecture provided a full historic and cultural overview of Australia’s relationship to nuclear technology through a range of materials including government reports, journalism, exhibitions, photography, Aboriginal perspectives and documentary. Among all the rich information, I was particularly interested in one of the points raised by Professor Lowe concerning the enduring mistrust between Australian people and the government following nuclear weapons testing and the state secrecy surrounding it. My response expanded on this point by taking up some examples from the Indigenous play Ngapartji Ngapartji (1) and the documentary film Totem and Ore (2) directed by the Australian film maker John Mandelberg. Ngapartji Ngapartji depicts the aftermath of the British atomic weapon tests conducted between 1953 and 1963 at Maralinga and Emu Field, homeland to the Pila Nguru people. While Ngapartji Ngapartji conveys the intricacies of colonial and postcolonial connectedness and the social and environmental legacies of the Atomic Age in a remote Indigenous homeland, the play represents nuclear issues from a much wider perspective. It opens up awareness to a “global hibakusha” that not only includes the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but all casualties (both human and non-human) of the “nuclear cycle” – from uranium mining to weapons testing. The title Ngapartji Ngapartji translates loosely in English as “I give you something, you give me something,” a principle of exchange that is part of the traditional knowledge of Jamieson’s people and fundamental to the survival of desert-based cultures in the region. This concept is also about building relationships and by exchanging stories of their experiences as hibakusha, Ngapartji Ngapartji creates a “nuclear family.” 2019 11 南半球評論 Mandelberg’s Totem and Ore is the latest example of a cultural production that depicts nuclear issues in Australia and Japan through a transnational imagination. The film gives context to the effects of the atomic bomb on the population of Hiroshima up until today, comparing the atomic bomb survivors with indigenous communities in Australia that were affected by nuclear testing on their land. Moreover, Mandelberg’s Totem and Ore tries to tackle nuclear issues through a wider scope, connecting uranium mining in Australia to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The documentary also gave attention to the “Black Mist, Burnt Country” exhibition that was referenced by Professor Lowe. Moving between worlds and tones, Mandelberg’s film presents the history and legacy of nuclear events and allows people to see the continuity between these different histories and experiences. Robert Jungk’s influential work The Nuclear State (3) discussed the impact that nuclear energy will have on modern society and nation states. Jungk suggested that the introduction of nuclear technology will almost certainly lead to a rigid and controlled society in which people’s

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