In light of the recent devastation in the Touhoku region (Sendai, Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima), many of you are probably wondering what you can do to help. The internet response to the earthquake and tsunami has been amazing to watch—Google has a front page link to the Red Cross, and Facebook has English, Japanese, and Korean-language news updates automatically set on the homepages of people living in Japan. Everything that the world learned about viral aid relief after Haiti is being applied to Japan, and many people here in Komatsu have commented about how impressed they are with the rest of the world’s thoughts and prayers.
Yet, the international response is also a bit disorienting. We are used to a very set pattern of donors and recipients when we think of aid: the rich countries or parts of countries give to poor countries or parts of countries. The G8 send money and helicopters and special teams to Africa or Southeast Asia. People in suburbs or wealthy parts of cities hold benefits for struggling inner-city or rural communities. A whole system—a whole industry, even-- exists to turn concern into money or supplies, and move that money or those supplies where they are most needed. Churches, charity offices, and secular non-profit organizations act as conduits to get aid delivered.
In the case of run-of-the-mill disasters (war, hunger, AIDS, poverty, inequality) these conduits follow said set pattern. In the case of the US, aid programs were deliberately privatized in the 1980s, which is why there are so many private charities to help America’s poor. In the case of the world aid system, private charities exist to help countries whose governments simply do not have the stability or resources to help their own. Usually this is because these governments are so new, and are starting from scratch after being under colonial rule that left them with little sustainable infrastructure.
The countries that support third-world development are, with the exception of the US, success stories of development aid themselves. Japan and the European countries that most benefited from the Marshall Plan are the world’s top donors, behind America. Japan, Germany, Sweden, France, and these other big global donor nations got assistance to their governments in the 1950s and proceeded to use their subsequent economic success to make a vast network of social programs for their citizens. Where churches and thousands of private charities in the US redistribute money as aid, it is often government programs that do this in places like Western Europe and, yes, Japan. This has worked out well for the standard of living in these countries, if not for the national balance sheets.
If you skimmed all that, here’s what you need to know: When disasters hit the US or Third World Countries, the way aid has always operated (donors in rich place --> non-profit in rich place--> distribution networks in poor place) provides a simple structure for getting donations to the victims.
Enter Japanese history and culture.
How Japan does aid and nonprofits is vastly different from how Europe, the US, and Canada do aid and nonprofits. In the US, people donate to charities, many of which are religious. US government money goes to foreign aid, too, but only about 1%...a helpful total in the developing world, but a MINISCULE taxpayer burden. In Europe, people donate to charities and a larger chunk of their taxpayer dollars go to development aid. The tradition of donating to charity is old in Europe and North America, and has its roots in tithing. Donating came first, before government aid, because of the church. It established a pattern of giving to local charities, even as they became secularized. Government aid to suffering communities and developing countries came much, much later.
In Japan, aid happened differently on both the local and global scale. There was no big organized Church to redistribute tithes. Communities looked after each other on a case-by-case basis, often refusing to accept help from outside after disasters. Local temples and shrines provided assistance and moral support, and encouraged stricken communities to pull through independently. Until its defeat in WWII, Japan did not receive foreign aid. It was a new (and kind of humiliating) experience…keep this in mind when reading that the Prime Minister said the recent earthquake is the biggest disaster since WWII.
Japan’s war reparations debt to the parts of Asia it invaded and destroyed was called in as it still received aid from the US. The began the policy of keizai kyoryoku—giving aid (war reparations) while building its economy so it could stop receiving aid. Long story short, Japan paid off its debts in helpful Japanese products, stimulating its own modern manufacturing economy while providing Asia with infrastructure and engineers. This came from citizens in the form of taxes, not tithes. Aid, to Japan, is a matter of creating regional and global economic prosperity and cooperation. The Japanese aid model is really helpful for developing countries, but doesn’t have the warm fuzzy feeling of the American/European way of giving, which stresses people rather than progress.
Again, what you need to know: Japan thinks of aid as a government issue, not as a charity issue. As a result of its history and culture, Japan has way, way less non-profits than the US, Canada, and Europe. The nonprofts it has simply act as a way for people to give more money to the same style of aid the government gives. Japan does not have many non-profits that specialize in aiding Japanese people. Most of them are—you guessed it—almost entirely local, just like how Japanese people concerted their efforts since they came to the archipelago.
Case in point: in the Kobe earthquake, Japan refused aid. The Japanese people believed it was for their government, not charity organizations, to handle. Japan’s government was the second richest in the world at the time—why would they possibly want to receive development aid when they themselves give it?
Fast forward to March 10, 2011. Japan has one of the largest national debts in the world. It just lost its second-biggest-economy status to China. The Japanese people are losing confidence in the ability of the government to keep Japan at its current standards. Then, it is hit with a 9.1 earthquake and one of its biggest northern cities, surrounded by some if its most rural prefectures, gets hit with a tsunami. Whole towns go missing. The world watches.
Then, the world offers to help.
Haiti had organizations already there on the ground ready to mobilize. So did Chile, and the Pacific Islands hit in the tsunami there. Japan has its own government, budget shaking before the earth did, and its small local organizations. They can’t do it alone any more, not this time.
How should Japan accept these offers? Even though the government has accepted foreign agencies and foreign volunteers, they face a huge language and cultural barrier.
Japan has never, been on the receiving end of a giant private aid operation. It has always been a giver in the global aid system—it’s never had an armada of private charities and nonprofits line up to give it volunteers, medicine, blankets, or money.
Japan decided what to do—it will let them all in as a supplement to its own efforts and hope for the best.
Meanwhile, Japanese nonprofits want to help, and can do so without running up against the language and culture barrier, but don’t have a base like foreign charities do.
I have been searching far and wide for Japanese non-profits to support, and found two to share with all of you. If you can, please donate to Japan Emergency NGOs (JEN) or Association for Aid and Relief (AAR Japan). These are great organizations that have helped internationally with earthquake relief, and now are additionally helping their own. They are less funded than big international organizations, and could really use donations.
Donating to them is difficult from abroad—you’ll need to do an international money wire, and the dollar is far weaker than the yen. Yet, these nonprofits can operate faster and more flexibly than the Red Cross. If you live in Japan now, please consider these first.
If wiring money to these organizations is out of the question, please support organizations in your country that are reaching out to Japan…by not earmarking your donation. There are so many other crises in the world, and Japan will recover years before places like Haiti that faced similar disasters.
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