Naming disasters and emotional ownership

In an earlier post, "Whose disaster is it, anyway?", I argue that emotional ownership is important for victims of a disaster to recover from that disaster. A translator, who works for the Prime Minister's office, argues that simply calling it "the 3/11 disaster" is good enough.

• Translator: In our translations we use "the 3/11 disaster," etc
• Me: Okay globally. Emotional ownership first to Tohoku, second to Japan, third to globe.
• Translator: No, not global ownership issues; the term that will be used most around the globe. Globally speaking, it'll end up being "the 2011 Japan quake," like 2004 Indonesia, 2010 Chile.
• Me: The Kan administration's first and most lasting contribution?
• Translator: We did lots of translation for the Kantei; convinced them to abandon "Tohoku -off the Pacific" [sic]. I just don't think the question of labeling/linguistic ownership is a vital one here.

Calling it "the 3/11 disaster" positions the Great Tohoku Disaster as an historical statistic, something to be read about in reports and dry business articles. It positions the disaster in the past and in an unnamed location.

Look at another disaster and a name that was given to it.

For most Americans, "3/11" immediately recalls "9/11" the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, so let me use this as one example. Almost immediately after the attacks, the New York World Trade Center site became known as "Ground Zero." This name adhered; few other names are used in the American press. This choice was solely for its emotional value.

The original meaning of "ground zero" was the point on the ground directly under a nuclear bomb explosion, a truly horrifying catastrophe. By appropriating this name for their disaster, Americans attached the horror of a nuclear bomb explosion for their own. But while the loss of 3000 lives at the World Trade Center was horrific, it pales in comparison to the more than 200,000 lives lost at the true ground zeros of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Appropriating "ground zero" for the World Trade Center site boosts New Yorkers' senses of self pity and self importance while it cheapens the original meaning.

Naming is a not-so-subtle way of assigning responsibility and taking credit. The Kan Administration quickly renamed the earthquake and tsunami parts of this triple disaster "The Great East Japan Earthquake," but the third part remains "the Accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station." The nuclear accident remains assigned to Fukushima; the more "glorious" earthquake and tsunami are for East Japan. Ironically, the human error aspects of the nuclear disaster can be fairly cleanly assigned to Tokyo government and corporate bureaucracies. Moreover, because the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station was built solely to supply Kanto with electricity, not one watt goes to Fukushima, calling this disaster The Great Kanto Nuclear Disaster is not out of line.

Of course there are some practical aspects. Kanto farmers want to sell their produce. Tokyo wants to attract visitors; it certainly doesn't want to frighten its residents. Keeping the public's focus on Fukushima helps.