The University of Tokyo

3/11 and "Live. But not Alone": as Someone Who Happened to Be the University's President During a Disaster

President Hamada

Professor Hamada, you were the University's president when the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster occurred. Almost immediately after it happened, you came out with the concept "Live. But not alone."

Right after the disaster, I saw students, academic and administrative staff confused as to what they should do next. The more I saw how hesitant they were, the more I believed that as the president of the University of Tokyo, I should immediately come up with some sort of guiding principle to indicate how the University should face the disaster. I released my first message about the disaster on March 18th, but everyone's feelings at that time still seemed to be very unsettled. While I realized that many of them wanted to do something to help, or felt like they had to do something to help, I wanted to have them calm down and think about how they could help with a basis in their respective academic endeavors. I believed that we must be firm and thoroughly fulfill our primary professions as people who support academia.

I Realized That Living Should Be Our Highest Priority

I came out with this message while everything was still in relative chaos. Afterwards, however, when I perceived that aid and recovery efforts would likely continue for a long time, I realized that crafting a more specific message would be necessary in order to bring my idea to the forefront. That's why I came out with the phrase "Live. But not alone" in May. The reason why I purposely ordered the words that way instead of the usual "live together" is because at the time, I truly felt that, first and foremost, living should be our highest priority. I thought that to "live" was of the utmost importance, and that doing so "not alone" ("together") came next.

As one of our first post-disaster initiatives, we launched the Headquarters for Disaster Countermeasures. Also, in addition to carrying out direct aid such as sending supplies to the affected areas, we introduced a registered project system through which academic staff members could utilize their expertise for a unified approach to recovery and aid efforts. Following that, we created a volunteer dispatch system to better enable students and staff members to help out in the disaster areas. I heard that this was the first time since the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 that the University had carried out these kinds of volunteer efforts at the institutional level. We then took these efforts and tied them in with the Hands-on Activity Programs for students. We made these three types of aid (the Headquarters for Disaster Countermeasures, registered project system and volunteer dispatch system) the pillars under which we conducted activities supporting disaster relief and recovery. However, during the first few months of starting these initiatives, they felt less like systems and more like immediate actions we had to take in response to what was specifically needed at the time.

During your address at the March 2011 Commencement, you quoted Kenzaburo Oe when you said that you wanted graduates to be intellectuals as well as professionals. A couple of the phrases you used were "an intellectual is someone who speaks with their individual voice" and is someone who "will give their all on an individual scale to try to take on the responsibility given to them by society." Hearing these words brought to mind the phrase "intellectual citizens" which appears in the University of Tokyo Charter.

I made a conscious effort to speak about the roles of knowledge and science during my addresses at both the Commencement and the Matriculation Ceremony that year. Precisely because it was a time when many people were questioning the meaning of human existence and the fundamentals of societal mechanisms, I believed that it was necessary to undertake disaster relief and recovery efforts while keeping in mind the meaning of our existence and our responsibilities as the "intellectuals" of today and tomorrow. Human emotion plays a big part in our instinctive desire to support relief and recovery efforts, but I think that since we are not only people but also people within a university, we should take this kind of opportunity to consider the knowledge we possess, what we are studying, and the potential significance and roles of our research when we get involved. The result of this line of thinking can be seen in the registered projects and the institutionalization of the student volunteer system. I believe that by introducing these initiatives, we were able to provide a framework through which relief and recovery efforts could be carried out while being aware of the issues I mentioned before.

I guess the phrase "intellectual citizens" may be a little too cool-sounding, but I want students to not shy away from being aware that they are "intellectual citizens" and instead accept the responsibility that this label entails. During times of major crises like these, you must utilize all of your intellectual capabilities to the utmost to reevaluate everything that you thought was normal and taken for granted up until the point of the crisis, including your own existence. This is something that you will also be forced to do at those times. I feel that times of crisis are opportunities to ask yourself whether you are a true "intellectual."

The Key to Keeping Recovery Activities Going is to Capitalize on the Characteristics of Knowledge

When talking about aid activities in particular terms, each person has their own special ways through which they can contribute. The special ways of people making up the UTokyo community, whether they be students or researchers, are characterized by their intellectual and scientific attributes. I thought that using these characteristics to their fullest for recovery and relief activities would be very befitting of UTokyo. I also expected that if we utilized these characteristics, we would be able to continue engaging in relief efforts for a long time. By making sure there is an overlap in your research and aid activities, the aid activities are sure to continue, and new possibilities for further aid are sure to arise. I have a similar philosophy regarding student volunteers. While emotions that the volunteers feel towards the disaster areas are important, there is a risk that these emotions may fade away after a while. However, as long as the students are aware of the fact that helping out in the affected areas will, in turn, help them grow, they will be able to continue with their volunteer efforts for a long time.

So I guess one way of looking at things is that because of the disaster, you were able to get others to agree with your feelings that Japan must change.