Beyond Nuclear International

So why has the Australian government approved a new one?

By Jessica Urwin

In late April, the Australian federal government approved the Yeelirrie uraniam mine in Western Australia in the face of vigorous protest from traditional owners.

This Canadian-owned uranium mine is the newest instalment in Australia’s long tradition of ignoring the dignity and welfare of Aboriginal communities in the pursuit of nuclear fuel.

For decades, Australia’s desert regions have experienced uranium prospecting, mining, waste dumping and nuclear weapons testing. Settler-colonial perceptions that these lands were “uninhabited” led to widespread environmental degradation at the hands of the nuclear industry.

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It’s not worth wiping out a species for the Yeelirrie uranium mine

As early as 1906, South Australia’s Radium Hill was mined for radium. Amateur prospectors mined haphazardly, damaging Ngadjuri and Wilyakali lands. And an estimated 100,000 tonnes of toxic mine residue (tailings) remain at Radium Hill with the potential to leach radioactive material into the environment.

Uranium mines across Australia have similar legacies, with decades of activism from the Mirarr people against the Ranger and Jabiluka mine sites in Kakadu National Park.

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The bare emotions of the Fukushima nuclear disaster as experienced by children

By Carmen Grau

Where were you and what were you doing on that fateful day, 11 March 2011?

Eight years have gone by, and the then six to eight-year-old children are now high school students who use theatre as a channel for self-expression. Through their performance, they attempt to tell the story of their home towns and cities. It is also a way for them to assimilate the experience that changed the face of an entire region.

Still Life is the name of the play performed by six girls and six boys from the Futaba Future public high school in Fukushima. Aged between 15 and 17, the parts they play are based on their own life experiences. They tell the story of what the children went through, laying bare the complex web of emotions they have been caught in till this day. It is a tangled tale of love, childhood and suicide, seen through the unadulterated eyes of young people, who were just small children when the triple disaster struck. They are the youngest and will therefore be the last generation to keep a memory of those tragic events. And it is important for them to be able to share it.

The brown colour of the sea. A uniform left behind when a school was hastily closed down following the radiation alert. A teddy bear with a broken heart and the incessant ringing of a telephone searching for missing grandparents. Lampposts swaying dangerously on a hill, while children huddle together, remembering the adults’ instructions not to be left on their own. Innocently playing in a classroom with the water and sand spilt by the earthquake and cleaning it all up before heading for safety. Sleeping in the car with all the family when not a space was left in the sports centre. Memories of an earthquake, a tsunami, of radioactivity and the fear surrounding the decontamination process.

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Les émotions nues de la catastrophe nucléaire de Fukushima telle que vécue par les enfants

Par Carmen Grau

Le 11 mars 2011, où étais-tu et que faisais-tu ?

Huit ans ont passé et les enfants alors âgés de six, sept et huit ans sont aujourd’hui des lycéens qui s’expriment par le théâtre. Ils jouent la comédie pour raconter et rappeler ce qu’était leur ville. Et aussi pour s’approprier l’expérience de la catastrophe qui a changé la physionomie de toute une région.

Nature morte est une pièce de théâtre dont les protagonistes sont six filles et six garçons du lycée public Futaba Futur de Fukushima. Âgés de quinze, seize et dix-sept ans, ils interprètent des rôles qui pourraient être les leurs. Ils racontent comment les enfants qu’ils étaient ont vécu cette journée, dévoilant la trame complexe de sentiments qui les accompagnent jusqu’à la fin de l’adolescence. L’amour, la jeunesse et le suicide s’entremêlent sous le regard pur des jeunes, alors enfants, frappés par le triple désastre. Leur génération est la plus jeune et, par conséquent, la dernière, qui gardera ce souvenir. Pour eux, c’est important d’en parler.

La mer devenue marron. Un uniforme abandonné dans une école fermée précipitamment à cause des radiations. Un ours en peluche au cœur brisé et un téléphone qui n’arrête pas de sonner, à la recherche des grands-parents. Des lampadaires chancelants dans une rue qui monte pendant que les enfants se rassemblent, obéissant aux instructions des plus grands qui leur ont dit de ne pas rester seuls. Jouer innocemment dans une pièce avec de l’eau et du sable amenés là par le séisme et tout nettoyer avant de se mettre à l’abri. Dormir avec toute la famille dans la voiture parce qu’il n’y a plus de place dans le gymnase. Souvenirs d’un tremblement de terre, d’un tsunami, de la radiation et aussi de la peur des opérations de décontamination.

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