Voices in a Sea of Silence: Chisso-Minamata Disease and the Absence of the State (1950s-1970s)

Voices in a Sea of Silence: Chisso-Minamata Disease and the Absence of the State (1950s-1970s)

In 1956, something unusual happened in Minamata Bay. The fish went crazy and people's limbs began to twitch. It was the work of methylmercury discharged into the sea by the Chisso Corporation factory. However, until the cause was revealed, both the national and prefectural governments remained silent, as if time had stopped. The perpetrator company, Chisso Corporation, was a key industry in Minamata and supported the town's economy. Victims were accused of being "community breakers" if they voiced their suffering. Those who spoke out were isolated, monitored, and made "targets of public safety" by the state.

In the name of "growth," the state protected corporations and abandoned human life. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) supported the prolongation of the life of the perpetrating structure under the guise of investigation. Eventually, in the 1970s, as pollution spread nationwide, the Environment Agency was finally created, but the silence of Minamata was the price to pay. Minamata disease is the origin of the "politics of pollution" that Japan turned a blind eye to.