In the wake of the trifecta of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his colleagues have donned the blue uniforms of first responders, suggesting they are working tirelessly. But despite his efforts to handle the biggest crisis in Japan since Hiroshima, Kan has not won the hearts of his countrymen, whose apprehension and distrust increases each morning when they turn on the news to learn of increasing radioactivity, the plummeting stock market, and the soaring death toll. As it turns out, blue uniforms are not enough.

History has taught us that disasters and mass emergencies can transform a mediocre politician into an inspiring leader. The 1944 San Juan earthquake in Argentina that killed more than 10,000 people, earned Juan Perón instant esteem, as well as a glamorous wife, Evita. Ten years ago, the rubble at Ground Zero in New York City transformed George W. Bush from an alleged illegitimate president to a folk hero shepherding the nation through crisis. For Kan, the challenges of Sendai have opportunities and pitfalls. But so far, Kan’s focus on the rubble has not brought the Japanese together in common purpose.

Where did Kan go wrong? To be sure, there is a Japanese cultural style, But nowadays politicians must be aware of new global expectations, which call for a man of compassion and empathy, a man of the people. Consider Wen Jiabao. Two hours after China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he jumped on a plane bound for the area struck by disaster. Soon he was seen walking around in the devastated community, telling children who were buried in a half-collapsed building that “Grandpa Wen is here with you.” The politics of emotion in action. Hundreds of millions of Chinese watched Wen shedding tears, angrily slamming his cellphone at slacking officials, and hugging wailing orphans. Just as Bill Clinton, Wen realized that a politician must feel your pain. As a result, the Chinese felt sheltered instead of afraid. A few cynics have called Wen “the best actor in China,” but many more see him as the father of the nation. Wen’s recent remarks about democracy even kindled the flame of hope in some political dissidents’ hearts. Is he acting? Maybe. But the performance works!

For all his skills, Kan learned little from China’s Premier, the now beloved “Grandpa Wen.” Kan urged people to remain calm, meanwhile muting his own reactions. This may work in times of trouble when the world is under control. Perhaps this was the Japanese style in a world before global media, but today it seems apathetic and passive. In the new Asia, Kan must express emotions on the public stage, by daring to show compassion and by “being there.” After a disaster of the current magnitude, a nation searches for a leader who can rally the people with inspiring words, with displaying sincere compassion, and reassuring the frightened with his presence. Disaster politics do not consist of bureaucratic responses but of performances facilitated by symbols and gestures. People desire a leader who is able to share and articulate their emotions. We want to find him or her in the wreckages and in the crowded shelters. When George Bush decided not to touch down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina something was forever lost.  In contrast, Wen Jiabao’s swift action was taken as a sign of the Chinese government’s concern, even while most rescuers had not yet arrived at the scene.

Political success belongs to the swift and to the empathetic. Before Wen Jiabao, there was also Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor,” who rushed to the World Trade Center on 9/11. Sadly, Kan better resembles  George Bush after Katrina than Guiliani after the terrorist attacks. Hovering above the decimation is no replacement for having mud on your shoes and radiation in your lungs. Kan did what politicians used to do. He managed. But he failed at what politicians must do now. He didn’t perform. When he finally decided to go to the area, blue uniform and all, it was too late. As the emotional atmosphere had changed, the rubble on Kan’s shoes did not produce a positive effect.

The one Japanese politician who has become widely admired is not the prime minister, but Yukio Edano, the spokesman of the Japanese government. His success rests on his red eyes: he has been so omnipresent that the Japanese people believe he hasn’t slept since the quake. Japanese Twitter users, moved by his devotion, now routinely tweet, “Edano, sleep!” This echoes the comments of Chinese online users about Premier Wen Jiabao, also believed to have worked around the clock after the Sichuan quake: “Please, Grandpa, get some sleep!”

When citizens tell a politician that he needs rest, he surely is doing something right.

When I first read Elzbieta Matynia’s response to the massive earthquake in Japan, I respected the sincerity of her judgment, but thought that it was a bit much. It seemed to me that actually the news reports I was reading suggested a much more positive story than the one she seemed to be reading. The earthquake was the most severe in recorded Japanese history, much more powerful than the devastating ones in Haiti and Chile. Yet the death toll seemed to be quite modest, a little more than one hundred people. This suggested to me the wonders of modern technology. As the father of an architect, I was proud of what humans can do when they put their minds to it.

Then the reports began to come in about the tsunami, reminding me, reminding us, the limits of human power in the face of a massive natural force. My decision to introduce Elzbieta’s reflections with the suggestion that perhaps thousands have been killed, even though at the time the estimate was still between one and two hundred, were sadly justified. Now in the video reports we tremble in fear at the power the devastation reveals. This clearly puts us in our place.

But it is the third dimension of the disaster, human and not natural, that is the most humbling. While the wonders of technology are revealed in minimizing the effects of the earthquake, the dangers of our technology are revealed in the still escalating nuclear disaster. It reminds us that we are capable of destroying our world, demonstrating the deadly potential of atoms for peace, along with atoms for war.

Indian Point Energy Center © Daniel Case | Wikimedia Commons

I feel compassion, perhaps pity, for the victims in Japan, something that we will return to tomorrow in a post on distant suffering. But given the powers of modern media and given that I write these reflections a few miles downstream from the Indian Point (Nuclear) Energy Center, the suffering doesn’t seem that distant.

As I suggested earlier, this requires political action, preceded by deliberation. Wise folk tell us that given global warming, we must use nuclear energy, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu, but others warn that this is a power that ultimately can’t be tamed, more like a tsunami than an earthquake. Now is the time for informed deliberate debate.