Ox Against the storm
From the biography of Tanaka Shozo (1841-1913) by Kenneth Strong
At the end of the 19th century the new Japanese Emperor, Meiji, decided to bring an industrial revolution to his country. Unfortunately, he followed the pattern set by Europe and the USA and ignored the voice of Tanaka Shozo who warned of the drastic consequences for their environment.
Furukawa Icheibi was one of the leading industrialists of the day. From a wealthy family, he was politically influential and his name lives on in the companies he founded.
Shozo was extremely modest and, when his followers wanted to build a shrine to his memory, he forbade it, believing that nothing should be allowed to distract attention from their goal… a goal for which he was, quite literally, prepared to give his own life. Today there is a Tanaka Shozo University. If the Japanese government had listened to Shozo, they would not have seen the dreadful disaster of 1958 when one of the fourteen Ashio poison dumps burst and flooded the outskirts of Tokyo.
If the world had listened to Shozo, what a different planet we would have now!
The chorus follows the Japanese five-line verse form, Tanka, that it has 31 syllables
Chorus
Like an ox against the storm - A bee against the swarm
Tanaka Shozo gave his life - To help a world that - did not understand
Verse 1
From the mountain, through the valley, freely to the sea
Flows the gentle Watarasse, ten months of the year
When the snows melt, as the rains come, see her waters rise
Flooding softly, bringing goodness, from the forest to the fields
Verse 2
When the crops fail, the last Shoguns, hear the peasants plea
Eighty years ban copper mining, then came the Emperor, Meiji
Furukawa buys Ashio mine. Output rises like the sun
Forty five tons to eight thousand, in fourteen years to eighteen ninety one
Verse 3
Not the mining, but refining, makes the river choke
Trees held the soil, they now fuel the furnace, grass dies in the sulphurous smoke
No sweet compost, now just poison, in the river flows
Destroys the fish and when the floods come, kills the crop and renders people blind
Verse 4
Fifty years the valley’s hero, headman at just seventeen
Naïve and headstrong unlike Furukawa, destiny’s unequal enemies
Tanaka Shozo, through his lifetime, takes the peasants cause
To the government, and by petition, even to his Emperor God
Like an ox…Verse 5
None ask twice, death is the price, the ancient laws demand
But, Shozo is spared, considered mad, his river scheme dismissed out of hand
The government flawed and cruel solution, flood the peasants’ land
Hold the waters back from Tokyo, poison out of sight and out of mind
Like an ox…Verse 6
The year, two thousand - the land still ruined, though Ashio mine is no more
Their dumps leak poison but Furukawa kept on, refining their imported ore
Were Shozo here, he’d be so angry, a college bears his name
His valley is toxic, his words ironic, “In rivers find the way to heaven”
Like an ox…etc…And this world still does not understand.