Is The Indonesian Stronger than The Japanese?

The third anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake was held on March 11, 2014 in several places across Japan. In Tokyo, about 1,200 people attended the event conducted by the government, including Emperor Akihito, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and about 30 people from Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures who lost their family members when the disaster occurred three years ago. They prayed for 15.884 people who died, and 2,633 people who remain missing after the disaster occured, according to the data from the National Police Agency. Three years have passed, the Japanese government has been reconstructing the devastated areas hit by tsunami. The budget to 25 trillion yen has been allocated by the government for reconstruction that will be used within 5 years, starting in fiscal 2011. However, there are still many people who live in the affected area are not satisfied with the government's performance in terms of reconstruction so far.

The recovery seems too focus on public works projects, in order to rebuild damaged infrastructure such as roads and seawalls. As reported by The Japan Times on March 6, 2014, about 267,000 people from Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures still live in temporary housing. In terms of economic activities, Akihiko Sugawara, head of the Kesennuma Chamber of Commerce and Industry, mentioned that most work to remove debris is more or less finished. But factories, business offices and shops have yet to come back. "Construction work may continue, say, for 10 years, but it's not an indigenous industry to Kesennuma. It is fisheries and seafood processing industries, that will provide permanent jobs and a recovery suistanable in Kesennuma”, Sugawara said. Kesennuma is one of the Tohoku towns that Suffered the heaviest damage.

The fact that many victims are still facing a difficult life in the afflicted areas and places where they have evacuated to, seems has a correlation with the information that released by the Japan Times on 12 March 2014, which is more than 3,000 people have died since the disasters from stress-related factors, including suicide, with many of these fatalities coming among people living in evacuation centers.

Natural disasters that make the loss of family members, economic problems, and diminishing zest for life, can cause its victims become stress.The same condition also happened to people in Aceh when the earthquake and tsunami hit Aceh in 2004. According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), as of September 2005, there were approximately 62,785 people in Aceh get stressed after the disasters. Meanwhile, the number of refugees were 192,055 people. They lived in barracks for months and some of them more than 2 years.

Although many victims get stressed at that time, I had never heard if there were any victims who died or suicide due to stress, either from the media or other sources, since I was in Aceh from 2004 until 2011. Indeed I could not find any data which can support my statement, either because the data is not available or the lack of information that I had.  And if there were victims who died because of stress, I am sure the number was not as much as in Japan. As far as I know, the same thing also happened to the victims of disaster in Nias, Yogyakarta, and other areas in Indonesia.

Some experts said that stress is a feeling distressed, anxious and tense, both physically and psychologically, as a result of the physical demands of the body or the environment and social conditions, which requires individuals to make adjustments, so as not to be dangerous, out of control, or beyond the capabilities of individual to overcome them. The ability to deal with stress will determine the final outcome, either we can encourage our life back, or dissolve in a wallow of stress which then could be ended with suicide.

After comparing what happened to the victims of the tsunami in Japan and Indonesia, I have personal opinion that the Indonesian is stronger than the Japanese, in terms of the mentality when facing the impact of natural disasters. Of course my opinion is a hypothesis that still requires a research, to prove either the results could be accepted or rejected.