filling paradise with concrete

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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2021

FAILED PROMISESTUNISIANS SOURON ARAB SPRINGPAGE 3 | WORLD

ABOUT SALTHOW A LITTLELESS CAN HELPPAGE 14 | WELL

BREATHE IN THE ARTANICKA YI’S EXHIBITION ISAN OLFACTORY EXPERIENCEPAGE 12 | CULTURE

pan’s construction obsession, which haslong been its answer to the threat of nat-ural disaster — and a vital source of eco-nomic stimulus and political capital, es-pecially in rural areas.

But the plan to erect the concreteberm on the pristine beach, a rare com-modity in Japan, is not just about moneyor votes.

For someone standing on its mountain-fringed beach, there is no hint that theJapanese village of Katoku even exists.The handful of houses hides behind adune covered with morning glories andpandanus trees. The chitter of cicadas isinterrupted only by the cadence ofwaves and the call of an azure-wingedjay.

In July, the beach became part of anew UNESCO World Heritage Site, apreserve of verdant peaks and man-grove forests in far southwestern Japanthat is home to almost a dozen endan-gered species.

Two months later, the placid air wassplit by a new sound: the rumble oftrucks and excavators preparing to stripaway a large section of Katoku’s duneand bury inside of it a two-story-tall con-crete wall meant to curb erosion.

The sea wall project demonstrateshow not even the most precious envi-ronmental treasures can survive Ja-

It has torn apart a village alreadyfighting deeper forces that are remak-ing rural Japan: climate change, the ag-ing of its population and the hollowing-out of small towns.

The project’s supporters — a majorityof its 20 residents — say the village’ssurvival is at stake, as it has been lashedby fiercer storms in recent years. Oppo-

nents — a collection of surfers, organicfarmers, musicians and environmental-ists, many from off the island — arguethat a sea wall would destroy the beachand its delicate ecosystem.

Leading the opposition is Jean-MarcTakaki, 48, a half-Japanese Parisian whomoved into a bungalow behind thebeach last year. A nature guide and for-mer computer programmer, Mr. Takakibegan campaigning against the wall in2015, after moving to a nearby town tobe closer to nature.

The fight embodies a clash playingout in rural areas across Japan. Old-timers see their traditional livelihoodsin industries like logging and construc-tion threatened by newcomers whodream of a pastoral existence.

Villages may need new residents tobolster their eroding populations andeconomies but sometimes chafe at theirpresence.

When Mr. Takaki first visited Katokuin 2010, it seemed like the paradise hehad been seeking. “I had never seen anyplace like it,” he said.

That has all changed. “If they finishbuilding this thing, I don’t know whatwe’re going to do here.”

Japan’s countryside is pockmarkedwith construction projects like the oneplanned for Katoku.

The country has dammed most of its JAPAN, PAGE 4

Katoku beach and its village in southwestern Japan. Even though the beach recently became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the government is building a sea wall there.PHOTOGRAPHS BY NORIKO HAYASHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Filling paradise with concreteKATOKU, JAPAN

Construction brings moneyto rural Japan, but the environment pays a price

BY BEN DOOLEY

Jean-Marc Takaki, a resident of Katoku, has been campaigning against the sea wall. Butother villagers fear that without the wall, a typhoon could wash the community away.

The breakthrough moment for one ofthe fastest-growing bands in LatinAmerica came thanks to an unlikely in-strument: a stolen banjo.

Morat met up for a recording sessionin Bogotá, Colombia, in 2014, when itsfour members were still college stu-dents, childhood friends playing schoolfunctions and weeknights at bars. Cast-ing around the room for inspiration, theguitarist Juan Pablo Villamil picked upan instrument that he didn’t exactlyknow how to play.

“We all knew back then that wewanted to sound differently, to explorethings,” Villamil recalled on a recentZoom call, as his bandmates Juan PabloIsaza, Simón Vargas and Martín Vargasjumped in to add their own flourishes.They recorded a 12-string guitar and a

mandolin. Then someone spotted abanjo hanging on the wall. They bor-rowed it and never gave it back.

“As for the learning process, I wouldsay mainly YouTube,” Villamil added,“because there’s not a lot of banjo teach-ers in Colombia.”

The song they were writing at thetime, “Mi Nuevo Vicio,” ended up featur-ing a simple but prominent banjo riffand caught the attention of the Mexicanpop star Paulina Rubio, who quickly re-corded it with the band. The single be-came a sensation in Spain and hit thecharts in Latin America and the UnitedStates. Morat was invited to Europe toproduce more music — and the banjowent along.

“We couldn’t be a one-hit band, withPaulina’s song and that’s it,” Villamilsaid. The song they took as their “hid-den ace” was “Cómo Te Atreves,” whichnow has more than 200 million views onYouTube alone. With its racing finger-picked banjo, imagery-rich lyrics andupbeat “road trip pop” vibe that togeth-er have come to define Morat’s sound, MORAT, PAGE 2

Colombian band reaches across continents

From left, Martín Vargas, Simón Vargas, Juan Pablo Isaza and Juan Pablo Villamil ofMorat, a fast-growing band from Colombia whose lyrics are achingly nostalgic.

GIANFRANCO TRIPODO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Morat’s lyrics are speakingto a generation’s anxietiesin a time of social turmoil

BY JORDAN SALAMA

The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.

Marie Malenova, a Czech retiree in atidy, prosperous village in South Mora-via, had not voted since 1989, the yearher country held its first free electionsafter more than four decades of commu-nist rule.

Last Friday, however, she decided tocast a vote again, an event so unusualthat her disbelieving family recordedher change of heart, taking photographsof her slipping her ballot into a big whitebox at the village hall.

She said she did not much like the peo-ple she voted for, a coalition of previ-ously divided center-right parties, de-scribing them as “a smaller evil amongall our many thieves.” But they at leasthad a simple and clear message: We canbeat Andrej Babis, the Czech Republic’spopulist, billionaire prime minister.

“I wanted a change,” Ms. Malenovasaid, “and I wanted something thatcould beat Babis.”

For the past decade, populists like Mr.Babis have often seemed politically in-vincible, rising to power across Centraland Eastern Europe as part of a globaltrend of strongman leaders disdainful ofdemocratic norms. But on Saturday, theseemingly unbeatable Mr. Babis was de-feated because opposition parties putideological differences aside and joinedtogether to drive out a leader they fearhas eroded the country’s democracy.

Their success could have major reper-cussions in the region and beyond. InHungary and in Poland, where national-ist leaders have damaged democratic in-stitutions and sought to undermine theEuropean Union, opposition leaders aretrying to forge unified fronts and oustpopulist leaders in upcoming elections.

“Populism is beatable,” said Otto Eibl,the head of the political science depart-ment at Masaryk University in Brno, theSouth Moravian capital. “The first stepin beating a populist leader is to sup-press individual egos and to compro-mise in the interest of bringing achange.”

The biggest showdown could come inHungary, where Prime Minister ViktorOrban has promoted himself as Eu-rope’s standard-bearer for “illiberal de-mocracy,” while his Fidesz party hassteadily stripped away democraticchecks, squeezing independent mediaand the judiciary. Mr. Orban has stakedout right-wing political positions — in-cluding hostility to immigration, the Eu-ropean Union and L.G.B.T.Q. rights (ifalso proving adept at adopting left-wingwelfare policies) — that have been emu-lated by his allies in Poland, the govern-ing Law and Justice party.CZECH, PAGE 4

A road mapfor topplingpopuliststrongmenROZDROJOVICE, CZECH REPUBLIC

Opposition Czech partiescooperate and win. AreHungary and Poland next?

BY ANDREW HIGGINSLast November, Dorian Abbot, a geo-physicist at the University of Chicago,posted a series of slide presentationson YouTube making a case against theuse of group identity as a primarycriterion in selection processes. Hewas immediately targeted for cancella-tion.

So Robert Zimmer, Chicago’s mag-nificent president (now chancellor),stepped in with a clear statement ofsupport for academic freedom. Thecontroversy evaporated.

Then, in August, Abbot and a co-writer published an op-ed in News-week making the case that diversity,equity and inclusion policies violate“the ethical and legal principle ofequal treatment.” It led to another

cancellation cam-paign, this time inprotest of hisinvitation todeliver the presti-gious CarlsonLecture at theMassachusettsInstitute of Tech-

nology, where he was going to speakabout “Climate and the Potential forLife on Other Planets.”

This time, the campaign worked. AsAbbot has detailed, a department chaircalled to tell him the school would becanceling the lecture “in order to avoidcontroversy.”

The two episodes are a stark illus-tration of the difference between theculture of intellectual courage nur-tured by Zimmer and the CowardCulture at work at M.I.T. and otherinstitutions ostensibly invested in thecause of free expression. It’s also areminder that our universities arefailing at the task of educating stu-dents in the habits of a free mind.Instead, they are becoming islands ofilliberal ideology and factories ofmoral certitude, more often at warwith the values of liberal democracythan in their service.

I’ve been thinking about all thiswhile reading “What Universities OweDemocracy” by Johns Hopkins Uni-versity’s president, Ronald Daniels.Full disclosure: I’m on the board ofoverseers of Hopkins’s SNF AgoraInstitute, and he is a personal friend.Don’t hold it too much against him:This is an exceptionally important,insistently reasonable, delightfully

What doesa school owedemocracy?

OPINION

For academiato serve thegoals of liberty,Coward Culturehas to go.

STEPHENS, PAGE 11

Bret Stephens

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