Japanese Pride

Do you believe that the pride of the Japanese government has hurt the Japanese people in the nuclear crisis?

I'm specifically referring to the way the Japanese government initially made it clear that they did not want any foreign help in dealing with the problems being experienced at their nuclear reactors.

Now the Japanese government is willing to accept foreign help, but only because it is 100% clear the help is needed. In fact, it appears very obvious that Japan doesn't have anything close to the resources needed to deal with this problem.

Do you believe this pride and arrogance has hurt the Japanese people? Would this situation be better right now if Japan would have accepted help initially offered by foreign countries?