Jeepney Press/Alma Reyes

TRAFFIC

Fear Without Truth

by Alma Reyes

On July 8, 2022, around 11:30 a.m., Japan stopped breathing for the rest of the day. The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe jolted the entire world like a vicious thunderbolt. Chaos, confusion, anger, grievance, fear—this flurry of emotions was enough to spiral in every single person’s heart and mind, Abe supporter or not.

Naturally, the first word that spurted out was “WHY?” The nation’s unprecedented political icon who strived determinedly to build Japan’s economy for more than eight years has even been compared to John F. Kennedy and what he had meant to the U.S. I, myself was not an Abe follower, but his demise burrowed a deep hole inside me. Is it the surprise of death that steps in unhesitatingly without invitation? Is it sadness that hatred lurks so vengefully in humans? Is it fear that people have reached no limit to deliberately destroy a person’s life, his family and aspirations to make meaning of this temporary life he has been given?

Every act of premeditated murder is, after all, personal. Motives may range variably from money, jealousy, contempt, revenge, to mental disability, but stems out of personal choice. When agitation, rage and desperation summit the ultimate peak of hopelessness beyond the inability to suppress one’s emotion, murder becomes a spiteful tool for defying self-control. Consequently, it translates into a declaration of a statement, which observers often never understand.

What did former Prime Minister Abe’s assassination mean to the Japanese people? Firstly, an article was published about how the word “assassination” was never used in the Japanese media to pertain to this horrific incident. Instead, the words that echoed were “shot” or “died,” but not “assassinated.” The article analyzed that in Japan “assassination” usually refers to “foreign” occurrences, such as the shoot-down of JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and others—but, not for Japanese figures. Oxford Dictionary defines “assassinate” as “to murder (an important person) for political or religious reasons.” Could it be, perhaps, that the motive for the former prime minister’s shooting could not be labeled as “political nor religious”? Out of curiosity, I have asked some Japanese about their thoughts on the subject. Most of them said that the word somewhat implies a “too heavy” impact, which the media may not wish to inflict on the people who mourn profusely as it is. As always, the citizens’ feelings fall prey to what seems to be the authorities’ civic obligation to protect them. Someone remarked that the word sounds “ancient,” like belonging to the Edo or Meiji eras. The article also stressed the natural flow of ambiguity in Japan, marked by “grayness” (instead of black or white) in so many facets of the culture. Playing subtle, subdued and vague is often the rule of decorum.

Expectedly, international reactions commonly expressed disbelief for a “safe” country that has one of the world’s strictest laws on gun control. Yet, times have changed aggressively since the age of the Internet. Free access to global information and the mayhem of abusive use of social media has woven a web of mind manipulation influencing people’s sense of mature judgment. Over the years, Japan has been witnessing sporadic crime incidents largely by knives, such as random stabbing inside trains, train stations or shopping malls, or killings of young children, and arson. Guns are admittedly almost invisible in the country, but the July 8 incident has apparently presented the painful evidence that with the borderless Internet platform dictating the rhythm of our everyday life, surely, ANYTHING could be possible. Certainly, the level of “safety” and security in Japan can no longer be equated to that of the good old days.

The sooner Japanese society accepts this unfortunate change, the better it can devise pragmatic measures to step up security efficiency and protect innocent lives. Evading the factuality of an assassination only further encourages repression and concealment of the truth.

Recently, the media seems to advertently focus on the religious group that the suspect had pointed to for his personal vendetta, camouflaging somehow the stage of politics. Whether the intention is to safeguard the reputation of political parties and former Prime Minister Abe himself (and his family) or to cushion the emotions of the people (or something else), veracity is hence, sacrificed. Or, perhaps, the truth no longer matters?

There is so much we need to reflect on from this historical phenomenon beyond simply the act of violence itself. It may have served as a catalyst in the need for recognition of shame, banality, change, and human weakness; yes, even in a society like Japan that the world naively perceives as a “utopia.”

Alma Reyes

Jeepney Press