{"id":17107,"date":"2022-07-18T04:30:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T11:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17107"},"modified":"2023-06-22T21:59:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T04:59:21","slug":"my-sna-visible-minorities-36-abes-assassination-and-the-revenge-of-history-july-18-2022-on-how-his-historical-revisionism-created-a-blind-spot-that-ultimately-killed-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17107","title":{"rendered":"My SNA Visible Minorities 36: “Abe\u2019s Assassination and the Revenge of History” (July 18, 2022), on how his historical revisionism created a blind spot that ultimately killed him"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0After the Abe Assassination, people have been asking me what I think about it. \u00a0In short, I think Abe’s historical revisionism is what got him killed. \u00a0Opening of my latest SNA column 35:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Abe\u2019s Assassination and the Revenge of History<\/h2>\n

By Debito Arudou, \u00a0Shingetsu News Agency, July 18, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/07\/18\/visible-minorities-abes-assassination-and-the-revenge-of-history\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has occasioned a lot of valuable, eye-opening discussions in the media, but few if any have focused upon how Abe\u2019s death could be seen as a form of karmic payback\u2013-what happens when you ignore the lessons of history in the pursuit of raw political power.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The discussions have instead focused on the veneer of Japan\u2019s \u201csafe\u201d society being blown away by a homemade gun<\/a>; or about how the world\u2019s democracies have been deprived of a Japanese leader comfortable on the international stage<\/a> (while egregiously overlooking all the damage he did to Japan\u2019s democracy<\/a>).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A few intrepid journalists (starting with the SNA<\/a>) have explored the swamp of Abe\u2019s political connections with the \u201cMoonies\u201d religious cult<\/a>, and how that probably gave motive to the killer.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To me the most absurd debate has been whether Abe\u2019s death was an \u201cassassination\u201d at all<\/a> \u2013- the Japanese media have uniformly refused to use the corresponding word ansatsu, portraying it as merely a \u201cshooting event\u201d (jugeki jiken).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

These important topics have been covered elsewhere by people with more expertise, so this column will take a different tack. It will discuss the role of national narratives in a society, how dishonest national narratives stunt the maturity of societies, and how a willful ignorance of history due to these national narratives circled back to kill Abe.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s talk about what national narratives are: stories created by governments, education systems, and media that unify people within a nation-state. For example, Japan sees itself as a pure-blooded monoethnic society that can be mobilized under shared collective goals to accomplish political and economic miracles. On the other hand, the United States sees itself as a \u201cmelting pot\u201d of immigrants and cultures whose harnessed diversity has made it the richest, most powerful nation in the world. And so on.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Accurate or not, all societies create national narratives as a matter of necessity. They tell us what we as a group believe and share as collective history. Without them, policymakers would have great difficulty getting disparate people to obey social norms and laws, or accept their status as a member of society. When people believe that they share a history, starting with national education from childhood, political \u201clegitimacy\u201d can be entrenched. You really know it has worked when someone \u201cloves\u201d their country so deeply that they\u2019ll die for it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a problem endemic to creating a shared history\u2013you have to decide who\u2019s a member of society and who\u2019s not. Narratives that unify also must exclude. You can\u2019t have an \u201cin-group\u201d without the existence of an \u201cout-group\u201d to contrast yourself with. You can\u2019t have \u201ccitizens\u201d without also having \u201cforeigners.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sooner or later even the most well-intentioned people make mistakes that turn people against each other, privileging some people at the cost of others, disenfranchising and even killing in the name of national integrity.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So from that comes two types of history: a \u201cgood\u201d one that is celebrated, and a \u201cbad\u201d one that people generally don\u2019t want to talk about.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider a few examples of the latter:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When the European powers of the world were colonizing other lands, they soon discovered they couldn\u2019t extract treasure without exterminating local peoples. Consider Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Or as the United States grew and developed, \u201cManifest Destiny\u201d wielded an unspeakable impact on Native Americans\u2013and that\u2019s before we mention the horrors of chattel slavery.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Japan too didn\u2019t secure its borders without committing cultural genocide against the Ainu and Ryukyuans. There was also that brief episode in the last century when it decided to \u201cliberate\u201d Asians abroad under the auspices of a racist Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The point is that every country has a dark side, and any honest historical accounting would allow for that.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most countries would rather see themselves as the \u201cgood guys\u201d in their own narrative, and either downplay or ignore the atrocities committed in the name of the nation.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a bad idea for a number of reasons: not only because it produces poor public policy that leaves past injustices and grievances unresolved, but also because it leaves people blind to the more genuine lessons of history.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, the American tendency to see the US Civil War as merely a good-spirited contest between North and South economic and cultural needs overlooks the fact that owning people as property was the central cause of the war. And yet, narratives are still circulating in the South that downplay slavery and its impact.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why do you think there\u2019s so much backlash these days towards Critical Race Theory, which highlights the legacy of unequal racialized treatment still embedded within current legal systems and narratives? It is because many people would rather just pretend these issues are all settled.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Similarly, why do you think there\u2019s so much backlash in Japan to teaching about atrocities like the Unit 731 biological warfare, the Nanjing Massacre, the brutal colonization of Korea and China, or the government-sponsored sexual slavery of the Comfort Women? It is because some would prefer to pretend that it never happened.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is where Abe comes in\u2013he was deeply committed to historical revisionism, asserting that Japan was a victim (not an aggressor) in the Pacific War, no more guilty of wrongdoing than any other great power. He also wanted to remove many of the \u201cWestern\u201d elements (such as civil rights and individual liberties) that had been enshrined in Japan\u2019s \u201cPeace Constitution\u201d to prevent a recurrence of Japan\u2019s past militarism.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For people like Abe, a national narrative depicting Japan as the \u201cbad guys\u201d would force Japanese to feel shame about their country and to \u201clove\u201d it less. That\u2019s the rubric behind his enforced patriotism and revised compulsory education curriculums.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was an immature approach which forestalls ever coming to terms with and learning from the past.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some other countries are more mature about it. Germany, for example, has accepted that its inexcusable historical deeds are just that\u2013inexcusable\u2013and contemporary Germans are taught as such.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying that Nazi Germany was one of the worst political systems that ever existed. German schoolchildren are rightly taught to \u201cBeware the Beginnings\u201d (Wehret den Anf\u00e4ngen); that is, to be vigilant against something similar ever happening again.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa has done something similar with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Canada is finally coming to grips with its genocidal Indian Residential School System. And so on. Some societies acknowledge a portion of their dark past and try to move forward on a healthier basis.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On the other hand, societies with dishonest historical narratives wind up stuck in the past, continuously refighting and relitigating old battles. Remember what George Santayana said about people not learning from history? They\u2019re doomed to repeat it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Was American mob violence against the US Capitol on January 6 something entirely new? In fact, this sort of thing happened in city and state legislatures many times in the past. Have you ever heard of the Meridian Race Riot of 1871, the Battle of Liberty Place in 1874, the South Carolina Race Riots of 1876, and the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898? Probably not, and that\u2019s the point. If you don\u2019t know about them, it\u2019s like they never happened.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

These and many other incidents evicted anti-slavery politicians from elected offices in the South, established Jim Crow laws for nearly a century, and created the longstanding ahistorical narratives that pervade some elements of Trumpist politics to this day.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In other words, the Capitol insurrection was in fact a repeat from a historical blueprint..<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Likewise, the Abe assassination was, in the longer view of history, not unique. Mark Schreiber recently offered a \u201cguided historical tour\u201d in the Asia Times on the long list of political killings in Tokyo alone, calling it \u201cpractically routine\u201d in times that are not so distant from our own.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But such history was so suppressed in favor of \u201csafe Japan\u201d narratives that Abe himself scoffed at the need for additional security around public political events. During a 2015 Diet floor session, Abe officiously dismissed a question from MP Kiyomi Tsujimoto about the possibility of domestic terrorism, sniping that it was an attempt to \u201cdenigrate Japan.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That was one of the historical blind spots that got Abe killed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even now the narrative of \u201csafe Japan\u201d is reasserting itself. The Japanese media still won\u2019t accurately portray Abe\u2019s killing as an \u201cassassination.\u201d Yet, as the Japan Times noted, similar political killings are freely portrayed as ansatsu\u2013as long as they happen overseas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why? Apparently because, in Japan, assassinations are somehow \u201chistorically unexpected.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even the excuse that Abe\u2019s killing was not \u201cpolitical\u201d is inaccurate. This was not a random murder. As reported in various media, the killer wanted to retaliate because his family had been financially crippled by the Moonies, and specifically targeted Abe for his connections to them. That sounds political to me. Yet the Japanese media initially tried to suppress Abe\u2019s Moonie connection until SNA and social media commentators broke the story.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Societies that stunt growth with \u201clove-of-country-at-all-costs\u201d narratives do themselves an enormous disservice, and not just because it leads to things like politics through violence.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Japan is still stuck in other hackneyed feedback loops: that it has always been a monoethnic society without actual minorities (it has ethnically cleansed itself numerous times); that it never actually lost the Pacific War (using the term shusen\u2013war\u2019s end\u2013instead of haisen, war defeat) in historical accounts; and that Japan is not responsible for past militarism, much to the aggravation of nearby countries. These are counterproductive to Japan\u2019s present and future.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ahistoricity also keeps Japan from facing one more essential fact it has known for decades\u2013that it is an aging, stagnating society, facing senescence and insolvency within a generation or two unless it allows immigration. To move forward, it needs to adopt more inclusive narratives.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That means coming to terms with, and teaching, the dark side of its history. The senseless death of Abe, who was the most prominent proponent of head-in-the-sand nationalism in postwar Japan, is a good opportunity for a reevaluation.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Otherwise history will continue to exact its revenge.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDS
\n======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SNA: The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has occasioned a lot of valuable, eye-opening discussions in the media, but few if any have focused upon how Abe\u2019s death could be seen as a form of karmic payback\u2013what happens when you ignore the lessons of history in the pursuit of raw political power.<\/p>\n

The discussions have instead focused on the veneer of Japan\u2019s \u201csafe\u201d society being blown away by a homemade gun; or about how the world\u2019s democracies have been deprived of a Japanese leader comfortable on the international stage (while egregiously overlooking all the damage he did to Japan\u2019s democracy).<\/p>\n

A few intrepid journalists (starting with the SNA) have explored the swamp of Abe\u2019s political connections with the \u201cMoonies\u201d religious cult, and how that probably gave motive to the killer.<\/p>\n

To me the most absurd debate has been whether Abe\u2019s death was an \u201cassassination\u201d at all \u2013- the Japanese media have uniformly refused to use the corresponding word ansatsu, portraying it as merely a \u201cshooting event\u201d (jugeki jiken).<\/p>\n

These important topics have been covered elsewhere by people with more expertise, so this column will take a different tack. It will discuss the role of national narratives in a society, how dishonest national narratives stunt the maturity of societies, and how a willful ignorance of history due to these national narratives circled back to kill Abe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,18,36,22,19,20,26,4,14,13,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-education","category-history","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-media","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17107"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17278,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17107\/revisions\/17278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}