It’s a slippery slope, if someone says fascist then it essentially a door to justify an assassination. As we can see, it’s already getting celebrated in some circles calling the shooter a ‘hero’ & labeling Abe a fascist as well. Are we really going to put Abe in the same category as Putin here? The guy just got shot and died, this not good for Japan or the world regardless of political views.
25 Likes
OK, to be completely honest, I don’t feel sad that Abe was killed either. But I want to live in a civilised world where murder isn’t a way to solve issues or personal grudges. That’s why I think this is bad news.
28 Likes
What I heard was he was crazy conspiracy theorist that thought Abe was part of some group that ruled the world.
Also, does anyone have a transcript of the final part of the speech?
4 Likes
Shinzo Abe was a right wing politician. Calling him an Ultra Nationalist is a bit of an overstatement — unless of course condemning current Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, Fiery Reef and rebuking the phony claims of the nine-dashed line make you an Ultra-Nationalist.
Abe undoubtedly had his faults, we all do. Denying Japanese War crimes during the pre-WWII and WWII occupation of China and Korea is not Abe-exclusive. The majority of the Japanese government takes that stance. It’s always interesting to flip through a Japanese school-children’s history book and see how sparse information is on WWII.
Disclaimer: I love the discourse. Discussion is important. Everyone is entitled to their own viewpoints and opinions.
36 Likes
Assassination of a political figure isn’t particularly sad. (Most would be somehow controversial in some circles, anyway.) But the news regarding some people’s reaction is sad – but we just have to accept as it is.
As for the discussion here, indeed we have to be careful about what to discuss, and word choice.
Anyway, even the first news does kill my mood for Japanese consumption of today.
6 Likes
It’s also worth adding that even if you really hate Abe to the point of wanting him dead, this is probably good for the LDP’s electoral results for the election on Sunday, so this is still not really a net positive event for you.
8 Likes
I feel like the saddest part of this was that Japan is the last place where many of us thought such a thing could ever happen.
10 Likes
It is ok to be sad when a politician you don’t agree with is assassinated. It is even ok to mourn them regardless of how terrible they are
5 Likes
Exactly this. I was working at an elementary school when we heard the news and the teachers were all going around saying, “It’s scary to think something like this could happen in our country.”
They see this kind of thing happening in the U.S. and are like “glad that’s not our problem” but now that it’s happened here, the issue feels very real to them. (Not to mention some feelings that foreign influence is the reason Japan is changing for the worst, but that’s another story.)
5 Likes
I wish I were a strong enough reader of Japanese to read the original NHK article posted above. Alas, in due time.
I was not a fan of Abe the politician on account of his disinclination to acknowledge the evil of Japan’s military actions before and during WWII. His push to alter the Constitution of Japan towards militarism gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. The “Renunciation of War” aka “Article 9” has been something I admired about Japan, even after learning said renunciation was forced onto the nation by the US/MacArthur and asking myself the question “do the Japanese really feel a desire to abstain from militarism?” My research into post-WWII Japanese history has shown how a certain group of very conservative men wish to rekindle some form of Tojo-era militaristic nationalism.
So I am not sad about Abe’s assassination. It is not the first political assassination in modern Japan’s history, after all. But I am shocked—just a bit, like a strong static shock. Both the fact that Abe was murdered and the method of murder itself are surprising for how absolutely safe Japan feels. Gun violence is always on the news over here in the States, but I have only heard of two shooting incidents in Japan that I recall: yesterday’s assassination and a shooting in 2016 when I was in Tokyo. Maybe the shock is from this happening when I literally never imagined it and me getting some sort of cognitive whiplash. I would like to live in a world without such violence. For that I do feel a sense of sadness that murder was the only way someone felt they could oppose something they disagreed with.
6 Likes
This is crazy and shocking. Regardless of how one may personally feel about ex-PM Shinzo Abe, what happened was a former world leader was just murdered in broad daylight in arguably the safest country in the modern world. It’s unprecedented. What does this mean for the future? What kind of cultural impact will an event like this have on both Japan as well as the rest of the world?
15 Likes
Ok…
So you can’t flag people saying they are happy that someone was killed. But you can be flagged for saying to those people they shouldn’t…
Maybe I am the only one shocked by that… I have different values.
5 Likes
Where did anyone say they were happy? I think I missed it.
2 Likes
I don’t think anyone explicitly said they were happy but I do think that when you label or frame Abe as being a fascist as one person did then you are in a way pretty much justifying him being killed, and saying that it was good.
Because who would be opposed to killing an actual fascist besides other fascists or total pacifists?
I think the term fascist is thrown around way too loosely in political discourse on the internet. It makes the word lose all its meaning when we can call any politician we don’t like a fascist.
18 Likes
Yes, I was referring to that. It is not explicitly said but the meaning is the same
1 Like
I don’t agree with that at all. Is it ok to mourn Hitler or Vladimir Putin (if that happened)…I don’t think that’s ok (and no i’m not comparing Abe to Hitler etc. at all).
3 Likes
My stance isn’t super pro-Abe but bringing up a list of a person’s faults the day they died when they weren’t even a controversial political figure (had controversies but was on the whole pretty average) and where admired by a majority of Japanese, is just bad form.
Like someone else said it’s not political news like Ukraine isn’t political news, which I agree. Throwing the labels and accusations that are used by other governments to slander Japan shows me you’re just out here to poison the well and show everyone how big brain’d you think you are.
7 Likes
My dad always told me resentment is a poison you take hoping the other person dies. Despite their actions it probably helped their party more.
7 Likes
This is horrible…
Not only is his death itself sad, but… Japan? Really? If it can happen in Japan, it can happen anywhere… Things are bad enough already right now.
3 Likes
1 Like