Nathan News

TOKYO — Nearly three months after Shinzo Abe, Japan’s most influential and longest-serving prime minister, was gunned down in broad daylight during a campaign stop, his death still reverberates, though few people l would have predicted.

An outpouring of anger over the assassination was not directed at the killer, his ability to manufacture and deploy a firearm in a country where firearms are strictly regulated, or the security details that were not failed to protect Mr. Abe. Instead, the public turned their anger on the long-ruling Liberal Democrat Party and its plans to hold a state funeral for him next week.

Fumio Kishida, the current prime minister, is suffering from his worst approval rating since becoming party leader last fall. Any sense of public mourning appears to have faded as thousands of protesters took to the streets or signed petitions opposing the state funeral, complaining that the ceremony is a waste of public money and was unilaterally imposed in the country by Mr. Kishida and his cabinet. .

Mr Abe’s assassination also sparked a wave of uncomfortable revelations about links between ruling party politicians and a fringe religious group. Tetsuya Yamagami, the man accused of Mr Abe’s murder, had written ahead of the shooting of his anger at the Unification Church – a South Korea-based group with significant operations and legal entanglements in Japan – and its involvement in national politics.

And in perhaps the biggest twist, Mr Yamagami, far from being reviled, struck a chord with Japanese audiences with his story. For weeks, Japan’s often idle news media have pored over church affairs in Japan and the links between politicians and a group accused of preying on vulnerable people, including the mother of Mr. Yamagami, for his financial gain.

With hundreds of international dignitaries due to descend on Tokyo for the state funeral on Tuesday – the first for a Japanese prime minister in 55 years – the backlash has also become a referendum on Mr Abe’s nearly eight consecutive years in power. While Mr Abe was widely adored on the world stage, he was far more divisive in his home country, and those who opposed his right-wing policies are now voicing myriad grievances about his rule.

Azumi Tamura, an associate professor of sociology at Shiga University, said those who criticized the state funeral believed it would wrongfully elevate a politician involved in a number of controversial rulings and scandals, including accusations according to which his government allegedly unduly granted favors to politicians. friends and mishandled the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Now people think ‘why didn’t more people get angry back then?'” she said. “These are the issues that should have dragged his government down, and they didn’t.”

While voters may continue to keep Mr. Abe’s party in power in the name of stability, they are voicing their criticism of his actions in life by opposing the effort to honor him in death.

During a protest on Monday against the funeral, thousands of people gathered in Yoyogi Park in central Tokyo and waved multicolored flags representing a cornucopia of causes: women’s empowerment, disability rights, LGBTQ allegiance, and opposition to nuclear power or US military bases.

“I think it’s important for all of us to come together like this and express our feelings,” said Shuhei Sato, 42, who stood out in the rain. “What Abe did, what he stood up for, everyone he hurt – it’s not OK.”

Internationally, Mr. Abe has received praise for his early success in restarting Japan’s moribund economy, his hosting of President Barack Obama during the first US presidential visit to Hiroshima, and his dexterous handling of a president. Mercurial Donald J. Trump. He also helped maintain a broad multinational trade deal meant to serve as a bulwark against China even after Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of it.

“What is most regrettable is that a politician’s funeral is still taking place when more than half of Japanese voters are against holding such a state funeral,” said Katsuya Okada, secretary general of the Democratic Constitutional Party, the largest opposition party, during a press briefing. last week. Some media polls show that more than 60% of the public opposes funerals.

Even more damaging were the continued revelations of the extensive ties between the Unification Church – which Mr Yamagami said had defrauded his mother of nearly a million dollars – and the Liberal Democratic Party.

So far, the party has announced that nearly half of the 379 Liberal Democrat MPs have acknowledged ties to the Unification Church, ranging from sending congratulatory telegrams to church-affiliated organizations to attendance at church conferences.

“The assassination is directly responsible for bringing to light the dark area of ​​cooperation between the Unification Church and the LDP,” said Jeffrey J. Hall, a professor at Kanda University of International Studies. who studies Japanese politics.

As the actions of the Unification Church have come to light, Mr. Yamagami has become something of a romantic anti-hero to some people who have felt shaken by economic and social forces beyond their control, said Tamaki Kawasaki, a reporter who closely followed the public response to Mr. Abe’s death.

Over the past few decades, stagnant growth and rising inequality – caused in part by Mr Abe’s economic policies – have created a generation that has “a strong sense of victimhood”, Ms Kawasaki said.

Online, a group of women Ms. Kawasaki dubbed “Yamagami Girls” raved about Mr. Yamagami’s looks and the bookish intelligence they say he displayed on his Twitter account. Well-wishers flooded his jailers with care packages, according to Mr Yamagami’s uncle, who reluctantly received them at his home.

Even a sympathetic Mr. Yamagami biopic is heading to theaters. Masao Adachi, director and former radical leftist, said he planned to screen the film in a limited number of arthouse cinemas on the day of Mr Abe’s funeral before releasing a full version nationwide early next year.

The spotlight on the Unification Church has also fallen on the ruling party’s longstanding collaboration with another group of religiously backed politicians.

The Komeito, a party originally formed by the Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist movement, has been the ruling coalition partner of the Liberal Democrats since 1999. Soka Gakkai members campaign for Komeito candidates and issue a bloc of votes on which the Liberal Democrats can count to support them in government.

“Yes, a violent incident is when everything is laid bare,” said Levi McLaughlin, associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at North Carolina State University, who specializes in Japan. “The Soka Gakkai has been subject to this kind of criticism for many decades.”

Daisaku Hiraki, a Komeito member in the Upper House of Parliament, said a major difference in the case of the Unification Church was that the ties were out of public view.

“Right now the public is looking critically at the LDP and the Unification Church because people are saying we didn’t know about the relationship between the two organizations,” Mr. Hiraki said in an interview in his desk. With the Soka Gakkai and the Komeito, he said, “the relationship is very transparent.”

But even if the public found its voice in opposing the state funeral, political transformation is unlikely, said Shigeru Ishiba, a prominent Liberal Democrat MP who came close to beating Mr Abe in a leadership race. left in 2012.

“Mr. Support for Kishida is down, but support for opposition parties hasn’t increased,” he said. “The public is upset. don’t know what to do.

Protest organizers said they remained hopeful the public would be galvanized.

Nahoko Hishiyama, 33, an organizer of the mass protest in Yoyogi Park and general secretary of a grassroots organization that opposes a proposal by Mr Abe to revise the pacifist constitution, said activists could target elections municipalities and prefectures to put pressure on the national government.

“Japanese people,” she said, “must think of themselves as people who, if they raise their voices, can make a difference.”

Hikari Hida and Hisako Ueno contributed report.