On the assassination of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe

And looking ahead to Sunday's Upper House elections

Update: In July 10th elections, Shinzo Abe’s party, the LDP, made a strong showing in races for the Upper House of the Diet.

This is a newsletter about population decline and climate change, but it’s also about Japan, because my experiences in Japan led me to ask these questions in the first place. Like many people, I’m shocked and horrified by the assassination of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, the country’s longest-serving prime minister and its most internationally recognizable political figure.

When news broke last night US time (midday Japan time), I was messaging with a coauthor based in Tokyo. I saw a push notification from NHK, Japan’s national news service, pop up on my phone. I shared it with my coauthor. I didn’t want to believe it was a shooting — there have been far, far too many, and for Japan to experience a gun crime just didn’t seem to fit. “I sincerely hope the US isn’t exporting our gun problem,” I wrote.

“I’ve seen recent news,” he wrote. “It is very, very worrying…it is happening all over the world, it seems.”

The entire time I lived in Japan, I felt safe. It was a marvelous feeling. Walking alone at night, I didn’t feel compelled to look over my shoulder as often, whether I was in Tokyo or Zushi, the smaller city to the south that I called home. From active shooters to street harassment, I didn’t worry. In fact, the only time I recall hearing about guns in Japan was in the context of boar hunting parties in shrinking villages, where wild pigs are encroaching as human populations dwindle, leading to property damage and ruined fields. Watching a string of tragic mass shootings unfold over the last few months in the US has me feeling a renewed sense of cultural whiplash, even though I’ve been back for over a year. I can only imagine how it feels for my Japanese friends.

Elections for Japan’s House of Councillors, the upper house of the National Diet, will take place Sunday. These are constitutionally mandated to happen every six years, and the government has said that they cannot be delayed. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Abe’s party, has essentially ruled Japan with very few breaks since 1955. Commentators watch the LDP carefully for signs of weakness and/or evolution, but from what I’m seeing, there are no expectations that Sunday’s elections will push the LDP out of its current leadership position.

What will be interesting to see is how the LDP moves ahead. Revising Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which commits Japan to pacifism, was very much a priority for Abe, but something he was never able to achieve. Japan’s population is divided on this issue. Will efforts to revise Article 9 grow and evolve in the wake of Abe’s assassination? Will his fellow LDP lawmakers elevate this and make it a focal point of their agenda?

Personal notes and miscellanea

On a personal note, this shocking assassination will surely change at least the way political campaigns are conducted in Japan. When I lived in Japan, I frequently saw politicians standing on street corners or outside train stations, microphone in hand, giving speeches. I can’t imagine many members of the US Congress doing the same, especially since the shooting of former US Representative and newly minted Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Gabby Giffords in 2011. I hope it doesn’t spark a larger sense of public fear. And for any in the US who would claim that Japan’s very strict gun ownership laws are proof that policy doesn’t impact gun violence, I would note that the rarity of shootings in Japan is proof enough that restrictions work.

Less directly related, but interesting nevertheless, are Japanese cultural attitudes toward guns, which are radically different from those in the US. One of the most memorable illustrations I can think of comes courtesy of Isaac Meyer at History of Japan Podcast. In an episode about the yakuza, Japan’s mafia, Meyer points out that yakuza movies are an entire genre within Japanese film, and that an overarching trope within these movies is that bad guys carry guns, and honorable people carry swords.

I’ll be watching to see what Sunday’s elections deliver. In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of my friends in Japan.