On the menu today: The world is shocked by the assassination of Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe — a giant in Japanese politics and on the world stage during his long tenure as the leader of his country. As of this writing, the assassin appears to be some lone, disturbed nut. Unlike other shocking assassinations of national leaders by terrorists or rival political factions, it is hard to find a sense of meaning in this heinous crime — yet another case of an insignificant man trying to make himself significant by killing a greater man.
Japan’s Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Assassinated
What, the world wasn’t crazy enough already?
The people of Japan — orderly, safe, buttoned-up Japan! — just witnessed the horrific assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe by an apparently angry, disturbed man using a homemade gun:
Abe, 67, was stumping for a fellow politician from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Nara, near Osaka, on Friday morning when a gunman opened fire with what police described as an improvised weapon.
Hidetada Fukushima, head of the emergency center at the Nara Medical University Hospital, said Abe had no vital signs when he arrived there at 12:20 p.m. Friday. Doctors found two gunshot wounds to the neck, and one of the bullets had reached the heart, Fukushima said. Despite efforts to save him, including a transfusion, Abe died of blood loss less than five hours later.
Because violent crime and gun ownership are so rare in Japan, when I heard the news that he had been shot, I wondered if it was some disturbing Aum Shinrikyo-style cult or some sort of Yakuza organized-crime retaliation against government authorities. But at this hour, it sounds like it’s just some nut, acting alone:
Tetsuya Yamagami, a resident of Nara, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder, the police said. The suspect was formerly a member of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, according to government sources.
“It’s not a grudge against the political beliefs of former Prime Minister Abe,” Nara prefectural police quoted Yamagami as saying. He was also quoted as saying he was dissatisfied with Abe and planned to kill him. His home was later searched by the police.
Even more bizarrely, the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported that the assassin may not have understood whom he targeted and killed:
A man under arrest for allegedly shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a stump speech here has told police that he intended to target a senior official of a religious group, sources close to the case have told the Mainichi Shimbun. . . .
During questioning, the suspect cited the name of a specific religious group and said, “I intended to target this senior official (of the group).” The named official, however, was reportedly not at the scene at the time.
At the same time, the suspect has made nonsensical statements, and Nara Prefectural Police are carefully investigating whether he is mentally competent to be held criminally responsible.
Even if you knew almost nothing about Japan, Shinzo Abe was likely one of the names you could recognize. He was the longest serving prime minister in Japanese history. During the closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Rio in 2016, Abe appeared dressed up as Mario from Super Mario Brothers, celebrating that the next summer Olympics would be hosted in Tokyo in 2020. (The Covid-19 pandemic pushed it back a year.) In the infamous picture of Trump and Angela Merkel at the 2018 G-7 Summit, Abe is standing between the two leaders, arms folded, with a look on his face that suggests he knows Merkel is wasting her breath, but it’s not worth trying to stop her from making the effort. Every now and then, Abe would use social media in an almost Trump-like way, talking about how much he enjoyed Taiwanese pineapples after China had banned the import of that produce.
Tuesday, Donald Trump concluded a three-day visit to Japan, inaugurating his Administration’s first official tour of Asia since Trump took office. It was no accident that the event kicked off at a Japanese country club. Shinzo Abe is one of the few world leaders to enjoy a close rapport with the U.S. President, cultivated through carefully observing and catering to his tastes. After a round on the links, the Prime Minister and President retreated to the clubhouse for hamburgers, where Abe proudly unveiled a gift for Trump and his entourage: a set of gleaming white baseball caps emblazoned with the genially fractured slogan “donald & shinzo, make alliance even greater.”
The gift, somehow managing to be both a little tacky and touching at the same time, was but the first in a series of “Donald & Shinzo” moments over the next few days.
For those who did pay attention to Japanese politics, Abe was the country’s modern master — a man who rose to the moment and managed to enact changes that others had found too difficult. Our Isaac Schorr assessed his legacy after he stepped down in 2020:
Shinzo Abe’s tenure has not been without its warts. He has failed to accomplish all of his goals — most notably a constitutional revision — and offended some in the region with his decidedly unconvincing apologies for Imperial Japan’s crimes. However, his economic program has provided much needed stability; his calculation regarding the need for a more imposing Japanese military given Chinese ambitions in the region has proven prescient; and his firm belief in both the nation state and the importance of a foreign policy that promotes “fundamental values” can serve as a model to other conservative leaders around the globe. For his efforts and example, Abe is assured a secure legacy, and one that will endure long after he leaves office.
A few years back, I visited the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, located within the former Texas School Book Depository building, which chronicles the life, assassination, and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. One of the later exhibits is about the conspiracy theories that have always surrounded Kennedy’s assassination, and why many believe — or more accurately, choose to believe — that Kennedy was killed by the Soviet Union, or the mob, or the CIA, or some other sinister, shadowy force that escaped justice.
In a short video at the exhibit, a psychologist declares something along the lines of, “We don’t want to believe that someone as significant as John F. Kennedy could be killed by someone as insignificant as Lee Harvey Oswald.”
When someone such as former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a bomb, it’s shocking and terrible, but at least it can be understood. Hariri defied the will of radical groups such as Hezbollah, and Hezbollah chose to make him pay. The slaying of Hariri led to the Cedar Revolution — which involved around a million Lebanese citizens, fed up with the violence and disenfranchisement brought by Syria’s meddling in their country’s affairs. About a decade earlier, former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin had a vision for a lasting peace with the Palestinians, and some nutty Israeli ultra-nationalist set out to stop him. As awful as those assassinations were, they reflected the brave choices of those men, their courage and defiance. They were willing to die for what they believed in, and the rest of us can look at that and say they accepted the risk of assassination in order to make the world a better place.
But this murder of Abe? This is meaningless. Some loon with a head full of bad wiring decided the best way to spend his time was to build a gun and track down and kill some famous face he recognized from the television screen.
Someone as insignificant as Abe’s assassin shouldn’t be able to influence the course of history in Japan.
ADDENDUM: It’s not the biggest deal in the world, but as 8 a.m. EST, the world had known about Abe’s shooting for eight hours, and his death for three hours — with no word from President Biden. Shortly before 1:30 a.m. Eastern time, a White House spokesman issued a two-sentence statement: “We are shocked and saddened to hear about the violent attack against former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. We are closely monitoring the reports and keeping our thoughts with his family and the people of Japan.” This statement, which was not sent out to the general White House press email list or posted on the White House website, was the only comment from the White House until around 9 a.m. this morning when President Biden finally released a statement about Abe’s assassination.
Former president Donald Trump issued a statement at 6:24 a.m. EST:
Really BAD NEWS FOR THE WORLD! Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is dead. He was assassinated. His killer was captured and will hopefully be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Few people know what a great man and leader Shinzo Abe was, but history will teach them and be kind. He was a unifier like no other, but above all, he was a man who loved and cherished his magnificent country, Japan. Shinzo Abe will be greatly missed. There will never be another like him! President Donald J. Trump
And then, at 8:02 a.m., Trump put up a new post about how high his poll numbers are in a potential matchup in the 2024 GOP presidential primary: “With all the lies and the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. History . . .my number went up. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”