This has been an unbelievable week for huge news stories.
Yesterday, Boris Johnson finally gave into the pressure and resigned, at least from his Conservative Party, and promised, more or less, to step down when a new leader was elected.
Then today, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed while giving a speech on the campaign trail in the city of Nara. He was assassinated by someone who was just behind him, and who managed to shoot him twice with what was described as a homemade gun.
Abe was rushed to a hospital, but was shortly thereafter pronounced dead, having bled out.
Since the end of World War II, Abe was the longest serving Prime Minister of Japan. He served from 2006 through 2007 during his first term, then served a second term from 2012 until 2014. He served a third term from 2014 until 2017. Finally, he served a fourth term from 2017 until 2020.
To be sure, Abe did have enemies. He left office at the end of his first term because of unpopularity, and suffered through a number of scandals. Also, his nationalism and tendency to gloss over some of the darker chapters in Japanese history was highly controversial. He was not well liked or trusted by China nor in either North or South Korea. In fact, Abe's refusal to own up to any darker chapters in Japanese history during World War II, particularly in relation to Japan's occupation of Korea during that era, set tensions high between the two countries. Many Koreans made a strong effort to boycott all Japanese products as a result of this.
Still, this was a stunning incident. Japan is a country with some of the strictest gun laws of any in the world. There is very little in the way of gun violence in the country. Also, there have been relatively few attempted assassinations even of political leaders there. So this really shook things up in a shocked Japan today.
For what it is worth, RIP, Shinzo Abe.
For reasons which transcend gun laws, I was very surprised that Tetsuya Yamagami, the alleged assassin – "alleged" actually sounds silly given that the whole thing was caught on film if I'm not mistaken – was able to just walk up to him and open fire. You would think the area would have been secured by a) frisking anyone entering it, and/or b) requiring people to walk through metal detectors. I know it's glib on my part to second-guess security, but I can't help but wonder if they bothered to do either of those things.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm not a huge fan of Shinzo Abe for the reasons you allude to here, I'm obviously not a proponent of assassinations either. As you pointed out, this just adds to what was already a turbulent week on the global stage.
Agreed, security should have been tighter. But Japan really is a country with remarkably little in the way of violent episodes like this with guns. Nevertheless, you would figure that, if there is an obvious target for such violence, it would be an elected leader at the hihest levels. Guessing that, like with the Kennedy assassination here in the United States, changes will be made as a result. Presidents no longer drive around with an open top here, and the secret service is everywhere. Guessing security for Japanese leaders will be, from this point onwards, also similarly much tighter.
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