Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
I suppose it is because of the infamous litigiousness of American culture that the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office was bound to engage in a lengthy inquest into the suicide of jailed murder suspect Kazuyoshi Miura in 2008 (“L.A. jailers cleared in Miura death: DA,” March 19, 2010). I remember at the time of Miura’s suicide by hanging in his cell his attorney and family claiming that they didn’t think he was the kind of man to do such a thing, trying to make it sound more sinister than it was, speculating about the possible meaning of the printing on his baseball cap and his mood during transportation, etc. So an inquest was convened. In the U.S., people who have authority over others - doctors, teachers, police, prison staff, etc. - must protect themselves from possible accusations of malfeasance, incompetence, neglect, etc. regarding the care of their charges. But Miura’s suicide was no mystery at all. Not then and not now. He said that he did not want to be extradited to the U.S.and he meant it. He REALLY meant it. Period. For all that he may have been in life, I respect a man who says what he means and means what he says. But in America especially, the notion that suicide is only an act of the unstable or mentally ill is so embedded that people are in denial of the proposition that a person can mean exactly what they say even unto death as an act of reason and conviction. No, they must mean something else. But in truth, don’t we need more people in the world who mean what they say and say what they mean? I don’t consider it an unfortunate condition in social situations so much as an admirable quality. Calling it a “virtue” might be going too far, but admirable, certainly.