Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
The August 28, 2010 front page photograph of the Tokyo Detention House’s execution chamber (“Execution chamber opened to reporters”) did not inspire any exchange of Readers in Council opinions. Not yet. Maybe the paper in fact received many letters on it, all unprintable. So the lack of a reaction primes me to regard the suggestion made in “Domestic media hangs on Chiba’s every comment” (September 19th) that contrary to Justice Minister Keiko Chiba’s stated aim of wanting to motivate public discussion of the death penalty, the tour instead was more or less just domestic-media-manipulating theater. In Japan everything is theater so long as appearance dominates substance - which it always will, I’m afraid. A submissive media - a glaring feature of Japan - acts as an accomplice. Unsurprisingly, independent and foreign media were excluded from the tour, with typically lame excuses. We continue to be fed the shallow defense that the system’s secretiveness politely defers to the feelings of inmates. We hear almost nothing from genuine anti-death penalty advocates. Instead, we hear that “it can’t be helped,” or that there is “no better choice,” which are not good reasons at all. It is often noted that the great majority of Japanese support the death penalty, and in a democracy the public will is the deciding factor. But a democracy needs an informed public, too often unavailable here because of the submissive media and structural problems in education among other reasons. The word “discussion” is not synonymous with “debate,” Japanese culture is loath to pursue either because they both risk public confrontation of opposing sides. And if there is one thing Japanese hate it is public confrontation. Chances are we will never again hear anything about capital punishment. At least until the next inmate is strangled at the end of a rope.