Did anyone else see this? (About Japanese Hostages)

Nuldaan · Sir Postalot Joined: 07 Nov 2002 Posts: 1179

I saw this article in the paper this morning. It makes me glad I don't live in Japan.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8510163.htm?1c

Edit: Cut and pasted the article

Japanese greet freed hostages not as heroes but as reckless fools

By Norimitsu Onishi

New York Times

TOKYO - The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's cold stare.

The first three hostages, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, first appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they landed here Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.

``You got what you deserve!'' read one handwritten sign at the airport where they landed. ``You are Japan's shame,'' another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had ``caused trouble'' for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced that it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air fare.

Beneath the surface of Japan's ultra-sophisticated cities lie the hierarchical ties that have governed this island nation for centuries and that, at moments of crises, invariably reassert themselves. The former hostages' transgression was to ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a vertical society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy what people call here okami, or, literally, ``what is higher.''

Gone into hiding

Treated like criminals, the three former hostages have gone into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their own homes. The kidnapped woman, Nahoko Takato, was last seen arriving at her parents' house, looking defeated and dazed from taking tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped her walk and bow deeply before reporters, as a final apology to the nation.

Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who has examined the three former hostages twice since their return, said the stress they were enduring now was ``much heavier'' than what they endured during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name their three most stressful moments, the former hostages told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show the morning after their return here and realized Japan's anger with them.

``Let's say the knife incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level,'' Saito said in an interview at his clinic Thursday. ``After they came back to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level ranked 12.''

`Selfish' actions

To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages -- Takato, 34, who started her own non-profit organization to help Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a freelance writer also interested in the issue of depleted-uranium munitions -- had acted selfishly. Two others kidnapped and released in a separate incident -- Junpei Yasuda, 30, a freelance journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of an anti-war group -- were equally guilty.

But the freed hostages did get official praise from one government, the United States.

``Well, everybody should understand the risk they are taking by going into dangerous areas,'' said Secretary of State Colin Powell. ``But if nobody was willing to take a risk, then we would never move forward. We would never move our world forward.

``And so I'm pleased that these Japanese citizens were willing to put themselves at risk for a greater good, for a better purpose. And the Japanese people should be very proud that they have citizens like this willing to do that.''

In contrast, Yasuo Fukuda, chief Cabinet secretary, offered this: ``They may have gone on their own, but they must consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action.''

Families harassed

The criticism began almost immediately after the first three were kidnapped two weeks ago. The environment minister, Yuriko Koike, accused them of being ``reckless.''

After the hostages' families asked that the government yield to the kidnappers' demand and withdraw its 550 soldiers from southern Iraq, they began receiving hate mail and harassing faxes and e-mail messages. The Japanese, like the villagers in Shirley Jackson's ``The Lottery,'' had to throw stones.

Even as the kidnappers were still threatening to burn alive the three hostages, Yukio Takeuchi, a top official in the Foreign Ministry, said of the three, ``When it comes to a matter of safety and life, I would like them to be aware of the basic principle of personal responsibility.''

The Foreign Ministry, held both in awe and resentment by the average Japanese, was the okami defied in this case. While Foreign Ministry officials are Japan's super-elite, the average Japanese tends to regard them as arrogant and unhelpful, recalling how they failed to deliver in time the declaration of war against the United States in 1941 so that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was seen as sneaky.

Defying the okami are young Japanese people like the freed hostages, freelancers and members of non-profit organizations, who are traditionally held in low esteem in a country where the bigger one's company, the bigger one's social rank. They also represent something more: They belong to a generation in which many have rejected traditional Japanese life. Many have gravitated instead to places like the East Village in Manhattan, looking for something undefined.

Role of watchdog

Others have gone to Iraq looking to report the true story, since Japan's big media outlets have generally avoided dangerous places. (Indeed, almost all the big media outlets departed from Iraq in the past week on a government-chartered plane, leaving Japan's most important military mission since the end of World War II essentially ignored by the news media.)

Yasuda -- who was in the second group of hostages and also described the stress of his return far greater than what he felt during his captivity in Iraq -- quit his position as a staff reporter at a regional newspaper to report as a freelancer in Iraq.

``We have to check ourselves what the Japanese government is doing in Iraq,'' Yasuda said during an interview Thursday night. ``This is the responsibility on the part of Japanese citizens, but it seems as if people are leaving everything up to the government.''

The okami reacted with fury at such defiance. Some politicians proposed a law barring Japanese from traveling to dangerous countries; even more of them said the hostages should pay the costs incurred by the government in securing their release.

``This is an idea that should be considered,'' the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's biggest daily newspaper, said in an editorial. ``Such an act might deter other reckless, self-righteous volunteers.''

When two freed hostages mentioned wanting to stay or return to Iraq to continue their work, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi angrily urged them ``to have some sense.''

``Many government officials made efforts to rescue them, without even eating and sleeping, and they are still saying that sort of thing?'' he said.

The Japanese government is now trumpeting ``personal responsibility'' for those going to dangerous areas -- essentially saying that travelers should not expect any help from the government to secure their safety or get out of trouble.

Again, no Japanese politician dared to speak out against this idea.

Indeed, Koizumi's handling of the hostage crisis translated into positive evaluations in public-opinion polls, and the issue diverted attention from Iraq's worsening security situation and the fact that Japan's troops, according to this country's war-renouncing constitution, are supposed to be in a non-combat zone.

Did anyone else see this? (About Japanese Hostages)

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