It does not bother me that former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is dead.
What bothers me is that he was shot. This is not supposed to happen in Japan. That said, there are two redeeming features here. One is that he was not shot over his politics. This was not a political assassination. Instead, it was a revenge killing. The killer’s mother had apparently fallen under the Unification Church’s sway, donated everything she had to the Church, and as a side-result derailed the killer’s prospects. So he decided to strike back at the Church. And when no high Church officials were available, he went for a prominent celeb who had been pimping for the Church and buttressing its credibility: Abe.
The other redeeming feature is that this has thrown the Church’s involvement in Japanese politics into the public headlights, and it turns out Abe was not the only one with close ties to the Church. So the Church’s ideology, fund-raising, and more are once again being talked about and politicians are being called upon to sever their ties to this criminal organization. Most of the politicians are LDP people, but it is by no means an LDP monopoly.
Amidst all of this, the Kishida Cabinet made a rush decision to give Abe a state funeral. This has not been popular, and it has seriously damaged the Cabinet’s approval rating. This, too, might be counted as a redeeming feature. Anything that gets the LDP out of its “we won” bubble is a good thing. Even if the outrage dies down with the media’s effort to distract it by providing other news and spectacle, the opposition to a state funeral for this former prime minister should be a wake-up call.
The Komei people, backed by their own religious cult with its own unsavory history, are, understandably, trying to stay out of the limelight.