Shinzo Abe’s assassination and a sick world

The unexpected assassination of the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has shaken the world to its marrows. The dastardly act further underscores the fact that we are living in a sick world populated by crazy and demented brutes walking as humans. What this latest assassination proved is that wickedness is universal. Mankind is the same irrespective of his colour, space or situation.

It was God Almighty who first saw that the wickedness of man is great on the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. It grieved God and He regretted having made man (Gen. 6: 5-6).

The iconic Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384 BC) further said man is wicked and should be treated as such. And to buttress it, the Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah (c. 650), said the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 

The foregoing reiterates the truth about man, who despite the level of civilization and technological advancement is still engrossed in deep wickedness.

The world woke up Friday on July 8 with the shocking news of the assassination of the immediate past prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. Mr. Abe, who was labeled as a divisive arch-conservative, was one of Japan’s most powerful and influential figures reportedly died after he was shot while delivering a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan.

Reports say the 67 year old Abe was shot from the back and was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped by the time he arrived the hospital. He was later pronounced dead despite emergency treatment that included massive blood transfusions, hospital officials said.

Police at the scene of the attack arrested the suspected gunman identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, on suspicion of attempted murder. The attack on Abe has shocked the world and millions in Japan, which is regarded as one of the world’s safest nations with very strict gun control laws not found anywhere else.

The Chief of Nara Medical University Emergency Department, Hidetada Fukushima, said Abe suffered major damage to his heart in addition to two neck wounds that damaged an artery, causing extensive bleeding. He was in a state of cardio and pulmonary arrest when he arrived at the hospital and never regained his vital signs, Fukushima said.

Japan’s NHK Public television reportedly aired a graphic video of Abe giving a speech outside the Nara city train station. He was standing, dressed in a navy blue suit and raising his fist, when two gunshots were heard. Abe then collapsed on the street, with security guards running toward him. He held his chest while his shirt was stained with blood.

In the next moment, security guards leaped and got hold of a man who lay face down on the pavement. A double-barreled gun that appeared to be handmade was recovered from the suspect.

Subsequently, explosives team raided the suspect’s home to search for evidence. NHK reported that the suspect served in Japan’s navy for three years in the 2000s and was disgruntled. He said his intention was to kill Abe because he had complaints that were not related to politics.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida described the shooting as “dastardly and barbaric.” He and his Cabinet ministers hurriedly returned to Tokyo from campaign events around the country after the shooting to put heads together. He pledged to go ahead with Sunday’s parliamentary elections as planned. He said the government planned to review the security situation, but added that Abe had the highest protection.

Opposition leaders condemned the attack as a challenge to Japan’s democracy. In Tokyo, people reportedly stopped on the streets to grab extra editions of newspapers or watch TV coverage of the shooting.

The attack on Shinzo Abe came to the world as a big surprise because Japan is a very peaceful country and one of the safest in the world. With a very strict gun control regulation, there is low level of violence. Violent gun attack is strange in Japan unlike what obtains in other western countries. One thing is certain, Japan will dig to find out why this happened with a view to preventing recurrence.

Shinzo Abe, who was the immediate past prime minister served as the President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. He also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi and was briefly leader of the opposition in 2012.

Born into a prominent political family in 1954, Abe was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 election. Thereafter, he was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2005, before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president in September 2006. Subsequently, he was confirmed as prime minister by a special session of the National Diet, becoming Japan’s youngest post-war prime minister, and the first to have been born after World War II.

Abe resigned as prime minister just after one year in office, because of medical complications from ulcerative colitis, shortly after his party lost that year’s House of Councilors’ election. He was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, who became the first in a series of five prime ministers who each failed to retain office for more than sixteen months.

Following his recovery from his illness, Abe staged a sudden political comeback and defeated Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister, in a ballot to become LDP president for the second time in September 2012. After the LDP’s landslide victory in the general election that December, he became the first former prime minister to return to the office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948.

He led the LDP to two further landslides in the 2014 and 2017 elections, becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. In August 2020, Abe announced his second resignation as prime minister, citing a significant resurgence of his ulcerative colitis. He tendered his resignation on 16 September, upon the Diet electing Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga as his successor.

It is unfortunate that humanity claims to have made massive progress in knowledge. The world appears to be saturated with knowledge; sadly enough, knowledge in the negative sense. While there is no knowledge on how to eradicate poverty, promote peace and harmony in the world, there is abundant knowledge on how to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Abe’s attacker is said to have used handmade gun. Such knowledge is commonplace. But there is no knowledge on how to advance love, unity and cooperation. Hatred, discrimination, marginalization, racism, etc have overwhelmed the world, which is why there are wars all over the place. The modern man has proved to be more savage than the ancients that did not know a fraction of the knowledge in today’s world. The world is sick.