Mourning as Global Politics

Embodied Grief and Activism in Post-Aum Tokyo

Bibliographic Data

ID12349888
AuthorsMark Pendleton (0000-0002-4266-2470, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume33
Issue3
Pages333-347
Publication date2009-08-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1035-7823 • E-ISSN: 1467-8403
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10357820903153731
OpenAlexW1974781625
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited9

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Japanese names appear in the order in which they would appear in Japanese, family name followed by given name, unless the name is referred to in a different way in a referenced English work. Translations from the Japanese are mine, unless otherwise indicated or drawn directly from English sources. 2. Popular and academic accounts of the incidents surrounding Aum Shinrikyô have suggested that these incidents constituted some kind of crisis in or trauma against the national psyche, or contributed to an ongoing national trauma of the "postwar". Novelist Haruki Murakami (Citation2000, p. 206), for example, points to a "marked change in the Japanese consciousness 'before' and 'after'" the Aum incident and the Great Hanshin Awaji earthquake earlier in 1995, and describes these two events as "nightmarish eruptions beneath our feet ... that threw all the latent contradictions and weak points of our society into frightening high relief". Robert Kisala and Mark Mullins (Citation2001, p. 4) similarly saw that the incident had "shaken the Japanese psyche in a serious way". Marilyn Ivy (Citation2008, p. 177) points to Aum's goal of a final war as somewhat akin to nationalist attempts to "recover a state outside the traumatic irruption [of the postwar]: a state before that could also operate as the after to trauma". This question of "trauma" in the Japanese postwar, along with its relation to Aum Shinrikyô and to the notion of a national psyche, is a very fruitful area for discussion, but unfortunately lies outside the scope of this particular article. 3. The Recovery Support Centre website can be found at http://www.rsc.or.jp, accessed 7 May 2009. 4. Kanariya no kai's website can be found at http://www.cnet-sc.ne.jp/canarium/, accessed 7 May 2009. This group has also published a collection of former Aum members' stories under the title Kanariya no uta, or Song of the Canary. The canary is a bird that has long been associated with gas detection, originally used by workers in mines. In the raid on Aum Shinrikyô's headquarters in 1995, riot police carried two canaries into the compound in cages, an image broadcast on television. This image remained for many one of the most iconic images of the events surrounding the subway gassings, reflecting a sharp distinction between the fragility of the little yellow birds and the protectively attired riot police. Richard Gardner (Citation2002, pp. 39–40) identifies a number of bird motifs running through discussion of Aum in media and comedic circles. Of particular note is the homophonic connection between the cult's name and the Japanese word for parrot [oumu] and the common construction of the struggle between Aum and police as a battle between parrots and canaries. A 2005 film by Shiota Akihiko, which heavily references the reported activities of the Aum sect, also bears the title Kanaria (Canary). 5. Background to the legal group involved in the Sakamoto Family Incident can be found on the website of Takizawa Hidetaka, which contains an extensive archive of materials relating to the family's murders: http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/∼takizawa/sukuukai1.html, accessed 7 May 2009. The Matsumoto legal support group maintains a web presence on the website of lawyer Itô Yoshinori: http://www.shomin-law.com/katudoumatumotosarin.html, accessed 7 May 2009. The court-appointed administrator of Aum's bankruptcy proceedings, lawyer Abe Saburô (2008), has also published a memoir about his 12-year battle to extract as much money as possible from the bankrupt Aum for victims. 6. Kôno has published extensively since the Matsumoto incident, appeared in films, documentaries and television productions, and made regular media appearances. His most recent book on the topic is Inochi aru kagiri: Matsumoto sarin jiken o koete (As long as I live: Overcoming the Matsumoto Sarin Incident, 2008). 7. The most prominent of these family members are Ôyama Tomoyuki, the father of Sakamoto Satoko (Tsutsumi's wife), and his wife Yai, who make regular visits to the site of their daughter's burial in Toyama prefecture. Ôyama Tomoyuki also published a book about his daughter's death in 2005 entitled Satoko kikoemasuka? Oumu Sakamoto ikka satsujin jiken, Chichioya no shuki (Can you hear Satoko? The Aum Sakamoto family murder incident, Dad's story). 8. A distinction is drawn in much psychological literature between "normal" and "disabling" grief. Nancy Boyd Webb (Citation2002, pp. 21–22), for example, in a book addressing bereavement in children, defines "disabling" grief as grief that interferes with a child's normal social, emotional, or physical development, and that requires therapeutic intervention. Similarly, a new category called "prolonged grief disorder" has been proposed for inclusion in the currently being developed fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association. This proposed disorder reportedly "defines the parameters of persistently severe, distressing, and disabling grief" (Bender, Citation2007). 9. Japanese courts have held sect members responsible for the deaths of lawyer Sakamoto Tsutsumi, his wife and son, and notary public Kariya Kiyoshi, in addition to the two sarin incidents in Matsumoto in 1994 and in the Tokyo subways in 1995 in which seven and twelve people died respectively. An additional sarin victim from Matsumoto died as a result of her injuries in 2008 after a lengthy coma. Victims' groups and family members also point to suspicious circumstances surrounding the disappearances or deaths of several others. Due to the secretive nature of the sect's organisational structure and leadership, it is unclear how many died overall as a result of the actions of members or on the orders of the sect's leaders. Ian Reader, in his excellent book Religious violence in contemporary Japan: The case of Aum Shinrikyô, gives a good summary in English of the range of violent offences that Aum members are thought to be responsible for (Reader, Citation2000, pp. 8–31). 10. Freud understood the psyche as being composed of three parts – the id, the ego and the super-ego. The id represents the unorganised basic drives while the ego represents the mediation of these unconscious drives by reality. In his words, "The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions" (Freud, Citation1961, p. 25). The super-ego is the direct counterpoint of the id, acting as the critical and moral element of Freud's personality structure. Where the id seeks gratification of desire, the super-ego questions right and wrong. The ego seeks a common ground between these two drives based in the reality of the external world. Cathectic energies are the psychic energies attached to an object. 11. Takahashi does not provide further details in her publications about who these other victims of crime were. 12. Yokoyama Masato was a sect member responsible for releasing sarin on an Ikebukuro-bound Marunouchi line train. Despite not directly causing any fatalities, he has been sentenced to death (Japan Times, Citation2003). 13. Hayashi Yasuo was responsible for releasing sarin on a south-west bound Hibiya line train. He carried one more package of sarin than the other perpetrators, and his actions resulted in the most damage: eight fatalities and 275 serious injuries. He was also convicted of being involved in the 1994 Matsumoto sarin incident. Hayashi has been sentenced to death (Hongo, Citation2008). 14. Hayashi Ikuo was a senior sect leader and medical doctor who released sarin on the single Chiyoda line train attacked. He has also accepted responsibility for several other crimes, including administering drugs that caused the death of Kariya Kiyoshi, in his court trials and his 2001 memoir Oumu to watashi (Aum and me). He was sentenced to life imprisonment (Reader, Citation2000, p. 24)

Grief · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Psyche · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · State (computer science · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology

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