In Japan, controversial state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

The decision of the Japanese government to organize, this Tuesday, September 27, a national funeral for Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister assassinated in July, has aroused strong criticism in Japan.

via REUTERS-POOL

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3 mins

The decision of the Japanese government to organize, this Tuesday, September 27, a national funeral for Shinzo Abe, the former Prime Minister assassinated in July, arouses strong criticism in Japan.

A hundred foreign dignitaries take part in this ceremony, including the American vice-president Kamala Harris and the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

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With our correspondent in Tokyo,

Frédéric Charles

Japan pays tribute on Tuesday to its assassinated former Prime Minister by granting him a national funeral attended by dignitaries from around forty countries.

But this ceremony arouses strong opposition in Japan because of its cost first, estimated at 12 million euros, but probably two to three times higher in reality.

It is indeed extremely rare that a Prime Minister benefits from such a tribute.

The only precedent since the post-war period dates back to 1967. In Japan, state funerals are reserved for emperors.

Then, the assassination of Shinzo Abe, on July 8 in Nara, brought to light the influence of the sects on the conservative party in power, without interruption or almost, since 1955. 

The assassin Tetsuya Yamagami

accused the former Prime Minister to support the Unification Church, known as the Moon sect.

He hated this religious group that had indoctrinated, ruined his mother and destroyed his family.

The Moon sect and politics

The Moon sect, a religious movement founded in South Korea, is best known for its collective mass marriages.

His ties with Shinzo Abe, the undisputed leader of the Japanese right, go back to his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, Prime Minister in the late 1950s. During the Cold War, the Japanese right relied on religious movements with the support from the United States to form an anti-Communist alliance.

The sect took advantage of this to build an economic empire.

Most of its income, in the form of donations, comes from Japan and is estimated by Japanese lawyers at more than a billion dollars over thirty years.

In the United States, the sect rubs shoulders with conservative political leaders from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump.

► Also to listen: In Japan, the stories of the victims of the Moon sect have been pouring in since the assassination of Shinzo Abe

Half of Japan's parliamentarians have ties to the Moon sect.

You have an even more influential religious movement: the Soka Gakkai sect.

It has a political party, Komeito, a member of the ruling coalition for twenty years.

As for Shinzo Abe, his nationalism, his revisionism, his desire to change the pacifist Constitution irritated many people in Japan.

"Democratic Regression"

"

More than one in two Japanese opposes these

so-called national funerals.

It is therefore a purely artificial tribute,

analyzes the historian Kyôji Miyama.

It only reflects the fact of the prince.

It sends Japan back to the 1940s, when it used and abused such funerals to muzzle dissenting opinion. 

»

Japan does not have to pay him such a tribute.

His personality and his politics were divisive, his record is very mixed and, in addition, he was splashed by political and financial scandals.

Official funerals that are not unanimous

Bruno Duval

For Kyôji Miyama, these funerals even constitute “

a democratic regression

”.

 We return to the imperial regime of yesteryear,

believes the historian.

It is very worrying if this creates a precedent.

Japan should not come to live to the rhythm of national emotions imposed from above for purely political ends.

 »

But the ruling party rejects such an analysis.

One of its tenors even maintained that “

the real Japanese

” are favorable to funerals.

The implication: those who criticize them lack civility, even patriotism.

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  • Japan

  • Shinzo Abe