IF ONLY THEY'D BEEN COLONIZED:

SUICIDE IN JAPAN. THE THORN IN THE CHRISANTHEMUM (Silvio Piersanti, 3/08/10, Chiesa)

In the message with which he introduced Lent this year, Benedict XVI recalled how the principle of the Roman jurist Ulpian, according to whom "dare cuique suum" was the formula for guaranteeing justice in the world, in reality has shown itself to be erroneous. In order to be happy, man needs something that cannot be guaranteed for him by the law: he needs the gratuitous love of God. The Japan that, unaware of a transcendent God, has become a leading country in social justice, is afflicted with this profound suicide impulse. This therefore seems to be a glaring and dramatic proof of the truth of Ratzinger's thought: without God, man cannot be happy. Material goods are necessary, but they do not guarantee happiness, the full enjoyment of life.

It might be more simple to link the spike in suicides with the economic crisis in which the country has been mired since the end of the so-called "bubble economy" in the second half of the 1980's, but bankruptcy and unemployment are only one, and perhaps not the main, cause of this wave of desperation striking the country.

Naturally there are universal causes like incurable diseases, delusions of love, crises of depression, etc. But the desire is to discover what is behind the apparent ease with which a Japanese person arrives at the decision to take his life. Sociologists and psychologists maintain that one impulse for suicide might be found in the culture and tradition of the "samurai," or "those who serve," whose suicide – "seppuku," better known in the west by the synonym "harakiri" – carried out with ritual dignity, putting on a ceremonial kimono and plunging a blade into their abdomens, was considered the only honorable way to blot out the shame of a defeat or humiliation.

This tradition was later revived by the "kamikaze" ("divine wind") pilots, who during the second world war crashed their planes into American warships. Perhaps the last public manifestation of this exaggerated stoicism was the double "seppuku" staged by the famous writer Yukio Mishima and by his most faithful follower, Morita, on November 25, 1970, in front of a thousand soldiers and dozens of television cameras after he occupied the interior ministry with a handful of his closest followers. It was the ultimate protest of Mishima and his little private army against the pact by which Japan agreed not to have an army of its own and entrusted the defense of its soil to the American armed forces.

*

The apostolic nuncio in Japan, Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello, head of the Tokyo nunciature for 5 years, tells us: "The Japanese do not have a personal relationship with God. The concept of the individual, which is at the center of western culture, is not part of their cultural DNA. They identify themselves with the group, the society, the company, the nation. When a Christian arrives at the decision to take his life, he knows that he is about to violate a sacred law: life was given to him by God, and only God can take it away. The Japanese tempted by suicide does not have this obstacle. He does not have the concept of sin. He has no one, he has nothing, beyond his own material and cultural world, to ask for help. But in his world, asking for help is dishonorable, and so he himself must resolve the drama of his unhappiness, which has become unbearable. Christians, even at the darkest moments, can always reach out to God. The Japanese cannot. They have eight million gods, thousands of marvelous temples, shrines, altars, miniature altars, two official religions, Buddhism and Shintoism, but they live without the one omnipotent and merciful God, without the concept of God as father of all humanity and present in each one of us, always."

Hiroko Nakamura, a respected translator of Italian fiction books, does not believe that the relative ease with which the Japanese reach the decision to give up on life is to be attributed to their apparent atheism: "On the contrary, I think that it is precisely our most widespread religious creed, Buddhism, that makes the idea of suicide acceptable as an extreme solution of our earthly problems, both material and spiritual. Buddhism preaches reincarnation, meaning the transfer of an individual's soul into another physical body, not necessarily human. Life is considered a training ground for a new life, moving from one existence to another toward nirvana, the eternal heavenly beatitude. With this faith, when the pressure of the problems of life seems unbearable, it is easier to give in to the temptation to leave everything behind, and to try to do better in the next existence. Buddha, Jesus, Saint Francis, Gandhi, we knew them in their last existence, before their entry into nirvana."

The Catholic bishop of Tokyo, Paul Kazuhiro Mori, agrees with the nuncio Bottari de Castello in maintaining that the Japanese lack the concept of God and of sin. When the Japanese decides to take his life, he does not think he is breaking a divine law, he does not feel remorse for his action. He does not see anything blameworthy, anything ethically negative, in it. On the contrary, with suicide the Japanese saves his honor and that of his family, if he still has one. "When you journalists come to Japan," Bishop Mori tells us, "you admire the extraordinary accomplishments in the social sphere. Schools, hospitals, an abundance of material goods, high salaries, a low crime rate, safe streets, public transportation admired all over the world, flourishing industries, very stable public order. If you believe that it is social well-being that brings happiness, then you can conclude that ours is a happy country, within human boundaries. But if you want to look beneath the surface of this material abundance, you will find before you one of the poorest countries, in terms of respect for the individual and his spiritual nourishment."

The official statistics, in spite of their chilling starkness, are nothing compared with what they conceal. There are some who say that in reality, there are at least twice as many suicides as those reported, and the failed attempts are at least twelve times as many as the successful ones, the same being true of those who are planning suicide. "Living in Japan is like living in a war zone," the famous Buddhist writer Hiroyuki Itsukio once said. And he asked: if the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, which has cost the lives of 5,000 persons in 40 years, has been called "a savage civil war," then what should we call the Japanese reality, which in the same period has seen at least a million persons killed? "I agree completely with Itsukio," Bishop Mori comments. "Public opinion was indignant over the news that came from that fratricidal war. But no one seemed to be concerned about this slaughter which for many years has taken place right in front of our eyes."