Wanted Real Fight

Most people in Japan can still not understand why the college student wanted to join Islamic State in Syria. It is not even clear whether there was a sort of reason. He just wanted to fight and kill somebody. Seeking a reason to do that, he approached religious lesson of Islam, which he had not care most of his life. “One can do everything, if he or she try hard to die,” is an old saying in Japan. Some young people seem to believe that everything is tolerated, if they cost their own lives.

The student of Hokkaido University, who tried to go to Syria, reportedly told police that he was disappointed with his failure in seeking job. He thought he would die within two years, and wanted to do what he wanted before he would die. While he was wondering around Akihabara, Tokyo, he found a message on a bookshop to recruit soldiers in Syria and applied for it. Seeking job in Syria must be a severe sarcasm against the society in Japan as a whole.

Lacking moral responsibility, a former university professor worked as a liaison between Islamic State and the student. “Everyone should live and die as he or she likes,” told the scholar in an interview of TV program. In saying so, he did not seem to have care about what Islamic State did, including beheading innocent Western citizens. It is possible that he could not distinguish real world from virtual game where he feels comfortable.

Some news corporations reported a story of Japanese young man, who joined a battle in Syria as a member of anti-government militia. Experienced isolation from friends in elementary school, entering Japanese Self-defense force and establishing a firm, he has been embracing his desire for fighting in an extreme situation. “Soldiers in battle field have chosen fighting. There is no meaning in asking them right or wrong about killing each other,” told the man. In his wrong mindset, all soldiers are involved in the battle with no rule.

Current violent crimes in Japan have the same aspect, which is represented by selfishness. In the case a fatty man killed another man in a restaurant after a squabble, the criminal kept on his dinner, calling it “my last supper.” He believed that he would be able to pay the cost of his murder by being brought to the trial. Increasing are such cases, in which the murderer does not escape from investigation and appear to police voluntarily.

Law cannot be deterrence for such murderers. Japanese citizens need to be careful enough not to be a victim of indiscriminative murders. In a society with dense population such as Japan, that is a real problem. Politics is not working to make the society inclusive for those desperate people.