Terrorism

September 11, 2001. This was an unforgettable day to everybody. Actually many people in the world watched the scenes on TV just the moment like seeing part of scenes in a movies. If you are asked where you were at the moment, you are sure to answer it and you will be able to answer decades later. This was such an awfully terrific and stunning incident. It’s proper to explain in words that there are no words to express it. On that day, two hijacked airplanes intentionally crashed into the world trade center buildings as the symbolic structure of American economic prosperity. About twenty minutes later, the buildings had collapsed leaving thousands of people inside. The firefighters who rushed to rescue shortly after the crashes had died from the collapses afterward.

Japan has also experienced at least a couple of major terrorist attacks since the last war. One was a series of antagonistic attacks by the Red Army, which hijacked Japanese airplanes overseas about 30 years ago. At that time, the Japanese government released some members of the Red Army behind bars by its demand. The other was the terrorist attack on the Tokyo subways by the Aum cult. A dozen of people were killed and thousands of passengers were injured by this new type of terrorism using poisonous chemical substances.

The anti-terrorist measures, however, were not decisive in either of the cases. Releasing the inmates endangered the rest of the world for repeating hijackings. As for the last case, the Japanese legal authority is a laggard in the procedures of the long-lasting courts while some of the wanted Aum followers are still at large.

There were big arguments in Japan over how Japan supported the American retaliations against the terrorists allegedly in Afghanistan shortly after the incident. Concretely the lawmakers were discussing how far Japan could dispatch the Self Defense Forces under the war renouncing constitution and other acts ruling the military activities. By the concentrated discussions, the Anti-terrorism Law was legislated exceptionally quickly with a limited period of validity. That enables the SDF to support foreign militaries overseas against terrorism behind them with limited conditions.

Meantime, there appeared risks of being attached by new types of terrorism. During the confusions after the terrorist attacks in NY, American people were scared by another terrorist attacks using anthrax. Japan is not exceptional. As I mention previously, it experienced the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways and some of its ministries were attacked by the Internet terrorism. Japan always faces those risks.

Except apparently risky places such as the Middle East, anyone can't anticipate terrorism. Although there is a risk, even the government has limits to gather information. Indeed, shortly before the terrorist attacks on the US, Japan was given warnings of being attacked by terrorists on government or military related facilities from the Pentagon. One of the things we can do for anti-terrorist measures is to push the government to strengthen the measures. This kind of terrorism risk is very difficult for individuals to deal with. What we can do by ourselves is not to get close to the government-related facilities or some kind of symbolic buildings like the NY Trade Center. But Japan has a lot of landmark buildings. There would be nowhere else to go if tourists to Japan were fearful of those sites. Anybody is exposed to new type of terrorism anywhere anytime in subways, buses, airplanes, symbolic buildings.

. Now Japan pays much attention to the overseas terrorists. The focused points are not only that, but also the domestic anti-terrorism measures and the in-house problems of both of the terrorist cases that have not yet been resolved. At the foot of the candle it is dark.