Otoya Yamaguchi took out the leader of the Communists party of Japan on live TV with a samurai sword on Oct 12 1960

watchman4u
Published on Oct 12, 2021
On this day, October 12th in 1960, Otoya Yamaguchi took out the leader of the socialist party of Japan on live TV with a samurai sword, and communism never had a chance to take root in any meaningful way in Japan. The photograph "Tokyo Stabbing", taken by Yasushi Nagao on 12 October 1960, shows the murder on a debate stage of Japanese leftist politician Inejiro Asanuma by Japanese ultranationalist teenager Otoya Yamaguchi.

The photograph, which won the World Press Photo Award 1960 and the Pulitzer Prize for Photography 1961, could be taken as a simple narrative of a youngster stabbing a senior, but reveals far more about the contradictions and social divisions of post-war Japan, a country stuck between the resentments and social discord caused by the defeat of World War II and the fears and worries on the backdrop of Cold War geopolitics. Yamaguchi, 17 at the time of his attack upon Asanuma, was radicalized into his attack by his political "master", Bin Akao, an ultranationalist leader of the Dai Nippon Aikokuto and formerly associated with the Kenkokukai.

SOURCES:
[Kapur 2018] Nick Kapur: Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo.
[Skya 2009] Walter A. Skya: Japan's Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto Ultranationalism.

FOOTAGE:
British Pathe - Anti-Eisenhower Demonstrations in Japan
British Pathe - Japanese Parliaments a Riot

MUSIC:
MotionArray: Dark Times Ahead
MotionArray: Darkness in the Forest
MotionArray: Drops of Melancholy
MotionArray: Spy and Surveillance

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