Citing Rui Abiru’s article “The Asahi’s Criticism of Abe Is a Description of Itself,” this essay examines Satoshi Shirai’s hostility toward supporters of the Abe administration, his abusive remarks about Yumi Matsutoya, and the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial responsibility.

September 5, 2020
The following is taken from an article by Rui Abiru, an editorial writer and senior political editor at the Sankei Shimbun, published in the newspaper on September 3, 2020, under the title “The Asahi’s Criticism of Abe Is a Description of Itself.”
I had forgotten to read the newspaper that day, but a friend of mine, who is one of the most avid readers I know, brought it to me.
The passages enclosed by asterisks are my own comments.
Is the Asahi Shimbun really permitted to publish writing so thoroughly saturated with hatred?
That was my reaction after reading “The Abe Administration’s More Than Seven Years Are a Stain on Japanese History,” a commentary by Satoshi Shirai, then a full-time lecturer at Kyoto Seika University, which appeared on the Asahi’s opinion website on August 30.
Its contents were that far beyond the bounds of reason.
Shirai writes that the Abe administration becoming the longest-serving administration in Japan’s constitutional history was a source of “shame and sorrow,” following Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s announcement of his resignation.
Regarding the fact that many Japanese people had continued to support the Abe administration, he describes it as “unbearable anguish” and declares that he feels “disgust” toward the administration’s supporters.
He further argues that the fact that his own neighbors support the Abe administration is “absolutely unacceptable by the standards of my intellect and ethics,” and expresses “displeasure” at that reality.

Giving Prominence to a Scholar Who Uses Abusive Language

His hatred of the Abe administration is so intense that even ordinary Japanese citizens have become targets of his attacks.
I will refrain from describing everything in detail because I do not wish to soil these pages, but when the continuation of the commentary published by the Asahi on September 1 is also considered, it amounts to a parade of abuse, curses, expressions of prejudice, unsupported assertions and conspiracy theories directed against the Abe administration.
Should a newspaper—once described as a public institution, although nobody now truly believes it to be one—be publishing such material?
Does the Asahi really consider this content worthy of being presented to the public?
On August 29, Shirai also made abusive remarks about singer Yumi Matsutoya, who had said on a Nippon Broadcasting System radio program that watching Prime Minister Abe’s resignation press conference had made her feel sorrowful.
On his Facebook page, Shirai mocked Matsutoya by referring to her maiden name.
“She should have died young while she was still Yumi Arai. I truly think it would have been better for her to die early than to expose herself in such a disgraceful manner.”
In other words, expressing sympathy for Prime Minister Abe was, in his view, a disgrace worthy of death.
Even after Shirai made such defamatory remarks, the Asahi continued publishing his commentaries.
Can such conduct possibly be accepted by society?
I had been completely unaware that the Asahi Shimbun was giving prominence to such an ignorant and benighted person.
When I searched to find out who on earth he was, I learned that he was a professor at Kyoto Seika University.
I was also appalled that a person so ignorant and benighted, whose mind seemed to be composed of nothing more than the Asahi Shimbun’s editorials, was serving as a university professor.
Judged by ordinary social standards, the matter is exactly as Toru Hashimoto, former leader of the Japan Innovation Party and former governor of Osaka Prefecture, wrote on Twitter on September 1:
“If people like us made a statement like this, we would be socially obliterated.”

The Reason for the Persistent Attacks

The Abe administration’s combined eight years and eight months were days in which we were continually subjected to the vituperation of inexplicably enraged anti-Abe figures.
After considering why they were unable to stop hating the Abe administration so intensely, I arrived at one hypothesis.
Perhaps they arbitrarily project the ugliness, filth, pettiness, foolishness, cowardice, weakness and other defects within themselves onto Prime Minister Abe, and then become enraged by what they have projected.
Perhaps what they cannot tolerate is their own image reflected in the mirror called Prime Minister Abe.
As it happens, in its August 29 editorial, published the day after Prime Minister Abe announced his resignation and titled “The Harm of ‘Abe Politics’: A Time for Reckoning,” the Asahi wrote the following about the Abe administration:
“The division between ‘enemies’ and ‘allies,’ in which those with different views, including opposition parties and their supporters, are attacked while those close to the administration are favored.”
In its September 1 editorial, “Abe’s Constitutional Revision: A Failure Brought About by the Prime Minister Himself,” it also wrote:
“Mr. Abe’s political style of adopting an unnecessarily hostile attitude toward opposition parties and critical forces.”
In reality, it was the Asahi itself—and Shirai, to whom the Asahi gave prominence—that had unnecessarily attacked those who held different views.
The Asahi’s practice of continuing relentlessly to attack the departing Prime Minister Abe by treating him to the very end as an “enemy” was precisely the same practice that the newspaper had criticized as one of the harmful effects of Abe.
In the end, the Asahi’s many years of criticism of Prime Minister Abe amounted to nothing more than a description of itself.