2024-01-15

The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s latest book, Henkenjizai: Who Buried Shinzo Abe?
This is the latest volume in the book series based on his celebrated columns in Shukan Shincho, but the original text has been polished further, making it even easier to read.
This book alone makes him worthy of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people throughout the world.
Asahi Discovers “Certain People”
The monkeypox outbreak began, and on July 23, as the disease spread, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros declared it “a public health emergency of international concern.”
He is the same man who said, “There is not much to worry about,” when the Wuhan coronavirus, which later developed into a global pandemic, first broke out.
At that time, he remained perfectly calm even after Xi Jinping had slapped his cheeks with a bundle of banknotes, but this time the expression on his face was different.
Everyone feared that a terrible disease had begun to spread.
A group of WHO experts therefore reconsidered whether the situation constituted an emergency.
California independently declared a state of emergency, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also began to act.
At about the same time, Japan’s first monkeypox patient appeared, and the newspapers began writing about it, yet I could not understand at all what kind of disease it was or why the world was making such a commotion over it.
The Asahi Shimbun, for example, explained that Japan’s first patient had come into contact with an infected person in Europe and developed the disease after returning to Japan.
The circumstances were similar to those surrounding the first Wuhan coronavirus patient.
At that time, the patient was a Chinese national returning from Wuhan, but Asahi concealed his nationality.
This time, too, it did not reveal the patient’s nationality.
The article went on to say that the disease belonged “to the same category as rabies” and was “transmitted through the patient’s bodily fluids and blood.”
It could almost be read as though patients infected other people by biting them.
Yet it also stated that “most infected people recover after suffering only mild symptoms,” while another article said that “care must be taken not to encourage prejudice against patients.”
Television was the same.
One week after Tedros’s declaration, Akira Ikegami, who as always has nothing to do with the truth, appeared on a TV Asahi program and spoke as though there were no reason for concern, saying, “Even if you contract it, your symptoms will be mild,” and “You will recover quickly.”
Was it an emergency, or was there nothing to worry about?
Since Japanese news reports made no sense, I checked Bloomberg to find out what Tedros had actually said.
The essence of his statement was that “this infection can be contained if measures targeting certain people are taken.”
By “certain people,” he meant “men who have sex with men,” or “men who have sex with unspecified partners, whether of the same or opposite sex.”
Put plainly, it was a second HIV.
When New York City first began administering the smallpox vaccine against this disease, the people lining up to receive it were all men.
Monkeypox was so named because it was originally a disease found in monkeys.
According to the records, it was discovered in Zaire in 1970 and was long treated as a disease endemic to that region.
Several years ago, however, a case of infection was confirmed in the United States, and as many as fifty mutant strains were identified.
The disease was now spreading rapidly throughout the world.
Twenty-two thousand people worldwide had been infected, one-quarter of them in the United States.
Fortunately, an effective vaccine existed.
Yet from the way Asahi wrote about it, it was impossible to understand what kind of people needed to be especially vigilant.
If one tries to discern what was going through Asahi’s mind, it was probably afraid that if it named LGBT people—in other words, gay people—it would be accused of “inflaming prejudice in society.”
Or was it afraid that gay people would accuse it of “betrayal” and “informing on them,” despite its pretence of standing on the side of the weak?
At about the same time, the Asahi Shimbun, which was extraordinarily considerate toward gay people, published an article on its society page under the headline “We Want to Know the Truth.”
The article reported that the lawsuit brought against her husband’s superior by the wife of a Finance Bureau official who had committed suicide over the Moritomo affair had concluded.
Ordinarily, it was a story deserving no more than a brief item.
Nevertheless, the headline was probably added out of a desire to “pour cold water” on the atmosphere of mourning for former Prime Minister Abe, who had fallen to an assassin’s bullet.
Asahi fabricated the Moritomo scandal out of resentment toward former Prime Minister Abe, who had exposed the comfort-women lie and reduced Asahi to a third-rate newspaper.
To begin with, the deceased husband himself had testified that there had been neither an improper discount nor any wrongdoing.
What drove him to suicide were the opposition-party lawmakers who seized upon Asahi’s reporting and subjected him to abuse.
If Asahi wishes to invoke “the truth” here, why does it not have the courage to tell the truth for the sake of gay people?
(August 11–18, 2022 issue)

2024/1/14 in Kyoto