This essay critiques an Asahi Shimbun “Shoryushi” column, exposing its self-denigrating and anti-Japanese mindset.
It questions whether such writing reflects love for one’s own country and challenges the legitimacy of Asahi as a Japanese newspaper.

2016-08-24

Who could believe that this was written by a sane Japanese citizen?
As I have already written, since August two years ago I have only skimmed Asahi Shimbun.
Rather than reading it, I monitor it with the resolve that I will never again allow them to inflict great damage on Japan or tarnish the honor and credibility of the Japanese people.
I often scarcely read the evening edition at all, but yesterday I picked it up, and what caught my eye was “Shoryushi.”

Anyone with a sound mind, upon reading the article below, should recognize its abnormality.
It proved, to an exasperating degree, that this newspaper is filled with countless abnormal individuals like Wakamiya Yoshibumi.

The following is yesterday’s Shoryushi.

*When you see the burnt uniform of a female student, what do you think?
I want to hear President Obama’s voice.
And I want him to hear the voices of the atomic bomb survivors.

Then is it unnecessary to lay flowers at Pearl Harbor?
What about China?
Should we not listen to the voices of foreign souls who met unjust deaths?*

Who could believe that this was written by a sane Japanese citizen?

This is the mind of a person hardened by so-called self-denigrating or anti-Japanese ideology.

A mind steeped in the ideologies of the All-Campus Joint Struggle movement and communism,
a mind filled with superficial moralism,
a hopeless mass of thought convinced that it is the righteous hero, Moonlight Mask—everything is laid bare here.
There are no words more grotesque than these.
And because the author is completely unaware of it, they are all the more grotesque.

Ah, Japanese people.
How much longer will you allow such a newspaper to trample Japan,
a nation that is the most peaceful and safe in the world, and that possesses the world’s highest level of intellect and freedom?

Asahi has not changed at all.
They are not a Japanese newspaper.
Their gaze is not that of Japanese people.

To begin with, is the person who wrote this even Japanese?
Is he not a resident Korean?

I want to ask people around the world who have believed that Asahi Shimbun represents Japan.

Do the editorial writers of the newspaper that represents your country write about their own nation from such a perspective?
Do you think this is how someone who loves his own country writes?