JAPAN AND SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH

The Japanese response to the events of September 11, 2001 have not been widely reported in the American press. Even online coverage has appeared spotty at best. Since my arrival a week or so ago, I have tried to be alert to signals as to where the Japanese people themselves have been coming from with respect to their placement of these horrendous attacks in their cultural and personal mental space. What I have found has surprised me somewhat, but overall the Japanese reactions I have observed fall within the range of expected options and opinions.

Press coverage (at least in the Japanese English language newspapers) has been extensive and exhaustive, pages and pages of dispatches and reports, letters to the editor and editorials. The same has been true of the coverage provided on cable television. Attention has been focused recently particularly on anthrax, on the tensions within the coalition amassed to wage "the war on terrorism" and concern with the situation evolving in the war zone and adjacent territories. There is clearly no shortage of information available on which to base an educated opinion!

What one does become aware of, however, is that these information sources present the news from a slightly different perspective than found in the USA -- and the ready acceptance of the American point of view is less prevalent in the coverage available in Japan. Furthermore the American version of events is never presented as unbiased here. CNN, particularly, seems really "American" in the way it presents the news associated with the attacks and the ensuing war effort. In this respect the British and the perspective from Asia seem much less "wave the flag" red, white and blue, more skeptical about the war effort in general, less sure of the ability of the American government to pull off what it has initiated. We as Americans seem from this "outsider's perspective" more naive and untutored than we might wish to see ourselves as being portrayed, as if we had just woken up to a reality others have been living with for a good long while already.

My other observation is just how "impersonal" the Japanese reaction appears to be. 750,000 Japanese reportedly canceled vacation visits to the United States in the immediate aftermath of the attacks out of concern for their personal safety, a reasonable reaction. Many travel agencies here are reported close to bankruptcy as a result. Other similar economic consequences have received a great deal of media attention throughout Japan, tied in the eyes of many to an already-exisitng and overarching, decade-long concern with the general state of the Japanese economy overall.

Unlike elsewhere, however, this new concern with terrorism as a threat to personal safety doesn't seem to be accompanied by an empathetic, shared emotional response to the human tragedy involved. One tour participant reported that when she responded to a Japanese inquiry concerning where she was from with "California", the Japanese asking the question said simply, "Your country is a sad place now."

The Japanese once saw the US as dangerous because of the high crime rate and a perception of general lawlessness amongst the population; now that sense of danger seems associated with the terrorist threat. In either case, the reaction seems to be that of beating a hasty retreat to the relative peace and quiet of the Japanese islands rather than drawing Japan more fully and completely onto the world scene (although the government has indicated its full official commitment to the cause).