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A Guru's Journey -- A special report.; The Seer Among the Blind: Japanese Sect Leader's Rise
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF with SHERYL WuDUNN Published: March 26, 1995 http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/26/world/guru-s-journey-special-report-seer-among-blind-japanese-sect-leader-s-rise.html TOKYO, March 25— As a boy attending a school for the blind, Shoko Asahara was weak-sighted but had better vision than his classmates. So he emerged as a king of the school, the one who would lead his buddies off campus when they wanted a restaurant meal. In exchange, they would pay for the meal. Mr. Asahara, now 40, has come a long way since then: He rides a Rolls-Royce instead of a bicycle, and he has built a multinational religious sect, a business empire worth tens of millions of dollars and a stockpile of chemicals sufficient to create enough nerve gas to kill perhaps millions of people. The chemicals have been found during police searches since the gas attack on the Tokyo subway system last Monday, in which 10 people died and 5,500 were injured. The image of the teen-age Shoko Asahara as the manipulative guru of a boarding school -- where he is the one people must depend on, where he interprets the surrounding world, where he makes the money -- seems to hold true today. By some accounts, the communes of Mr. Asahara's religious sect, Aum Shinrikyo, are attempts to recreate the culture of his childhood school for the blind. International concern about terrorism has traditionally focused on political groups with machine guns, plastic explosives and the backing of a pariah government. But Mr. Asahara shows that it is also possible for a bizarre religious figure with no governmental support to acquire in a few years the capability to engage in something closer to war than terrorism. Japanese newspapers have estimated that Aum's chemical stockpile could create enough nerve gas to kill 4.2 million to 10 million people, though how they did their reckoning is not clear. There is no evidence that this was Mr. Asahara's intention, and he has denied it vigorously. But by some estimates he could have created 50 tons of the nerve gas sarin and then achieved the kind of urban Armageddon that he has been predicting. "As we move toward the year 2000, there will be a series of events of inexpressible ferocity and terror," reads one of Aum's booklets, picked up from its Tokyo offices a few days ago. "The lands of Japan will be transformed into a nuclear wasteland. Between 1996 and January 1998, America and its allies will attack Japan, and only 10 percent of the population of the major cities will survive." In his writings and speeches, Mr. Asahara seems to reserve a special animus for the United States Government, and he has accused American military planes of dropping sarin on Aum's communes. But Aum is also bitterly hostile to Japan's Government. Last June the group set up a shadow government with a "Ministry of Finance," "Ministry of Education" and "Ministry of Construction." It is said to have planned to become an independent nation by 1997. Intelligent, soft-spoken, married with six children, Mr. Asahara is a far more complex figure than the cardboard image of a cult leader would suggest. He may wear a long beard, shocking pink robes and a beatific smile, but what is striking about his sect is that it is not a one-man show. He has attracted a core of bright young university graduates and trained scientists to help him in his missions, whether those be attracting recruits or synthesizing chemicals. Mr. Asahara denies any involvement in the subway attack on Monday. The police have not made public any evidence that he was responsible, but the police raids and discovery of chemical ingredients of nerve gas suggest that Aum is a prime suspect. In any case, for a spiritual leader, Mr. Asahara has shown a remarkable fascination with the temporal and the chemical. And his speeches have often mentioned such nerve gases as sarin, which the police say was used in the subway attack. "It has become clear now that my first death will be caused by something like a poison gas such as sarin," Mr. Asahara said a year ago, without explaining what he meant by his "first death." At that time, almost nobody in Japan had heard of sarin. The Beginnings A Younger Son Of a Poor Family Mr. Asahara was born Chizuo Matsumoto in a village in the southern island of Kyushu. The son of a tatami-mat maker, he grew up as the sixth of seven children in a tiny house. One of his older brothers had almost no vision and attended a school for the blind. His parents apparently decided to send Mr. Asahara, who had weak but adequate vision, and his younger brother, who had normal eyesight, to the same school for economic reasons: The children would receive a Government subsidy and free meals. Shoko Egawa, author of a critical biography of Mr. Asahara, suggests that he was obsessed in school with acquiring money and power. Mr. Asahara had saved $30,000 by the time he graduated from high school, and he also ran unsuccessfully for student body president in elementary, junior high and senior high schools. Mr. Asahara did show the first signs of his later mastery of physical fitness and body control, earning a black belt in judo while still in school. Although he spoke of attending medical school, Mr. Asahara reportedly failed exams and never attended college. Instead he moved to a Tokyo suburb to work as an acupuncturist. It was at this time, in 1978, that he met a college student, Tomoko Ishii, and married her. Mrs. Asahara is said to have become a senior executive in Aum Shinrikyo, and one of their children, an 11-year-old girl, is also said to be prominent in the sect. But very little is known of his family life.
Mr. Asahara has been accused by former sect members of making occasional sexual advances against female recruits. "At about midnight one evening, I was called to go to the room of the Venerated Teacher," recalled a woman who later left the sect. She wrote her account in a pamphlet prepared by a lawyers' group critical of Aum. "There were just the two of us in the room, and he asked me if I had had any experience with men," the woman wrote. "And he asked me how many men I knew, and then he asked me to take off my clothes. I didn't think he could do anything wrong, and I was nervous and didn't want to resist, so I did as he said." The woman said that Mr. Asahara told her not to tell anyone about the liaison. Shift to Religion From Fake Drugs To Marketing Yoga In the early 1980's Mr. Asahara opened up a shop selling Chinese medicine. He is said to have made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling potions like tangerine peel in alcohol, and in 1982 he was arrested and fined for selling fake drugs. Mr. Asahara became interested in yoga, and scholars say he became an excellent yoga practitioner, with very good control over his breathing technique. In 1984 he launched a company called Aum -- the name apparently is based on a Sanskrit word -- that ran a yoga school and sold health drinks. An expert in marketing, Mr. Asahara traveled to India and Nepal to study Hinduism and Buddhism, and he came back with photos of himself with senior Tibetan lamas, including the Dalai Lama. He used these photos to portray himself as an internationally respected religious authority, and his yoga school became extremely successful. In 1987, with just 10 followers, Mr. Asahara founded Aum Shinrikyo as a religious sect. It emphasized some Tibetan Buddhist teachings and yoga practices, including meditation and breathing control. But one of the central points of Tibetan Buddhism is compassion -- some Tibetans have trouble digging foundations for buildings, for fear that they will inadvertently slice apart a worm -- and compassion did not play a big role in Aum's theology. Of Japan's 185,000 religious organizations, most are Buddhist or Shinto shrines, but since the 1970's there has also been a growing number of sects like Aum Shinrikyo. Young people turned off by Japan's materialism and searching for something to believe in found a home in such groups. Susuma Oda, a professor of psychopathology at the University of Tsukuba, suggests that one attraction of cults is that they offer young Japanese their first real father figure, because their own fathers were never home when they were growing up but instead were always at the office. Professor Oda also says that religious sects in Japan are to some extent the equivalent of the drug culture in America, offering people relief from stress and the opportunity to develop creative powers. In its pamphlets, Aum says that it can help people develop supernatural powers. It shows photographs of Mr. Asahara and others "levitating" in a yoga position, a few inches off the ground, but videotapes of the group indicate that this is achieved by bouncing energetically on the floor. Aum also emphasizes the use of computers and scientific experimentation, and it offers recruits special headgear of batteries and electrodes so that they can supposedly align their brain waves with Mr. Asuhara's. At each step of the way, followers are asked to donate large sums of money. Perhaps because of the emphasis on science, Mr. Asahara was able recruit bright but discontented university students from such top institutions as Tokyo University. Many were trained in the sciences. "There are many sophisticated people among the members," said Yoshiro Ito, a lawyer who has represented parents trying to recover their children from the sect. "They come from elite families." As a result, Aum is not a one-man operation. Mr. Asahara's deputies are subordinate but still powerful, and there is no doubt about their intellectual prowess. Aum's chief spokesman, for example, is a 35-year-old lawyer named Yoshinobu Aoyama, a graduate of prestigious Kyoto University. He passed the national exam for lawyers as a college junior, becoming the youngest person in his class to do so. Mr. Aoyama took yoga classes from Mr. Asahara and then in 1989 renounced his wife and daughter and became a monk in Aum. Secrets of Success A Mix of Charm And Intimidation Some scholars say Mr. Asahara was a third-rate theologian but a first-rate salesman and expert in mind control. Professor Oda says Mr. Asahara used methods like sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and food deprivation, and perhaps drugs as well. There have been persistent reports of Aum using drugs, probably primarily as hallucinogens to evoke the supernatural. Practices in Aum emphasized control over natural impulses and the body. One man who said he was abducted into Aum, in part by his daughters, told the newspaper Asahi that he was given an infusion drip of some unknown medication for three months. The man said he was told to drink the equivalent of two and a half gallons of hot water a day and throw it up, apparently to purge his system. He was also forced to undergo a weekly bowel-cleansing procedure. The man was finally allowed to leave only when he pretended that he had been converted and was prepared to turn over his money to the sect, Asahi reported. Despite such experiences, it is clear that most members join Aum voluntarily and apparently believe in the sect with passion. Many find it fulfilling and liberating, and they are appalled by the critical news coverage.
When the police raided Aum's training compound in the village of Kamiku Isshiki a few days ago, they found 50 people in an advanced state of malnutrition and dehydration, some barely conscious. The police were horrified and arrested four doctors who were present on charges of imprisoning the others. But instead of thanking the police for rescuing them, the malnourished followers have remained in the chapel and refused medical attention. Aum demanded that followers live in communes and cut off relations with their families, and this led to clashes and lawsuits with family members. There have also been repeated cases in which Aum has been accused of harassing, attacking, kidnapping or even killing its opponents. Earlier this year, according to Japanese newspaper reports, a woman trying to drop out of Aum was told she would be allowed to do so only if she signed over her property to the sect. She agreed, but her brother strongly opposed the idea. On Feb. 28, the deadline that Aum had set for the property transfer, he was kidnapped off the street. The police subsequently located the rented van used in the kidnapping and found blood matching the brother's, as well as the fingerprint of a senior Aum member. The brother has not been found. Mr. Asahara has denied any involvement in the kidnappings or killings. But the fact that many doubt his denials may offer him some protection, by making journalists afraid to write critical articles. Japanese journalists say that there was some reluctance to write about Aum, because some reporters who had done so received threatening letters at their homes. Telephone taps have been found at the homes of some critics of Aum, although the group denies placing the taps. In any case, Mr. Asahara can be charming as well as intimidating, and that perhaps is one of the secrets to his success. He has a knack for getting away with saying the strangest things. Two years ago, a group of Tokyo residents were furious about an Aum office next door that they said was emitting a stench they described as like that of "burning flesh." One evening, several hundred angry local residents converged outside the Aum office, when Mr. Asahara pulled up in his Mercedes-Benz limousine. He agreed to meet in a nearby park with a neighborhood representative, an electrical supply shop owner named Hirokazu Matsukawa. Mr. Matsukawa recalls that Mr. Asahara spoke politely and calmly and said with an expression of perfect seriousness that the odor came from "soybean oil and Chanel No. 5." "I couldn't smile or laugh when he said that," Mr. Matsukawa said. "But when Asahara left and I explained what he said to the neighbors, everyone laughed." Hints of Mortality As Health Slides, Apocalypse Looms In earlier years, Aum seemed to want to work within the system. In 1990 Mr. Asahara and many of his aides ran for Parliament, although all lost. More recently, Aum appears to have become more radical, and its theology more apocalyptic, and some people believe the reason has to do with Mr. Asahara's deteriorating health. He is said to have a liver ailment, perhaps cancer, but this is impossible to confirm. In public he sometimes seems tired, but he is not obviously ill. In any case, Mr. Asahara has been complaining publicly at least since early last year that his health is failing. "My body is considerably damaged now," Mr. Asahara said in a videotape recorded just a few days ago and broadcast on Japanese television. In the videotape he says he was infected with Q-fever, an obscure ailment first found in Australia, where he says airplanes sprayed his compound with the disease. Mr. Asahara compares Q-fever to the plague, but doctors in Tokyo said that its symptoms are similar to those of pneumonia and that it can be cured. Perhaps because of his declining health, Mr. Asahara may be giving increasing control over Aum to some of his lieutenants. But some people suggest that Mr. Asahara's own illness and his confrontation with his mortality -- if his ailment is that serious -- have encouraged him toward a more apocalyptic vision of the future, and perhaps even toward technologies of extermination such as nerve gas. Mr. Asahara increasingly has come to emphasize a Manichean vision of the world, in which good and evil are in a constant battle. He sometimes seems to see himself cast as the force that will rise up and destroy the evil --represented by the United States and Japanese Governments -- in order to save the world. Many of Mr. Asahara's teachings are drawn from Buddhism and the occult, but he also emphasizes a Hindu god, Lord Shiva, whose role in Hinduism may bear an eerie connection to Aum's present interest in poison gases. Shiva is a god of destruction and creation, and his job is to destroy so that life can be renewed. "Maybe he thinks of himself as a living Shiva," said Shinichi Nakazawa, a professor of religious studies who has met Mr. Asahara several times. "Shiva, you know, has two faces -- one is peaceful and one is destructive." Photos: Shoko Asahara. (Associated Press) (pg. 1); The Aum Shinrikyo religious sect says in its pamphlets that it can help people develop supernatural powers. A promotional booklet shows the sect's leader, Shoko Asahara, "levitating" in a yoga position. (pg. 8) Maps show the location of Kyushu, Japan and shows detail of the area surrounding Tokyo. |
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December 17, 2014 4:23 PM
SEOUL—
After major American theater chains decided not to run a new Hollywood comedy about a U.S. plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, its financial backer, Sony Pictures Entertainment, decided not to release it. The decision follows a threat by mysterious computer hackers to attack theaters showing the movie. North Korea's reaction to the “The Interview” underscores its intolerance for any ridicule of the country's young leader.
Inside North Korea, Kim Jong Un, like his late father and grandfather, is depicted as infallible.
The state-controlled media jubilantly reported that he won an election to the Supreme People's Assembly last year with 100 percent of the vote. Of course, his was the only name on the ballot.
So it is not surprising that North Korea is angry about “The Interview,” a dark comedy that ridicules the leader before depicting his assassination. The Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang called the film an act of war and promised retaliation.
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea, says Pyongyong is very protective of its leader’s image.
“North Koreans react to satire very sensitively and there were some cases that they complained about it harming the dignity of their leader in the past,” says Kim Yong-hyun.
North Korea protested the movie “Team America: World Police” that comically depicted Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, when it came out a decade ago. But the country never took any provocative action in response.
That may have changed with the cyber attack on Sony. Pyongyang denied any involvement, but the unknown hackers who released confidential company information had threatened to release more unless the studio cancelled the release of “The Interview.”
Korea analyst Victor Cha with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says Kim Jong Un’s weeks-long disappearance earlier in the year and the execution of his uncle indicate the young leader may be struggling to solidify his grip on power.
“The leadership transition is now three years old. We still don’t know if it’s entirely complete. There continue to be purges inside the country, which gives one the sense that there’s some turn inside the system,” he said.
Cha says lampooning Kim Jong Un’s carefully managed image can undermine the regime in a way that sanctions or hostile actions cannot.
“They can always rally the people around western hostility but western ridicule is harder for them to rally their people around because it raises questions about the leadership,” Cha said.
The commotion over a comedic film is adding to the tension in the region as international talks to curb North Korea’s nuclear program remains deadlocked and the United Nations continues to pressure the regime on charges of human rights abuses. |
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The magician who set loose these forces is a career party functionary, faithful communist, charismatic politician, international celebrity and impresario of calculated disorder named Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. He calls what he is doing -- and permitting -- a revolution. A History: The Time Of Our Lives (75 Years / A History)
A History: To See And Know Everything (75 Years / A History) Henry R. Luce had an insatiable curiosity, with the drive and ambition to match 1923-1929: Exuberance (75 Years / 1923-1929 Exuberance) In the aftermath of the Great War, America discovered an ebullient culture and an ambitious, courageous spirit 1923-1929 Exuberance: A Passion For The New (75 Years / 1923-1929 Exuberance) In the jazz age, America discovered its cultural voice 1923-1929 Exuberance: Witness: Russell W. Davenport (75 Years / 1923-1929 Exuberance) 1923-1929 Exuberance: Books: Play-Boy (75 Years / 1923-1929 Exuberance) Play-Boy 1929-1939 Despair (75 Years / 1929-1939 Despair) Its economy crumbling, America struggled to escape the global Depression and find its place in a violently changing world 1929-1939 Despair: Taking Care of Our Own: The New Deal (75 Years / 1929-1939 Despair) The New Deal probed the limits of government 1939-1948 War: The Last Good War (75 Years / 1939-1948 War) World War II set a standard that has been difficult to match 1939-1948: WAR (75 Years / 1939-1948 War) The evils of Nazism and the shock of Pearl Harbor drew the nation into a conflict that would establish America as a world power 1939-1948 War: Victory: The Peace The Bomb (75 Years / 1939-1948 War) The Peace The Bomb 1939-1948 War: Witness: Otto Fuerbringer (75 Years / 1939-1948 War) 1948-1960 Affluence: Somewhere Over The Dashboard (75 Years / 1948-1960 Affluence) History through America's once and future dream machines 1948-1960 Affluence (75 Years / 1948-1960 Affluence) America boomed as the world's economic superpower even as it contended with the specter of expanding Communist empires 1960-1973 Revolution (75 Years / 1960-1973 Revolution) The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War sparked an unprecedented upheaval in politics, culture and mores 1960-1973 Revolution: A Question Of Authority (75 Years / 1960-1973 Revolution) The tumult of the time assaulted America's social stability 1960-1973 Revolution: Witness: Hugh Sidey (75 Years / 1960-1973 Revolution) 1973-1980 Limits (75 Years / 1973-1980 Limits) Morally, politically, militarily, diplomatically--and almost literally--the U.S. just ran out of gas 1973-1980 Limits: The Can't-Do Mentality (75 Years / 1973-1980 Limits) In the '70s, doubts began to darken the nation's psyche 1973-1980 Limits: Witness: John Stacks (75 Years / 1973-1980 Limits) 1980-1989 Comeback (75 Years / 1980-1989 Comeback) In Reagan's Washington and on Gordon Gecko's Wall Street, it was a time of risk and reward. In the end, the payoffs were big 1980-1989 Comeback: A Tectonic Shift (75 Years / 1980-1989 Comeback) Moscow collapsed under the staggering cost of the cold war 1989-1998 Transformation (75 Years / 1989-1998 Transformation) In the post-Soviet era, American capitalism and American technology have become the world's engine of change 1989-1998 Transformation: Technology, Democracy, Money (75 Years / 1989-1998 Transformation) History is not over. In fact, there's more of it than ever technology 75 Years: Luce's Values--Then And Now (75 Years) We still believe the world is round and embrace an interest in the new Art And History: 75 years of portraits on the cover of TIME (75 Years) 75 years of portraits on the cover of TIME 1973-1980 Limits: An Editorial: The President Should Resign (75 Years / 1973-1980 Limits) The President Should Resign 1973-1980 Limits: Art: Picasso at MOMA (75 Years / 1973-1980 Limits) Picasso Comes Home to MOMA 1929-1939 Despair: Witness: Ralph Ingersoll (75 Years / 1929-1939 Despair) 1980-1989 Comeback: Witness: Richard Duncan (75 Years / 1980-1989 Comeback) 1989-1998 Transformation: Witness: James Nachtwey (75 Years / 1989-1998 Transformation) |
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Japanese University Retains Ex-Journalist Facing Far Right’s Ire
By MARTIN FACKLER DECEMBER 17, 2014 TOKYO ―A retired Japanese journalist who has been a prominent target of criticism by rightists seeking to rewrite Japan’s wartime history received a public show of support on Wednesday when his employer, a university, resisted pressure to cancel his teaching contract. Hokusei Gakuen University, a Christian college in northern Japan, said it had decided to retain the former journalist, Takashi Uemura, despite demands from ultranationalists that he be fired. The college had received threats of bombings and attacks on students because of newspaper articles that Mr. Uemura wrote more than two decades ago about Korean women who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War II. The fate of Mr. Uemura, 56, has been widely watched here in Japan. The country appears to be in the grips of an ideological tug of war between an emboldened far right, which has gained influence under the conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and more moderate voices. For a time, the right gained ascendancy, verbally attacking journalists and scholars whom it viewed as promoting an overly masochistic view of Japan’s World War II-era history. However, liberals and moderates have now begun to push back. In October, a group of more than 1,000 scholars, lawyers and journalists formed to support Mr. Uemura by calling on the college to renew his contract. The college seemed to waver for months because of concerns about safety before making the decision to retain Mr. Uemura, a part-time lecturer. In a statement, Hokusei’s president, Shinichi Tamura, said the college wanted to defend its tradition as a Christian school with a history of promoting reconciliation with the rest of Asia. “Many people have begun to share the belief that the freedom of speech, the basis for democracy, and also the autonomy of this university are in crisis,” Mr. Tamura said in a statement explaining the decision to retain Mr. Uemura. “The outpouring of such sentiments has far exceeded what we expected.” While the college has declined to give details on the threats it faced, in October the police arrested a 64-year-old man in Niigata, a region to the north of Tokyo, for making phone calls in which he threatened to “hurt students” and “blow up the university” if it did not fire Mr. Uemura. The right’s attacks on Mr. Uemura, which began in earnest this year, have been part of a broader verbal assault on his former employer, The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second-largest newspaper, for its coverage of women forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II. The attacks began in August when the newspaper, a prominent liberal voice that has called for greater atonement for Japan’s wartime misdeeds, suddenly retracted a dozen stories from the 1980s and 1990s about the so-called comfort women that it admitted were based on the false testimony of a single former Japanese soldier. Nationalists have seized on this admission to argue that the entire issue was a fabrication, and that the women were actually nothing more than camp-following prostitutes. Mainstream scholars say that tens of thousands of Japanese, Korean and other mainly Asian women were put to work in the brothels. While Mr. Uemura’s articles were not among those retracted, he and members of his family have faced personal attacks and threats for work of his in 1991 based on the testimony of a Korean woman. Those articles were among the first in Japan to recount the experiences of a woman forced to provide sex to soldiers, dozens of whom began coming forth in the early 1990s to share their accounts. This has led nationalists to brand him as one of the original “fabricators” of the comfort women issue. Such criticisms have already caused one university to rescind a job offer that it had made to Mr. Uemura, who retired from The Asahi Shimbun in March. For a time, Hokusei also hesitated to make a decision, with some local news media reporting that the college would refuse to renew its contract with Mr. Uemura, who holds a minor position teaching classes on Japanese society to exchange students. However, in announcing its decision, Hokusei said it decided to retain Mr. Uemura because it believed that giving in to threats would be a slippery slope, encouraging ultranationalist activists to make additional demands about hiring decisions and even class content. The decision was applauded by Don’t Give In, Hokusei, a group that formed to support Mr. Uemura. “I want to express my admiration for Hokusei’s courageous decision,” Jiro Yamaguchi, a political science professor and founder of the group, said on Twitter after the decision. “Academic freedom can only be defended by universities themselves. I hope Hokusei’s decision becomes a model for other universities.” |
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