inejiro asanuma

assassination 10-12-1960

Happy birthday, Asanuma Inejiro! (December 27, 1898)

A socialist from a young age, Asanuma Inejiro joined the Farmer-Labor Party of Japan while in college, and became a committed social activist. In 1936, Asanuma was elected to the National Diet as part of the Social Masses Party, and after World War II was a founder of the Japan Socialist Party. Asanuma became a vocal anti-imperialist, criticizing the American occupation of Japan and his country's later "special relationship" with America, and showing support to the communist forces of Mao Zedong in China, later the People's Republic of China. In 1960, just a few months after becoming Chairman of the JSP, Asanuma was murdered by a far-right ultranationalist during a televised political debate.

A shooting in Japan of all places is crazy, though. Given that it was a public assassination of a major politician I really hope no copycat shootings occur out of "inspiration" using the assailant's same method. Yeah, a lot of Japanese people vehemently disliked Abe, but they still seem disturbed by the event regardless

It's all for sure disturbing, but I highly doubt any similar killings will happen anytime soon. The suspect allegedly fired a shotgun, which is impossible for a civilian to import into Japan, so it sounds like it was a homemade weapon. The last political assassination in Japan that I can think of was that of Inejiro Asanuma in 1960, and that involved a long knife. (Unless you mean it could inspire copycat incidents in America, in which case all bets are off)

Inejiro Asanuma Assassination Footage (1960)

Inejiro Asanuma: Japan's Nationalist Martyr

THAT is Asanuma Inejiro, the third chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party, and a supporter of Mao Zedong, oppressive leader of China under the guise of communism. Look, 47. His speech is being televised, you won't be able to just run up and stab him.

Events 10.12

539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon, ending the Babylonian empire. (Julian calendar) 633 – Battle of Hatfield Chase: King Edwin of Northumbria is defeated and killed by an alliance under Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon of Gwynedd. 1279 – The Nichiren Shōshū branch of Buddhism is founded in Japan. 1398 – In the Treaty of Salynas, Lithuania cedes Samogitia to the Teutonic Knights. 1406 – Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reaches Seoul after having set out from Java four months before. 1492 – Christopher Columbus's first expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically on San Salvador Island. (Julian calendar) 1654 – The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100 people. 1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Province of Massachusetts Bay Governor William Phips. 1748 – War of Jenkins' Ear: A British squadron wins a tactical victory over a Spanish squadron off Havana. 1773 – America's first insane asylum opens. 1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day is held in New York City. 1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 1798 – Flemish and Luxembourgish peasants launch the rebellion against French rule known as the Peasants' War. 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute. 1810 – The citizens of Munich hold the first Oktoberfest in celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. 1822 – Pedro I of Brazil is proclaimed the emperor. 1849 – The city of Manizales, Colombia, is founded by 'The Expedition of the 20'. 1856 – An M 7.7–8.3 earthquake off the Greek island of Crete cause major damage as far as Egypt and Malta. 1871 – The British in India enact the Criminal Tribes Act, naming many local communities "Criminal Tribes". 1890 – Uddevalla Suffrage Association is formed. 1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools. 1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House. 1915 – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. 1917 – World War I: The First Battle of Passchendaele takes place resulting in the largest single-day loss of life in New Zealand history. 1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota. 1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Boston Children's Hospital. 1933 – The military Alcatraz Citadel becomes the civilian Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. 1944 – World War II: The Axis occupation of Athens comes to an end. 1945 – World War II: Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor. 1945 – The Lao Issara took control of Laos' government and reaffirmed the country's independence. 1959 – At the national congress of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance in Peru, a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party who later form APRA Rebelde. 1960 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at the United Nations to protest a Philippine assertion. 1960 – Japan Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma is stabbed to death during a live Television broadcast. 1962 – The Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities. There was at least U.S. $230 million in damages and 46 people died. 1963 – After nearly 23 years of imprisonment, Reverend Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit missionary, was released from the Soviet Union. 1964 – The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew, and the first flight without pressure suits. 1967 – A bomb explodes on board Cyprus Airways Flight 284 while flying over the Mediterranean Sea, killing 66. 1968 – Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain. 1970 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization continues as President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas. 1971 – The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire begins. 1974 – President Nixon nominates House Majority Leader Gerald R. Ford as the successor to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. 1977 – Hua Guofeng succeeds Mao Zedong as paramount leader of China. 1979 – Typhoon Tip becomes the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded. 1983 – Japan's former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from the Lockheed Corporation, and is sentenced to four years in jail. 1984 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army fail to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. The bomb kills five people and wounds 31. 1988 – Two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down execution-style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia. 1992 – A 5.8 earthquake occurred in Cairo, Egypt. At least 510 died. 1994 – The Magellan spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere of Venus. 1996 – New Zealand holds its first general election under the new mixed-member proportional representation system, which led to Jim Bolger's National Party forming a coalition government with Winston Peters's New Zealand First. 1997 – The Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria kills 43 people at a fake roadblock. 1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at University of Wyoming, dies five days after he was beaten outside of Laramie. 1999 – Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup. 1999 – The former Autonomous Soviet Republic of Abkhazia declares its independence from Georgia. 2000 – The USS Cole, a US Navy destroyer, is badly damaged by two al-Qaeda suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39. 2002 – Terrorists detonate bombs in the Sari Club in Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300. 2005 – The second Chinese human spaceflight, Shenzhou 6, is launched, carrying two cosmonauts in orbit for five days. 2010 – The Finnish Yle TV2 channel's Ajankohtainen kakkonen current affairs program featured controversial Homoilta episode (literally "gay night"), which led to the resignation of almost 50,000 Finns from the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 2012 – The European Union wins the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. 2013 – Fifty-one people are killed after a truck veers off a cliff in Peru. 2017 – The United States announces its decision to withdraw from UNESCO. Israel immediately follows. 2018 – Princess Eugenie marries Jack Brooksbank at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. 2019 – Typhoon Hagibis makes landfall in Japan, killing 10 and forcing the evacuation of one million people. 2019 – Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya becomes the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours with a time of 1:59:40 in Vienna. 2019 – The Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans, which is under construction, collapses, killing two and injuring 20.

A mis siete años leía constantemente un libro sobre Japón que estaba en nuestra casa de Guatemala. De ese libro conservé imágenes imborrables, como que el libro era de la colección Time-Life, la foto del asesinato en 1960 de Inejiro Asanuma o la de un hombre en el suelo rodeado de handscrolls. Pero lo que siempre me ha acompañado era aquella ranita trémula en el haiku de Basho, o la del canto de la cigarra que taladra la roca en el silencio del templo Ryūshakuji, cerca de la ciudad de Yamagata. La pandemia me acercó más a la cultura japonesa, a su pintura y a su hermosa caligrafía. Han tenido que pasar cincuenta años para que aquel niño de Guatemala que se dejaba las peTañas leyendo libros a escondidas, se sienta feliz de poder escribir el haiku de Basho de una forma que empieza a verse satisfactoria. When I was seven years old, I was constantly reading a book about Japan that was in our house in Guatemala. From that book I kept indelible images, such as the fact that the book was from the Time-Life collection, the photo of Inejiro Asanuma's assassination in 1960, or the picture of a man on the floor surrounded by handscrolls. But what has always stayed with me was the trembling frog in Basho's haiku, or the song of the cicada drilling the rock in the silence of Ryūshakuji temple, near the city of Yamagata. The pandemic brought me closer to the Japanese culture, its painting and beautiful calligraphy. It has taken fifty years for that boy from Guatemala, who used to read books in secret, to feel happy to be able to write Basho's haiku in a way that is beginning to look satisfying. https://www.instagram.com/p/CgGANyXMbMM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

by Tsuneko Sasamoto / 笹本恒子 Politician, Inejiro Asanuma / 政治家 浅沼稲次郎 (1955)

17 year-old Otoya Yamaguchi about to shove his sword into Socialist party leader, Inejiro Asanuma [2560 × 2126] October 12, 1960

You know, we have a tendency to portray assassinations as these incredibly serious and well planned affairs orchestrated by complete masterminds.

When in reality they tend to be dumb, stupid affairs planned by stupid, incompetent people who have no idea what the hell they're doing.

It's amazing how some of the most defining moments in history were the dumbest affairs imaginable.

Take the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, which kicked off WW1 and left millions dead and crippled, and ended empires.

It was planned by a small group of incompetent revolutionaries, who had planned this assassination carefully to take full advantage of the man's visit...

And by that i mean that two of them turned out to be too chickenshit to actually go through with it when the moment came, one saw his wife sitting in the car and had a moment of clarity where he realized murdering him and his wife was a pretty shitty thing to do, one had his gun yam, and when one assassin finally throws a bomb, he overthrows it and it sails over the car and right into the crowd on the other side of the road.

Then he jumps over the side of the bridge planning to make his escape. Only the water is shallow and he just breaks his leg. And then his suicide pill is past its expiration date and he's just left there, throwing up and with a broken leg as the police march down and arrest him.

Then the final assassin, slinks off dejected he's not going to get to murder a man and his wife, goes to a caffe and buys a sandwich, only to see the archduke and his car roll up in front of him, q result of a driver who's not familiar with the city and has made a wrong turn.

He jumps up and fires.

History turned on a sandwich and wrong turn.

It would be an hilarious comedy of errors, if it wasn't the incredible cost in lifes as WW1 destroys Europe, and lays the foundation for facist germany, soviet russia and china, and millions and millions of deaths.

Then there is the asshole who killed Abraham lincoln.

Because the president didn't have proffessional bodyguards yet, he was able to sneak up backstage, and get close enough to shoot him in the back of the head.

That's stupid enough, but then there was his escape.

Having used his one bullet to kill Lincoln, he has no means to defend himself against Lincoln's guests, and has to make his dramatic escape...

By which i mean he literally jumped off the balcony, landed on the podium, broke his leg, gave a dramatic one liner to the shocked audience, and then hobbled his way off stage and out the building and avoided capture for over a week.

I don't know who was dumber. The man, or the people gathered for not managing to stop the man with the broken leg and an empty gun.

Then there was Giuseppe Marco Fieschi, who tried to use this monstrosity of stiched together Musket barrels to kill the king of France and his sons.

He unloaded it right at the monarch as he was passing beneath, but this being unnacurate muskets, the king and his sons were barely scratched, but he killed about 20 other people in the kings entourage. Also one bullet hit marco himself, because the weapon was as safe to use as it looked.

That was a pretty stupid and crude assassination attempt.

Then the moron, because the king sent his doctors to save his life somehow thought that this meant the king would pardon him, so he turned very cooperative and named all his co-conspirator.

As it turned out, the king only wanted him alive so proper justice could take place, and he was executed for massmurder and attempted regicide.

And then there is the story of Otoya Yamaguchi, who assassinated Inejiro Asanuma. It was the single most important political assassination of post war japan, maybe in all of Japan in the 20th century, as Inejiro was the leader of the Japanese Communists, who dreamed of turning his country into a second China, and following in the footsteps of Mao(Who he greatly admired) and was making inroads in japanese politics.

He was also the glue that held the Japanese Communist cause together, and their only shot at actually becoming a real force in politics, and the moment he was killed, it pretty much disintegrated and died on the vine, becoming less and less relevant as the party ripped itself apart after his death, until finally it just disbanded.

The famous picture above makes it seem like a really dramatic, and well calculated assassination. However, that picture is taken after the mortal blow was struck.

Here is the actual killing blow. The assassin's plan was literally, run up to him on stage and stab him with a short sword, and hope that no one steps up to stop him, or the guy doesn't move and use the podium as a barrier between them.

It was literally a stupid plan thought up by a 17 year old, and he pretty much just slammed into his target with such force his own glasses just flew off.

Again, it was the most important and defining assassination in modern japanese history, and it all boiled down to, run at him with a sword, and hope no one stops me.

It's amazing how some of the most important and defining deaths was caused by stupid people, with dumb plans, with dumb, blind luck on their side, allowing them to triumph in the face of their own, incredible shortcomings.

What are you gonna do? Stab me?

Inejiro Asanuma

Inejiro Asanuma: Japan's Nationalist Martyr

 This is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken by Yasushi Nagao. This picture is interesting, if you were to look up the video of the murder, it’s easy to see the difference in quality between this photo and the video. Interesting to see how far video has come today, and how easily we advanced with photography so quickly in the past. The photograph seems much more powerful even if you don’t know the story behind it. In the video, it’s a little more difficult to understand the situation because the assassin was so quickly brought to a halt, the effect is less powerful and the damage is weakened..