Late last month, authorities say a man named Satoshi Uematsu used a hammer to shatter a first-floor window at his old workplace, a residential center for the disabled about an hour outside of Tokyo. Once inside, he proceeded to carry out a horrific stabbing spree that left 19 people dead and at least 20 more injured in the deadliest attack in Japan since World War II.The assault was shocking on a variety of levels. For starters, Japan has one of the lowest homicide rates in the world; in 2012, there were just three gun deaths in the entire country. There's also the fact that, prior to carrying out this plan, Uematsu wrote a letter detailing his bizarre fixation on killing people with disabilities, offering to eradicate mass numbers of them so long as the government changed his name and ponied up some serious cash to help him start over. He was fired from his job and later sent to a mental hospital, but somehow got released after being deemed less than dangerous. Finally, it's curious that the story didn't make more of a splash in the United States given the sheer volume of death.For some perspective on Uematsu's crime, I called up Anne McKnight, an comparative literature and culture professor at Shirayuri College in Tokyo. We talked about how people there view the crime and what's been missing from Western accounts. She explained some of the broader social currents percolating before the attack, like a massive elderly population enjoying a robust welfare state and a trend away from national pacifism. "As you may have read, Japan is increasing as a security state with the government wanting to remilitarize the country," she told me. "A lot of things are open in terms of what direction the country will go in."Here's what she had to say about the worst mass killing in recent Japanese history.VICE: What's the reaction been like to this story domestically, in Japan?
Anne McKnight: A lot of kind of stunned silence, because this guy is a loner, and it sounds like he was unfriended by a lot of people when he did start to go off the rails.One narrative that's coming out is that this guy wanted to be a caretaker. He was in a teacher-training course, and then he worked in a nursing home. So people are kind of wondering at what point he made that turn––from wanting to care for people to then taking on the role of cleanser of the weak. Everyone agrees it's a senseless crime––he claims no allegiance to any organized group. So in that sense it's very different from a lot of the large-scale political crimes of the 60s, like the [Red Army Faction] hijacking of the 1970s.Another thing people are trying to figure out has to do with the impact of drugs on his system, whether it be the initial concern that marijuana was in his system or about kiken drugs, which are basically legal amphetamines. His friends say he had become unhinged because of legal amphetamines, and that's when he started to say things about social cleansing.I'm glad you brought up the weed thing: I'm curious as to why that was even mentioned in the reports, as it seems like such an irrelevant detail. Is its inclusion indicative of anything?
The marijuana thing has been largely consigned to the past in the way that people sort of process the story. Marijuana laws are very tight in Japan. There's an advocacy movement to work toward getting medical marijuana legalized, though its most active and kind-of visible proponent just died that very same week from liver cancer. The thing you should know, before you attribute [this Draconian attitude] toward Japan, is that it's [in] the US occupation law from 1948. That when MacArthur's regime occupied Japan, so it literally is from the reefer madness era.Is experimenting with weed a regular part of adolescence in Japan?
No, no, no, no. Let me try to convey it. The penalties are really strict—for booze, too. So kids drink, and booze is the self-medication of choice, along with energy drinks. They don't experiment with pot.Is there a health crisis Japan with kiken drugs similar to the one we've seen here in the US with synthetic marijuana or opiates?
Kiken means "dangerous." I'm not sure exactly where in the amphetamine class they lie, but there have been other incidents of people driving cars up on sidewalks and doing really irrational, violent things, whether they're intentional or not.Speed is an interesting thing, because it contributes to your productivity as a worker. So in some ways, speed and coffee and energy drinks are really encouraged [in Japanese culture] because they get the job done. As a care worker, also, I'm sure he had access to pretty good word-of-mouth about what was out there.What's the general attitude in Japan toward the disabled? Was this attacker one-of-a-kind, or are there splinter groups on Twitter, or wherever, where this kind of chatter about social cleansing is occurring?
I think that's where a lot of the tippy-toeing is happening. There's a real reluctance to normalize his behavior, and so to interpret it would be to normalize it in some ways. It's clear by looking at this Twitter feed that he took it upon himself to internalize some standard about public health. There's a tweet where he describes being on the subway and staring at someone he considers a fat slob. And he stares at this person until they give that seat over to an older woman. So he knows what's what in terms of manners, but he seems himself as kind of an enforcer of this. So it's not just [a preoccupation with] the handicapped; it's public health issues [that are big] for him.But what was really telling, and one thing that people in Japan are picking up on, is why did he close his letter [containing his manifesto] with "Beautiful Japan"? Well, "Beautiful Japan" is [essentially] the title of the current prime minister's book. Like, his steps to make a beautiful Japan. So if you wanted to put two and two together, you could say, "Hmm, what's the consistency between this kind of cutting budgets and all the kinds of social cleansing that a state can do when it really pares down?" And you could think of Fukushima and all the things that are happening with internal refugees. And there a lot of pressing issues with money and aging in Japan about how we will pay for all of these things.And this mass murder is bringing these political questions to the fore?
It's a huge issue, because the birth rate is so low, and Japan's men are the oldest living in the world and women are the second after Hong Kong. So as a social-welfare state you do have to wonder: How do we pay for all of these people who really need a lot of care? If you visited the subways [in Japan], you would be quite shocked, because they're cleaned mostly by very active elderly people who are on their hands and knees. In the US, we have immigrants for [much of] that kind of work. But the problem of how do we keep people active and healthy as a society and as a nation is a really big set of open questions.So the stuff he was spouting could have stemmed from actual political conversations happening around him, and he may have interpreted it in an extreme and demented way?
These are issues that affect most people's families in one way or another. If someone's grandma is getting old, they wonder if they are going to have to quit their job or move or whatever. There's still a very strong work ethic toward taking care of people who have taken care of you. So the handicapped discourse isn't automatically associated with that, but Japan is still a social-welfare state that believes there should be a safety net for people. So a lot of people who have been on the Sunday-morning-type shows are worrying about the changing attitudes.No one wants to be an ax murderer, but they're wondering if people will say, "He has a point there. We need to rethink our attitudes toward care and people who are taking so many resources." That discourse hasn't happened, but people are making sure it doesn't happen. Some people think things will be solved if we just put more bars and more cameras on the facilities and incarcerate the people who live there instead of giving them a more free and mobile and better quality of life. The pro-security people are one thing, but even the police are saying they don't really know how this happened.What might be the consequences of pro-security types winning this debate?
Japan has not had a major incident of international terrorism, but if it militarizes, that might change. So there's a lot of very careful and slow thinking about discourses of security at all levels. It started with eavesdropping 20 years ago, and now it's legal for the government to listen to you. So a lot of things that affect consumers have changed, but the big question is whether the constitution can change and Japan can have a military and kick out the US from its bases. And it's ongoing. I wouldn't say it's directly tied, but there's a lot of rethinking of security issues going on in the background, how to keep a lid on people like this.The new [female] governor of Tokyo is pretty right-wing. There is a tendency toward militarization and security, and the Olympics are coming here. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. People in the West have a knee-jerk tendency to celebrate anyone for being a woman. Well, Margaret Thatcher was a woman, so there you go.Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.
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Anne McKnight: A lot of kind of stunned silence, because this guy is a loner, and it sounds like he was unfriended by a lot of people when he did start to go off the rails.One narrative that's coming out is that this guy wanted to be a caretaker. He was in a teacher-training course, and then he worked in a nursing home. So people are kind of wondering at what point he made that turn––from wanting to care for people to then taking on the role of cleanser of the weak. Everyone agrees it's a senseless crime––he claims no allegiance to any organized group. So in that sense it's very different from a lot of the large-scale political crimes of the 60s, like the [Red Army Faction] hijacking of the 1970s.
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The marijuana thing has been largely consigned to the past in the way that people sort of process the story. Marijuana laws are very tight in Japan. There's an advocacy movement to work toward getting medical marijuana legalized, though its most active and kind-of visible proponent just died that very same week from liver cancer. The thing you should know, before you attribute [this Draconian attitude] toward Japan, is that it's [in] the US occupation law from 1948. That when MacArthur's regime occupied Japan, so it literally is from the reefer madness era.Is experimenting with weed a regular part of adolescence in Japan?
No, no, no, no. Let me try to convey it. The penalties are really strict—for booze, too. So kids drink, and booze is the self-medication of choice, along with energy drinks. They don't experiment with pot.Is there a health crisis Japan with kiken drugs similar to the one we've seen here in the US with synthetic marijuana or opiates?
Kiken means "dangerous." I'm not sure exactly where in the amphetamine class they lie, but there have been other incidents of people driving cars up on sidewalks and doing really irrational, violent things, whether they're intentional or not.
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I think that's where a lot of the tippy-toeing is happening. There's a real reluctance to normalize his behavior, and so to interpret it would be to normalize it in some ways. It's clear by looking at this Twitter feed that he took it upon himself to internalize some standard about public health. There's a tweet where he describes being on the subway and staring at someone he considers a fat slob. And he stares at this person until they give that seat over to an older woman. So he knows what's what in terms of manners, but he seems himself as kind of an enforcer of this. So it's not just [a preoccupation with] the handicapped; it's public health issues [that are big] for him.But what was really telling, and one thing that people in Japan are picking up on, is why did he close his letter [containing his manifesto] with "Beautiful Japan"? Well, "Beautiful Japan" is [essentially] the title of the current prime minister's book. Like, his steps to make a beautiful Japan. So if you wanted to put two and two together, you could say, "Hmm, what's the consistency between this kind of cutting budgets and all the kinds of social cleansing that a state can do when it really pares down?" And you could think of Fukushima and all the things that are happening with internal refugees. And there a lot of pressing issues with money and aging in Japan about how we will pay for all of these things.
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It's a huge issue, because the birth rate is so low, and Japan's men are the oldest living in the world and women are the second after Hong Kong. So as a social-welfare state you do have to wonder: How do we pay for all of these people who really need a lot of care? If you visited the subways [in Japan], you would be quite shocked, because they're cleaned mostly by very active elderly people who are on their hands and knees. In the US, we have immigrants for [much of] that kind of work. But the problem of how do we keep people active and healthy as a society and as a nation is a really big set of open questions.So the stuff he was spouting could have stemmed from actual political conversations happening around him, and he may have interpreted it in an extreme and demented way?
These are issues that affect most people's families in one way or another. If someone's grandma is getting old, they wonder if they are going to have to quit their job or move or whatever. There's still a very strong work ethic toward taking care of people who have taken care of you. So the handicapped discourse isn't automatically associated with that, but Japan is still a social-welfare state that believes there should be a safety net for people. So a lot of people who have been on the Sunday-morning-type shows are worrying about the changing attitudes.No one wants to be an ax murderer, but they're wondering if people will say, "He has a point there. We need to rethink our attitudes toward care and people who are taking so many resources." That discourse hasn't happened, but people are making sure it doesn't happen. Some people think things will be solved if we just put more bars and more cameras on the facilities and incarcerate the people who live there instead of giving them a more free and mobile and better quality of life. The pro-security people are one thing, but even the police are saying they don't really know how this happened.What might be the consequences of pro-security types winning this debate?
Japan has not had a major incident of international terrorism, but if it militarizes, that might change. So there's a lot of very careful and slow thinking about discourses of security at all levels. It started with eavesdropping 20 years ago, and now it's legal for the government to listen to you. So a lot of things that affect consumers have changed, but the big question is whether the constitution can change and Japan can have a military and kick out the US from its bases. And it's ongoing. I wouldn't say it's directly tied, but there's a lot of rethinking of security issues going on in the background, how to keep a lid on people like this.The new [female] governor of Tokyo is pretty right-wing. There is a tendency toward militarization and security, and the Olympics are coming here. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. People in the West have a knee-jerk tendency to celebrate anyone for being a woman. Well, Margaret Thatcher was a woman, so there you go.Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.