Echo of Footsteps

A few weeks ago, the international news out of Japan was a report of the hanging of two men. Now, given Japan’s relatively low crime rate and the nature of the act, this might have made international news on those merits alone. The truly extraordinary fact about these killings – at least in my eyes – is the fact that they were state sponsored. Yes, you read correctly. Japan employs capital punishment.

A few months ago, if you had asked me to list countries that have the death penalty, I would have said Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, China… you know, all of the countries that opponents of capital punishment catalog and then ask if we really want to be on any list with these ‘evil’ countries. It’s interesting how they always conveniently omit Japan from the list. That may be because Japan executes a significantly smaller number of people than the U.S., Iran, and North Korea, etc. But I think it has much more to do with the idea that Americans typically regard Japan as a highly civilized ally and if Japan employs capital punishment, then the argument that only uncivilized and morally inferior countries believe and use such a practice falls apart.

Now, I want to go on the record in my opposition of capital punishment in the United States and elsewhere - though more for practical reasons than philosophical ones. And I regard America’s practice of it as a blight on our international reputation. However, the more I learn about the way Japan employs it, the more I find America to be almost enlightened by the whole process.

First, as I stated before, Japan continues to use hanging as the method in capital punishment cases. Now, perhaps they have refined their technique, but this remains a relatively problematical way to kill a person – especially for the prisoner.

Except, they aren’t prisoners. Once a person has been sentenced to death, they legally lose their status as a ‘prisoner’ and are no longer awarded even the basic rights of prisoners. They are held in special detention centers where they are kept in solitary confinement with only three books and they are let out for about an hour twice a week for exercise – exercise in their small cell is strictly forbidden. Many of these men spend 10 years or more in these conditions waiting to be executed. One man died at the age of 95 after spending 32 years on death row.

What I truly find cruel and unusual, however, is the fact that these executions are carried out in secret. Neither the family of the victim nor the family of the prisoner are informed until the day after is has taken place. The lawyers aren’t informed. And most horrifically, the prisoners themselves have no idea until the guards come to escort them to the gallows. When sentenced to death row, these men live under the weight of knowledge that one night, without warning, they will be taken to be killed without the opportunity for any final goodbyes. And it could be tonight or it could be many years from now.

The Japanese government claims that this is a more humane practice than giving the prisoners a date on which they will focus and dwell. Apparently, they believe that if the prisoners are not aware of the exact date they will be killed, they will be able to put out of their minds that such a date exists. Which is ridiculous. I’m reminded of Albert Camus’ The Stranger where a man sits on death row in such a set-up. He recalls (mistakenly, as it turns out) that all hangings are performed at dawn, so every night he remains awake in terror, frantically listening for the footsteps that will come to take him to his death. And every morning at sunrise, he falls asleep in exhausted relief that he will live one more day. Unsurprisingly, he drives himself mad.

Album currently playing on my IPOD – Tom Waits’ Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years


- Jenny

A New Day Dawns in America

Congratulations to Barack Obama on becoming the next President of United States. Not only have we elected the first African-American as President, I really look at this election as one where in spite of the current hardships and uncertainty we face; we, as a society, embraced hope and not fear. Hope for the future and the change we can affect in it.

I’ve gotten a few consoling emails, lamenting the fact that in this historic time in America, I should be halfway across the world. And though I certainly would have enjoyed celebrating with y’all, I wouldn’t change the view I have for anything. At the same time that election results were starting to come in, the Japanese students and teachers at Shichijo Elementary School were welcoming a group of English teachers from all over the world to their school. We had teachers from New Zealand, India, Jamaica, South Africa, Canada, and of course, a few from the U.S.A. And when I and my countrymen introduced ourselves as hailing from America, there were no questions whether we referred to small town, real America or big town, fake America, whether we were from red states or blue states, or if we identified with conservative America or liberal America. We are from America. We are Americans.

- Jenny