In his posting on the Jizo Bodhisattva statues, Aaron at Kikuchiyo explains why fetuses go to hell, and thus answers the big question that many of us have been asking recently, “Why should the hostages feel guilty for being kidnapped in Iraq?” Read more about their recent trials in the New York Times article about their return.
Update: A Japanese diet member, 柏村武昭, has now referred to the kidnapped Japanese hostages as “anti-Japanese elements” for their previously voiced opposition to Japan sending troops. 「人質の中には自衛隊のイラク派遣に公然と反対していた人もいるらしい。そんな反政府、反日的分子のために血税を用いることは強烈な違和感、不快感を持たざるを得ない」This Asahi article found via Issho. Wow, I haven’t seen this word, anti-Japanese elements, or 反日的分子, in a while.
Update: Laszlo has written a posting on this, well worth the read. I think our positions are very similar, if not identical.
2 thoughts on “Kikuchiyo on Why Fetuses Go to Hell”
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God, this is crazy. It’s super scary to know that there are diet members who use such words, not only that, they totally confuse the relation between “the people” and “the government”. Soooo embarrassing. 害臊要死。 (I now understand how embarrassed American people are by Bush)
Ryoko said this is a pretty bad misinterpretation of Ojizou-san, or at least it’s not what she was taught when she was raised in Jodo-shinshu. Still, that link on Japanese Buddhism seems to know what it’s talking about, and Japanese often don’t know their own culture/religion as well as they think they do.
In general though, seeing how the reaction of the Japanese people has changed in extremes has made me think, “Huh? I guess I didn’t understand the Japanese as well as I thought I did.”