A requiem for Kenji Goto
He was a fellow journalist following world events with the sincere desire of letting people know more about the plight of those who suffer most in times of crisis -- children, the poor and forgotten, and women. Of all the photos that had been released in the media, the one that portrays him most authentically is the image where we see a smiling Kenji Goto showing a boy standing next to him footages of his captured images in the monitor of his video camera. The boy in the photo is watching the footage with great enthusiasm, while Goto is delighted, possibly because of the sense of satisfaction that he could bring at least a moment's joy to a boy in the troubled region of the Middle East, who otherwise might have been living a life of constant fear.
This is the same Kenji Goto who we see later kneeling on the ground in a barren patch of what seems to be a hilly desert area. This was the very last moment of his life in our troubled world, with the man standing next to him, covered from head to toe in black attire, wielding a knife and saying: “Because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this knife will not only slaughter Kenji but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin.”
The message was addressed not to the poor fellow about to be beheaded, but to the Japanese Prime Minister Shizo Abe, who not only failed to negotiate with Goto's captors for his release, but also publicly backed the US-led coalition's air strikes against the Islamic State terrorist group that now controls a vast swath of land across Syria and Iraq.
The immediate reaction in Japan to this cowardly act of beheading a journalist known to be a highly professional TV reporter with a strong commitment is that of anger and dismay. The IS video of the Goto beheading was released after midnight Japan time on February 1, and the first official reaction came within an hour. Speaking soon after, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe renewed his earlier vow of not giving in to terrorism and said that Japan would continue providing humanitarian assistance to countries fighting the IS extremists and would work with the international community to bring Goto's killers to justice. Yet, many in Japan blamed Abe's half-hearted attitude, or rather inaction, for the tragic end of two Japanese lives within a week.
The hostage crisis for Japan started with the release of a video on January 20 where two captured Japanese men were seen kneeling on the ground while an IS fighter was reading a message demanding ransom from the Japanese government. The man threatened to kill both unless Japan paid $ 200 million within 72 hours, the same amount the visiting Japanese prime minister pledged to provide Egypt and other Arab states fighting the IS in a speech he delivered in Cairo just the day before. The hostage crisis unfolded as Abe moved over to his next destination, Israel, where in a hastily arranged press conference with his Israeli counterpart, Abe rejected the demand and vowed to continue battling terrorism by all means. This ill-conceived act might have complicated the hostage issue altogether, leading to the tragic death of two innocent Japanese. Vowing to uproot terrorism while standing next to the greatest sponsor of state terrorism seems not only funny, but also sarcastic. The hostage-takers must have noted this paradox carefully, and from then on back tracked their demand to make the Japanese position much more complicated.
With passing of the 72-hour deadline, IS beheaded Haruna Yukawa, the other Japanese hostage shown in the first video, and forced Kenji Goto to read a message addressed to the Japanese prime minister branding him as the killer of Yukawa and telling him that his (Goto's) life was hanging in balance unless Japan acted promptly to fulfill the new demand of his captors. The new demand was to swap him in exchange for an imprisoned female suicide bomber held in a Jordanian prison.
This second demand, however, turned out to be much more complicated for Japan to meet than paying ransom money. Jordan has its own captive in IS custody, an air force pilot who was shot down over Syria and captured by IS fighters. Public opinion in Jordan was against a prisoner swap that would not involve the pilot of its own soil, and hence Abe's fate, and also the fate of Kenji Goto, turned out to be sealed right from the moment the second video was released. The time from then on to the execution must have been a time of extreme mental agony for Kenji Goto. He pleaded for his life, but his plea just resounded in the closed halls of Japanese policy makers, failing to wake them up at the crucial moment when his life was hanging in balance.
Goto's friends and well wishers gathered in front of the prime minister's office, and his mother and his wife made a desperate last minute appeal. All these eventually turned out to be in vain as the knife made its way spilling blood from a living human soul. A few drops of that blood have now spilled over to taint the well-fitted attire of Japanese leaders, who now seem to be ready for pressing even harder for allowing Japan to strengthen its military might with the pretext of never again endangering the lives of citizens overseas. And Goto, a pacifist by all accounts, must be looking on from somewhere high above and seeing how politicians love to play with the fate of ordinary citizens to ensure their own gains.
The writer is a Tokyo based Bangladeshi journalist. He is also teaching at Japanese universities.
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