Japanese Prime Minister Naoto KAN

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced this week that he, his entire cabinet, and the powerful Ichiro Ozawa, Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), would resign. Hatoyama would be succeeded by Finance Minister Naoto Kan, a fiscal conservative who is one of the founders of the DPJ. This move, which comes less than a year after the the party swept to power with promises of change and a break with the past.

The Democrats now face their first major leadership challenge since taking office. While reshuffling the government has been common in post-war Japan, the big difference between the DPJ and the previously ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is that the LDP has a big well of experienced leaders on which to call. By contrast, the DPJ is relatively young and is having to scramble to suddenly find suitable candidates for a number of key positions.

The political goal for the shake-up seems clear:  After eight months of indecision and broken promises, Hatoyama bowed to party pressure to leave in advance of July’s elections for seats in the upper house of the Diet.

Japan is in transition

The choice of the 63-year-old Kan to succeed Hatoyama is not entirely unexpected, but highlights a dilemma in the DPJ leadership. Despite the fact that the DPJ ran on an agenda of reform and wants to represent change, Kan is closely associated with the government apparatus, being one of the founders of the DPJ and its leader on two occasions since the late 1990′s. Another rumored possibility for the post had been free-market supporter Shinji Tarutoko, who heads the House of Representatives Environmental Committee, but who was relatively unknown by establishment politicians. In other words, it seems that the party’s appetite for trying new approaches is muted.

All of the commotion surrounding the Prime Ministerial change is merely a distraction from Japan’s underlying trends: greater involvement on the international stage, including matters of defense and global security, and a pressing need to develop a new social structure that can accommodate Japan’s shrinking population base. The country is struggling to maintain growth in the face of this demographic crisis, and it remains to be seen whether Japan can rein in its debt, which stands at about 200% of the nation’s GDP.

But, indeed, something was seriously out of place.  I simply hadn’t noticed it yet.

After looking at the departure board, I started to mount the stairs to the platform.  On most days, one of the station staff stands at the top of the stairs, barking out announcements on a megaphone, warning about passing trains and advising passengers of the destination of the next arriving train. However, looking up the stairs, I saw a uniformed police officer.  Very unusual.  Then another.  And then a small throng of train personnel.  I didn’t have to get far enough up the stairs to see the police tape strung along a large portion of Platform 2 to understand what had happened:  someone had jumped in front of a train at my station. Someone committed suicide.

Arriving on the platform, I saw the shards of shattered safety glass all over the platform serving trains going away from Osaka, headed east toward the ancient capital city of Nara. And one thing more: a large white tarp that covered the mortal remains of some sole (I don’t know whether male or female, young or old) who decided that leaving this world was the solution to whatever problems he or she had.  Statistically speaking, it was probably a Japanese male somewhere around age 30 who lost his job or had severe financial difficulties of some kind. According to one of the other passengers on the platform, it was a “jumper” who stepped willingly in front of a rapid express train — the sort of through train that doesn’t stop at our small local station.

Although suicide is not unlawful in Japan, its prevention is growing as an item of concern in Japan, as the numbers of self-inflicted deaths exceeded 30,000 for the 12th straight year in 2009. To this end, back in October of 2009 the rail company installed emergency power-kill switches on all four platforms of our local station. But even these bright orange-colored buttons can’t do anything to stop a determined jumper, who gives no warning of his intentions.

The rail staff have an obligation to keep the trains moving, as trains are the key artery of transportation for an entire nation. It occurred to me that, had this occurred in the United States or Europe, the rail would have been shut for an indefinite period whilst an investigation was held. But, not here: apparently the damaged train was moved shortly after the incident to allow trains to pass. After all, the accident had happened only about 30 minutes before my arrival at the station.

As to the customers, while a few seemed interested in the goings-on, the vast majority kept to themselves and merely went on their way, looking anywhere except in the direction of the accident. As for me, despite the fact that I had worked in the past both as a paramedic and as a police officer, I was quite shocked.  This wasn’t an abstract “someone, somewhere killed themselves.”  No.  Someone specific — someone whose remains were just steps away from me — decided to take themselves out at my train station at about the same time as I had planned on being there.

I tried to shake off the whole scene and my thoughts about what might have led up to it.  Some of my Asian classmates, with whom I later spoke about this incident, said it was terrible because of the great inconvenience caused to other passengers of the rail service, but few people seemed concerned about the life of the person who opted out, or of family who might have been left behind in the aftermath.

For their part, later in the day the train service posted a notice in the foyer of the train stations affected by the service disruption that morning. Using some of the most polite Japanese words I’ve read, it expressed its sincere regret for the delays caused by fatal accident that morning.