“Thank you for your great kindness and I apologize for the tremendous inconvenience and trouble that my son has caused,” she said.
The apology is understandable in the context of Japanese society, says Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.
Culture of respect and humility
“In Japan when you inconvenience people, it’s important to respect them and ask for forgiveness,” Kingston says.
Ishido conveyed several times how badly she feels about her son’s capture causing trouble for the Japanese government and alarm for its people.
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Kingston adds this latest incident has the potential to change the way Japanese society feels about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approach of “proactive pacifism.”
The ISIS video was released just two days after Abe was in the Middle East pledging $200 million in humanitarian aid to the coalition against ISIS — a commitment the Japanese government insists it will honor, no matter what happens to the hostages.
However the public might feel about the two men who they watched kneel in the desert on their computers and TV screens, there is no doubt that the sight of their countrymen enduring capture at the hands of ISIS has brought the situation in Iraq and Syria into sharp relief.
“Islamic extremism was something you watched on TV that happened to other people,” Kingston says. “And now it’s happening to the Japanese.”
