In this--the final installment--of Brian Victoria’s essay series, he brings home insights into the nature of terrorism. He contextualizes Inoue Nissho as an example of an individual driven to make certain choices under conditions that have, and will continue to compel, others like him. Terrorism that appears religiously motivated—as has been assumed of Islamic terrorists for the last three decades—is often linked to sociopolitical root causes and motivations. How can we understand the cognitive dissonance that allows a terrorist to see himself as noble, selfless, even compassionate? 

Brian’s concludes by panning out from Japan in 1932 to reveal the realities that create the potential for terrorism in 2020 and beyond. This is one of Library of Social Science’s crucial objectives: to link past and present, history and contemporaneity, in order to map the patterns that shape—and distort—collective psychology. The pathologies that manifest in the symptomology of terrorism are fantastical, mythological, and often irrational—while rooted in the lived experience of the body…even a body that has been laid on the altar of sacrifice.

Alexander Chirila, PhD

Brian Victoria, author of Zen Terror, Zen War Stories, and Zen at War, is a well-known author specializing in Japanese  history, a career professor, and Buddhist priest of the Soto Zen sect--giving him a unique perspective on the intersection between Zen Buddhism and nationalist violence.

Brian holds a Master's in Buddhist Studies from Komazawa University in Tokyo and a PhD in Religious Studies from Temple University. His distinguished career has taken him around the world, including teaching positions in Buddhism, Japanese language and culture in the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. From 2013-2015 Brian was a visiting research fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. Brian Victoria's work on Japanese militarism represents the highest standard of scholarly rigor and expertise.

Zen Terror in Prewar Japan by Brian Victoria To view Brian's wikipedia page click here. Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin For information on ordering through Amazon, PLEASE CLICK HERE. Zen Terror in Prewar Japan completes the trilogy detailing how Zen Buddhism gave rise to terrorism. Exploring the role of Inoue Nissho - the leader of the terrorist group of right-wing ultranationalism in prewar Japan, Brian Victoria sheds light on how the dark underbelly of a religion known for its promotion of peace was used to justify violence.  REVIEWS Brian Victoria masterfully describes how peace-practicing Zen Buddhism was utilized as an ideological weapon for justifying terrorist acts in prewar Japan, fervently supporting Japan’s emperor system ideology. The book is not just an historical study but also a dire warning of the danger that, if abused, a peace-loving religion can be exploited to rationalize violence. — Yuki Tanaka, author of Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II I am delighted to draw attention to the work of Brian Victoria. His expertise in Zen Buddhism comes both from intensive study of the Japanese sources and from his many years of personal experience. In both areas he has devoted himself to finding the truth and to conveying it with unflinching honesty and lucidity. His bold statements and candid judgments are supported by unambiguous evidence and deserve to be pondered on by all who care about Buddhism and have humane values at heart. — Richard Gombrich, Boden Professor of Sanskrit Emeritus, University of Oxford

INTRODUCTION TO PART IV OF THE SERIES

The final essay asks whether the limited acts of terrorism introduced in this series may suggest avenues of approach, or provide hints, leading to a better understanding of religious terrorism as a whole. I posit the view that Inoue and his band of zen terrorists offer a variety of instructive insights, or at least "hypotheses," about the nature of religious terrorism that may prove helpful in ameliorating this destructive phenomenon in the future.

PART IV: LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM ZEN TERRORISM

I would be the first to admit that it is dangerous to use a study of limited acts of terrorism by members of only one religion to draw blanket conclusions about all acts of terrorism on the part of adherents of a variety of religions.

Nevertheless, it’s fair to ask whether a study of limited acts of terrorism may suggest avenues of approach, or provide hints, leading to a broader understanding of this phenomenon. In this regard, I believe Inoue and his band of Zen terrorists offer a variety of instructive insights. These insights, or hypotheses, are offered here with the hope that they may prove helpful to future studies of religion-related terrorism.

The first hypothesis is that terrorism is essentially a tactic employed by the weak against the strong— for the simple reason that terrorists, at least sub-state terrorists, lack the means to employ any other method. Inoue’s initial plan was to train a cadre of youthful activists dedicated to the drastic reform of Japanese society through legal and peaceful means. It was only after he, and those around him, concluded that social reform couldn’t wait—the immediate need was too great—that he embraced terrorism.

Thus, to believe, as many governments do, that it is possible to “stamp out” or “eradicate” terrorism by killing every terrorist they find is akin to believing, in the case of an air force, that aerial bombardment as a tactic of warfare can be permanently eliminated if every living bombardier (or drone operator) is killed. Desperate situations inevitably give rise to desperate measures, and those who were not terrorists in the beginning come to embrace terrorism even at the cost of their lives. Terrorists cannot be killed out of existence. So long as desperate situations exist, there will always be more.

Second, terrorism is not simply an isolated product of crazed or fanatical religious adherents. Instead, there are nearly always underlying political, economic, and social causes associated with terrorist acts. Japan in the 1930s was a deeply socially and economically unjust society. For example, many poor tenant farmers were forced to sell their daughters into a lifetime of prostitution and degradation.

Additionally, many of the political leaders, corrupted by their ties with zaibatsu business conglomerates, showed little concern for the welfare of the majority of the Japanese people. It is not surprising that the economic disparity between rich and poor led to attempts, increasingly violent, to enact major social reform. When it becomes clear that peaceful means are ineffective, terror seems to some to be the only possibility remaining.

Third, terrorists do not view themselves as hate-filled, bloodthirsty monsters motivated by the desire to kill for the sake of killing. Instead, as incongruous as it may seem, the Zen terrorists described in these essays were motivated by nothing less than “compassion,” that is, what they regarded as their deep concern for compatriots.

This led Inoue and his band to adopt the Buddhist-influenced motto “kill one that many may live.” Their religious faith enabled them to convince themselves their actions were just and moral, motivated by compassion and concern for the well-being of the majority of the exploited and oppressed in Japan, especially the rural poor. For them, the ends justified the means; a few must die if the majority were to flourish under the benevolent rule of the emperor, to whom absolute power was to be restored.

Religion-related terrorists typically care so much about protecting or rescuing their compatriots in perceived need that they are prepared to sacrifice their own lives in the process of carrying out their terrorist acts. Inoue and his band, it will be recalled, regarded themselves as no more than expendable “pawns” (J. sute-ishi) in the struggle to reform Japan.

It was this conviction that allowed them (and those sympathetic to them) to view themselves as Buddhist Bodhisattvas, ever ready to sacrifice their own welfare for the sake of others. Needless to say, such self-sacrifice resonates with the tenets of many religious faiths, allowing terrorists (and their supporters) to regard themselves as not only ethical but even unselfish exemplars of their faith.

In his review of The Psychoanalysis of War, Richard Koenigsberg cites Franco Fornari as follows:

Those who make war are not driven by a hate need, but by a love need. They feel they must accept the need for self-sacrifice so that their love objects might live. Men see war as a duty toward their love object. What is at stake in war is not so much the safety of the individual as the safety of the collective love object.

The focus of the review is the “love need” of soldiers, not terrorists. Yet, if one were to substitute “the acts of terrorists” for “the acts of soldiers,” this description would fit perfectly with Inoue and his band’s motivations.

It should therefore come as no surprise that terrorists affiliated with other religions, or even no religion, view themselves in a similar positive light. As much as many adherents of today’s major organized religions might wish to deny it, each of their faiths, over its long history, has developed mechanisms, whether regarding acts of war or acts of terrorism, to allow adherents to believe sacrificing themselves “so that their love objects might live” is not only moral and just but also sacred, no matter how injurious to others their acts might be.

The prevailing sentiment throughout the world—at least in non-Islamic countries —is that Islam, or at least some aspects of “Islamic extremism,” are chiefly if not solely responsible for religion-related terrorist acts. The proffered “solution” (or demand) is that Muslims change their terror-prone religion into a religion of peace by abandoning doctrines like jihad.

The unstated assumption is, of course, that the world’s other major religions lack such violence-affirming doctrines and are completely peaceful. However, as Inoue and his band reveal, Buddhism, especially in its Zen formulation, is quite capable of serving as an “enabling mechanism” to kill even those whom Zen master Yamamoto Gempō referred to as “good men.” In reality, no religion is free of having committed terrorist acts or providing the doctrinal/ethical justification for terrorism.

Placed in historical context, today’s “Islamic terror” is no more, religiously speaking, than the “flavor of the day,” the immediate problem. This is certainly not to deny that Islam-related terror is a deadly serious issue, but it is also a Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu issue. Simply placing the blame on the “other” religion, Islam in this instance is not the solution. On the contrary, doing so effectively blocks a solution since it prevents mutual understanding and leads to an unfounded self-righteous attitude on the part of adherents of non-Islamic faiths.

Fifth, religion-linked terrorism is, first and foremost, a form of political (not religious) violence. One of the least understood, yet critically important, elements of such terrorism is that terrorists are often, consciously or not, manipulated and supported by much bigger players behind the scenes to accomplish the latter’s political goals. This is not to deny the existence of individual “lone-wolf ” acts of religion-linked terrorism committed by unaffiliated individuals on sudden impulse, personal animosity, or mental illness. But lone-wolf acts, in terms of accomplishing major political goals, typically have but limited impact.

In the case of Inoue and his band, it is impossible to deny they enjoyed behind-the-scenes connections to, if not support from, some of Japan’s most powerful political and military figures. Significantly, this support continued even after their arrests and was especially effective during the subsequent trial, imprisonment, and post-incarceration. From beginning to end, Inoue and his band’s terrorist acts would have been unthinkable without this support.

To give but one example, what other “terrorist leader” has ever had his very court conviction erased from the legal record, only to then become the live-in advisor of his country’s prime minister? Nevertheless, there is no definitive evidence indicating exactly who Inoue and his band’s powerful patrons were.

Finally, if the ethical blindness of terrorists is to be condemned, as it should be, this does not mean there are no ethical questions to be asked of those (typically governments and their militaries) who seek to kill terrorists. The foremost of these questions is, in the absence of a fair and impartial judicial process, what gives governments the right (other than brute force) to become judge, jury, and executioner of those it deems to be terrorists or sometimes merely suspects of being terrorists?

However imperfect it may have been, Inoue and his band were given a public trial at which they had the right to defend themselves. Are we ready today to recognize that even terrorists, as harmful as their acts are, possess fundamental human rights?