11 September and the Clash of Civilizations: The Role of the Japanese Media and Public Discourse
Author(s)
Sakai, Keiko
Abstract
The attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September came as a tremendous shock to Japan. The majority of the population felt sympathy with the victims and understood to some extent the U.S. anger, which led to the emergence of a new formulation of “the war against terrorism”. This general atmosphere allowed the Japanese government to take further steps toward legitimizing the overseas dispatch of its Self-Defense Forces (SDF), which had been a major public policy issue since the 1991 Gulf War. When war came to be seen as unavoidable, however, the traditional mind-set of Japanese pacifism started to set in, and a rejection of the “clash of the civilizations” thesis began to be expressed in public discourse. However, they did not reject the idea itself, but rejected its adoption to Japan; that is, Japan was seen to be outside of the two-worlds in conflict.
