"Nazism." "Fascism." "1984." "Kamikaze." Strong words, suggestive language. It's going mainstream.
An Asahi Shimbun editorial on July 29 drew comparisons between the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Nazis. Sapio magazine in its July-August edition began a discussion of "neo-fascism" — part two of which, in the current September-October issue, is titled, "The fascism we're living today." The weekly Shukan Kinyobi, in its war-remembrance package dated Aug. 10, finds the kamikaze spirit still alive, though muted and mutant.
The Asahi Shimbun editorial disclaims facile analogies. Abe's Japan is not Nazi Germany. "But," it says, "the Moritomo affair shows this country's bureaucracy displaying a similar attitude" to one that came to seem characteristically Nazi: personal exculpation on the grounds of "just following orders."