unrelenting.

I'm just about finished reading "The Cult at the End of the World". The story it tells of Aum Shinrikyou (these days known as Aleph), is shocking. Unrelentingly so. From kidnappings and murders to mining for uranium and stealing cutting-edge technologies for enriching it, the cult makes the last 10 years or so of anti-US terrorism look ameteurish.
Far from being a group of like-minded people with a political grudge, Aum was a world wide organization using shady business practice, intimidation, kidnapping, forgery, arms dealing, drug manufacture, and whatever other means they could to enrich themselves, and better arm themselves to kill every last non-believer in Japan. Were it not for a couple of poorly timed missteps, they certainly could have brought Tokyo and all of Japan to it's knees.

At the time, I wasn't especially aware of the news, or the extent of coverage that the US media gave the story, but I feel pretty certain that it wasn't nearly enough. Despite being likely the biggest terrorist threat that any nation has ever faced, in America, Aum remains largely unknown. Those that do know of the cult seem to remember something about a gas attack on subways, and a fat guy with long hair and a beard. (My dad seems strangely fixated on the idea that in his early career he sold his bathwater, for the purpose of drinking, and thereby attaining some extra degree of enlightenment.) But we're talking about an event with as much impact on the national psyche of Japan as September 11th has had on America.
Unlike America's run in with mass murder, Japan couldn't rally 'round the flag. Japan wasn't "under attack" from people it could call the enemy, or people of a different race, from different countries and societies. The worst of the worst at Aum were supposed to be the best of the best. They were graduates from the top of their classes at the best universities in Japan. They were rich, and successful people.
When, in the middle of a hard recession, and fresh on the heels of the deadliest earthquake to strike Japan after the war, Japan suffered this further blow, no one could feel very good about Japan and its future. I imagine this low point in early 95 was where a lot of the changes the last 11 years have brought Japan got their start, most especially, the renewed interest in Japanese nationalism (10 years later).



As an aside, reading a little of what the net has to say, I found something that feels relevant to me.

Jay Rubin holds that [Haruki] Murakami also had highly personal reasons for wanting to write Underground, notably that he wished to learn more about Japan after living almost entirely abroad for nine years and that he wanted to fulfil a responsibility he felt towards Japan's society

Having made a home of the country, I always feel like I'm woefully unaware of the history of the country, and most importantly, the history of the last 30 years... the world that my boss and my coworkers and my friends grew up in. The language is really only the tip of the iceberg.