Photo/Illutration Plaintiff Hiroshi Kamiwaki, middle, holds a sign proclaiming victory in a lawsuit against the government at the Osaka District Court on June 5. (Minami Endo)

There’s a Japanese expression, “shokushogimi”—the sense of being fed up after overindulgence.

By now, many in Japan are surely fed up with hearing about the “Abenomask,” the government’s much-maligned initiative under then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to distribute reusable cloth face masks to every household during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the enormous outlay of taxpayer funds, the masks failed to reach people when they were most needed, and vast quantities ended up in storage. Rarely has a government policy drawn such widespread ridicule and criticism.

So how were these masks procured in the first place?

On June 5, the Osaka District Court overturned the government’s decision to withhold documents related to the contracting process. The court dismissed the government’s assertion that “no documents exist” as implausible.

The government claimed that most interactions had been conducted “orally,” without written records.

That means contracts totaling 40 billion yen ($278 million) for 300 million masks—each differing by vendor—were arranged through verbal agreements alone.

The notion strains credulity.

Even if true, such an approach reveals a staggering level of administrative negligence.

We saw a similar attitude among senior bureaucrats during the Moritomo Gakuen scandal, which involved the questionable sale of state-owned land to a private school operator with ties to Abe.

Officials brazenly claimed that documents related to the land deal had been discarded and that virtually nothing was known.

Such an outrageous excuse is so appalling that it leaves one speechless. It inevitably casts serious doubt on the credibility of those involved.

In the case of the mask contracts, even emails that had supposedly been discarded were later unearthed during reinvestigation.

As Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927), one of Japan’s most influential writers, once observed with remarkable insight and precision, “There are truths that can only be expressed through lies.”

“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it,” Abe maintained, defending the controversial policy and continuing to don the cloth masks.

But the success or failure of a public policy is not determined by the policymaker—it is judged by the people.

What, then, are the lessons to be drawn from the pandemic? If access to legitimate information is obstructed, it becomes impossible to scrutinize the historical responsibility of those who shaped critical decisions.

Not long ago, I learned that a friend still had an Abenomask at home. Feeling a twinge of nostalgia, I asked to see it.

The small mask, made of thick, coarse gauze, felt oddly familiar.

When I held it to my face, it gave off a faint scent—reminiscent of “warabanshi,” the rough, low-grade paper once commonly used in Japanese schools for handouts and practice sheets.


—The Asahi Shimbun, June 6

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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