Aspiration for the good society - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 94

Soka Gakkai. Japanese dominant discourses about religion and politics portray
the nature of those constituted as new religions as undemocratic movements.
With the general perception of politics as being about power and self-interest,
the public image of Soka Gakkai members

' canvassing activities is bound to

be di erent to how they see themselves, as more simply civically engaged

members of society who exercise their right to political participation. A 23-
year-old SU student having just returned from a year in Kenya as an
exchange student and now in his final year of education reiterated how many

young people linked their political participation to how they interpreted
Nichiren

' s philosophy:

Because of what Nichiren Daishonin states in the Rissh - Ankoku Ron,if
I don t care about my [social] environment, I myself will not be happy.

And Makiguchi-sensei said that if you are not doing good things, it is like
doing bad things. I want to do good things.

'

(August 2004)

He went on to explain that even if people outside the organisation generally
did not understand their objectives, as disciples of Nichiren they continue to
work to improve their social environment. Despite their support for Komeito
often having a negative e

ect on the perception of Soka Gakkai, the Rissh -
Ankoku Ron is interpreted to mean that Buddhist practice lies both in inner
transformation and in taking action to a ect social change (see Chapter 1 ).

' constitute a rationale

and motivation that make sense to them. Since supporting Komeito was
equated with

Caring about the environment ' and ' doing good things '

, but because this was not always being
viewed this way by the public, they were engaged in e

' doing good things '

ecting a discursive
change in the public sphere about who they were and what they wanted to
achieve. This discursive change was necessary if people were to become sym-
pathetic to what they were trying to do and certainly if they were to convince
people to vote for Komeito.
Their electioneering activities build on existing relationships and face-to-
face social networks as opposed to calling anonymous people at random.
Their conversations therefore are not part of an public sphere,

but rather exist within personal connections. These conversations sometimes
involved clarifying Soka Gakkai

' anonymous '

s religious and social objectives, objectives
that have typically been represented negatively in the tabloid press, usually by
smearing the name of Ikeda (see Gamble and Watanabe 2004). In more
recent years major daily newspapers in Japan have carried some of Ikeda

'

s
essays or peace proposals, but negative representations still abound in the
infamous Japanese tabloid press

'

the sh - kanshi. This means that for people
to actually vote for Komeito, a change in negative impressions of Soka
Gakkai sometimes has to take place. When supporters contact people, they
bring a personal relationship into the public realm of dominant discourse.
The public sphere and these private relationships are interpolated realms in

-