A case of interpretation? - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 125

political and military sense ' . His hope was that Komeito would be an ' ele-

ment of discretion ' ,or ' balancer ' between this right-wing nationalism, and

return to ' their original position ' . He said that:

These people, like Nakasone 10 and the old timers who still remember the
days of the Japanese imperial and military power, they have some nos-
talgic feelings of becoming a military power again. This is totally ana-
chronistic in my understanding. So I hope that Soka Gakkai or Komeito
will realise this and devote more [energy] in the direction of international
cooperation, in which non-military con ict will evolve.

(conversation with Okamoto, 10/03/2004)

I asked him if he did not think Komeito was emphasising the importance of
working within an international framework in that regard.

My hope is that they do what they preach. The LDP preaches but doesn t

do. They say that the UN is the most important world organisation and
Japan should go along with the UN, but in actuality as we have seen,
they go along with the US not the UN. I think Komeito was in a position
to insist on this principle of LDP and the agreement of Japanese people
in general, but they gave up their insistence and went together with the
LDP and that

'

' '

s pathetic. That s something Komeito should re ect on and

change their attitude in future political decision-making.

(ibid.)

While Komeito supporters had clearly been struggling with the party ' s posi-

sh - ganakatta

tion of , Okamoto saw this to be an apology for lack of poli-

tical will or fear of losing power. As a party in the coalition that wielded real
power, Okamoto regarded Komeito as having done too little when they had
the chance to do something.
Soon after returning to Tokyo, a few days later, I had the opportunity to
interview the editor-in-chief, Arita Osamu, of the magazine Ushio. Ikeda
Daisaku established Ushio in 1960 as a monthly magazine that deal with
current political, social, economic and cultural a

' '

airs. Today it carries inter-
views with well-known academic commentators in Japan, whose views ' do

not necessarily correspond to views of Soka Gakkai of cials but neither are

they extremely radical (conversation with Arita, 15/03/2004). Arita was a

charismatic man who went straight to the point. I asked him if he was a
member of Soka Gakkai, and he laughingly replied,

'

' Oh, I am heavily

involved ee from one of the employees,

he emphasised that in Ushio they were trying to establish a balanced view. He
stressed that he was personally against the Iraq War, which he said probably
re

' . After having ordered us a cup of co

ected the view taken by Ushio. He then outlined the political reasons,
which he described as s stra-

tegic interest and interest in controlling Iraq oil. Nevertheless, there was also

' excuses for going to war in Iraq ' , i.e. the USA '