A case of interpretation? - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 128

to issai shuj - no k - fuku no tame ni).

first associated with a way of
being in the world that is subject to how each individual lives. Similar ideas
have been put forward more recently by the peace scholar Boulding (2000),
who talks about building a

' Peace ' is

, fostering ways of thinking and
acting that correspond with respect and tolerance for others. 12 As outlined in
Chapter 1 and indicated in Chapter 2, the philosophy of the organisation is
such that the start of

' culture of peace '

is something an individual creates in his or her
own social relations and engagement with community building. On a more
organisational level, however, this takes place by directly promoting themes of
peace and culture. Thus, peace is far from relegated to the more abstract level
of praying for peace; arguably more important for contributing to

' peace '

is
an ability to change oneself, and to take organised, collective action as a
group, while remaining focused on one

' peace '

' s own thinking and actions in one ' s

immediate environment.
On a broader level, the persecution of the two first presidents, Makiguchi

and Toda, s

fundamental purpose as being to help to build such a culture of peace and a
culture of human rights. Each Soka Gakkai member may take a paci

is a discourse that is invoked to consolidate Soka Gakkai '

st

stance at the individual level, but peace at the collective level is not a paci st

stance. Ikeda ' s yearly peace proposals to the UN, which he has submitted

since 1983, 13

st one. These
proposals are widely read and discussed in Soka Gakkai. Like Ikeda, most
young people did not think a strict paci

reveal a proactive stance for peace, not a paci

st position was possible at the collective
level; instead, like Ikeda, theirs was an internationalist or multinationalist
approach to peace. That is, peace cannot be achieved if wider structural levels
of peace are not built on solid, workable, international structures to ensure
internationally agreed guidelines. In addition, to ensure such stable structures,
peacekeeping forces in some places are necessary. This view of peace at the
collective and/or international level was widespread among young Soka
Gakkai members, as also found by Kisala (1999). Looking at peace from this
broader level of international st position in the

strictest sense, but rather the view that peace is built on stable communities
and international structures that are needed to address particular issues of
security. A paci

institutions is not a paci

st stance is possible at the level of the individual, but it was
not seen as realistic at the level of international society as it currently stands.
Yet, although the UNRC members appropriated such a more realistic frame-
work to understand Komeito

s recent position on the Iraq War, it was not
easy to relocate their strong desire for a peaceful world to realpolitik. They
still felt deeply that peace was possible if governments acted accordingly. So
what was it that

'

finally convinced the more critical supporters like Tobi to
continue to trust that Komeito was doing its best to secure peace in the
world?
Soka Gakkai members are used to being criticised by unscrupulous weekly
tabloid magazines (see Gamble and Watanabe 2004), but as indicated above,
they quite easily dismiss such views as little more than harassment, and even