July 2009 to July 2010 - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 184

have been seen at Soka Gakkai meetings for a few years, who suddenly
appear come election time, and will be all fired up to canvass for the party.

Certainly, Okinawa c history and the continuous presence of US bases

bring politics much closer to the daily lives of the people living there. Life and
politics are not seen as separate. I thought about the controversy that existed
in the public sphere because it was a religious group canvassing for a political
party, often interpreting this as being something other than for the stated
objectives, as a search for political power to protect Soka Gakkai or to fur-
ther the in

' s speci

uence of its long-term spiritual leader, Ikeda Daisaku. As I
thought back over the last six years in which I had been observing support for
Komeito, primarily in Tokyo, it was clear that the controversy of this political
involvement, although usually perceived as such, had little to do with pork
barrel politics or clientelism, something otherwise seen as so typical of Japa-
nese politics. Komeito did not advocate policies that favoured Soka Gakkai
members in particular, and they cannot be said to represent an interest group.
Nor can Komeito be said to be a religious party as it does not back any
religious agenda. Neither has it shown interest in being representative of Soka
Gakkai by promoting Soka Gakkai as some kind of state religion. This is
despite all the speculations to the contrary. The tension was not on an insti-
tutional level and legally it does not overstep constitutional boundaries. Still,
we are clearly dealing with people who are interested in social issues such as
welfare, medical care, education, environmental protection and wider issues of
peace because of their religious beliefs, which in uence their political philosophy.

On the other hand, it would be hard to argue that these were sectarian issues.
Still, at the front of the hall of the meeting I was attending, a banner read,

' Let ' s get to work! Let ' s begin talking (having dialogues)! Let ' s challenge

ourselves to achieve the best result we can, so we will de nitely win complete

victory (Saa hatarak - ! Katar - ! Jiko saik - wo mezashi danjite!!) . Did this not

exemplify a close connection between engaging in politics and what was
understood to be the meaning of religious practice? As I had observed in
previous election campaigns, the challenge was to talk to friends and
acquaintances who were their main target groups about supporting Komeito.
Yet, their canvassing was not as advocates of Soka Gakkai. The many phone
conversations I had listened to over the years told of supporters who believed
in a party that worked for social justice and for the common people. Yet I
could also not help thinking that there was a very close relationship between
religious practice and the support for a political party. This was especially
apparent here in Okinawa, where life and politics seemed so intertwined;
people were aware of how politics a

'

ected their lives. Perhaps the practices of
Soka Gakkai members in Okinawa simply better highlighted the false
dichotomy conceptualised as separation, which makes for the more dubious
'

a priori position in which religious discourse in the political arena is seen as a
disguise for political power (Asad 2002: 116). The question of whether reli-

gious practice could in fact not be described better as a particular way of
engaging pro-actively in the social world had begun to consolidate in my

'