Introduction - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 22

about this decision. Had I not been an SGI member, I doubt that they would
have talked quite so frankly about these di cult political issues because in the

Japanese media they were represented as if continuing their support for
Komeito meant that they had given up on their ideals of peace in order to
maintain political power for its own sake. While this could be one perspective
from which to interpret the situation, it was a lot more complex than that
(which is the subject of Chapter 3 ) .
In this way, my co-religionist subject status made Soka Gakkai members
who canvassed for Komeito approach me without thinking that I harboured a
huge amount of suspicion regarding the

motives of both
Soka Gakkai and Komeito. For me the starting point was not that there was
something

' real/suspect/hidden '

is political activism is being
directed perhaps, comparatively speaking, rather unquestioningly to support
one political party. Such relative unanimous support for a political party has
been more the norm than otherwise in Japan, where voting according to one

' wrong ' with the fact that young people '

s
professional status group or according to the company for which one works
has until more recently characterised Japan

'

s political culture. For instance,
bigger companies or professional groups such as the Japan Medical or Den-
tist Associations have traditionally supported the LDP. This tendency can be
seen at the other end of the political spectrum where, for instance, cooperative
hospitals expect employees to campaign on behalf of the communist party, or
the Teachers

'

'

Union was recently found to have been donating money to a
candidate of the now ruling Minshut - . Old social and economic networks
and collectivist authoritarian value preferences do remain important, but
increasingly less so, as has been evident with the personalisation of politics
and the increase in non-a '

voting patterns may come across as an anomaly against political activism in
the broader and freer sense, but young Soka Gakkai members

liated voters (cf. Inoguchi 2009). ' Collectivist

' political acti-

vism hardly re uence is

undemocratic. Neither is it an expression of the desire for one religion to
reign supreme. Yet Soka Gakkai members continue to be represented as

ects obedient masses of followers whose political in

a
huge non-political following that it [Komeito] can count on to mobilize on
Election Day and tick the right box

'

' , or Komeito as ' essentially a religious

party (Smart 2010). The case under study points to a need to address the

hegemony of intellectuals and the media that by default is seen as objective,
while seemingly allowing structural objectivism to explain social behaviour
from the point of view of the observer. 9
I do not mean to glance easily over the fact that the anthropologist, as the
political scientist although in di

'

flawed and biased instrument
of cultural translation. For the anthropologist, however, this tension is central
because knowledge is based on interaction with and

erent ways, is a

first-hand observations of
those one is writing about. Moreover, interaction usually takes the form of
empathic understanding, which does not mean the anthropologist is always
sympathetic or uncritical, but it produces a di

erent kind of critique that is

derived from a di erent type of observer/observed relationship, a relationship