Introduction - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 31

The aim of this topic is, on the one hand, to add to this emerging literature.
However, the objective is also to contribute to the few anthropological studies
of political participation in Japan. The political behaviour of religiously
motivated supporters fragments what have been enduring discourses about
political and religious life in Japan. At the same time, the focus on the
grassroots level of political participation reveals something about how domi-
nant political and cultural mores in Japan are being represented, negotiated
and re-presented. In light of the above introduction, the chapters in the topic
focus on the following.
To better understand and discuss Soka Gakkai and the political party
Komeito that it founded in 1964, Chapter 1 begins with a closer look at some
of Nichiren s writings and philosophical concepts. I draw on more recent studies

of this Japanese historical

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figure, whose writings have been in uential in a

number of ways, to explore Soka Gakkai s particular reading of Nichiren.

Furthermore, I discuss the rise of Soka Gakkai and Komeito, their beliefs,
religious practice and political agenda in light of the way they interpret Bud-
dhist practice to be located both in inner transformation and in a

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ecting

societal change. Writings of Soka Gakkai s long-term spiritual leader, Ikeda

Daisaku, are a crucial socialising factor on the young people

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s political acti-
vism. The chapter proceeds to present an overview of Komeito

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s political
platform, and ends with a discussion of the last 10 years as a coalition partner
to the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Chapter 2 draws on ethnographies about young people

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s political activities,
the nature of which reveal aspirations for and belief in the possibility of
creating a society based on humanistic principles. Their quest is to secure
policies that show respect for human dignity, promote equality, safeguard
social welfare, and warrant wider issues of peace and human rights. While the
Soka Gakkai image of obedient followers characterises the organisation as the
epitome of Japanese hierarchical structuring of human and social relations,

first-hand research of many smaller and larger group activities reveals an
active, participatory sense of what democracy is. We see how young people
initiate conversations about politics, which requires self-con

dence, conviction and
trust in their political representatives, something with which they all struggle
in one form or another. The active sense of citizenship displayed by these
young people belies any popular notion that there is a lack of interest in pol-
itics among Japanese youth. Outsiders fear the fact that these young people
direct their political and social activities into one party endorsed by their
religious group and leader, and that somehow these activities are not political.
Yet we see a discursive challenge to the homogenising national discourses on
politics, past history and Japan s place in the world.

Chapter 3 discusses politics, democracy and political processes as an
engagement that seldom presents itself with clear-cut, win-win solutions.
What stands out is the extent to which compromises, for better or worse, are
driven by wanting to procure ideals. I discuss how they experience pragma-
tism not necessarily as something that is mutually exclusive of ideals. This

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