Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
stance, however, becomes the most problematic in relation to the Japanese
government
s support for the Iraqi invasion in 2003. These events posed pro-
found dilemmas for Soka Gakkai members
'
pursuit of peace at the collective
level. We see the inevitable gaps between religious ideals and the political
reality that augmented Komeito
'
s acute impasse as a coalition partner to a
party determined to support the USA. Komeito and its supporters were faced
with the reality of being a party in power, which clearly altered the position it
would like to have taken had it been a party in opposition. We see the
dilemmas supporters faced as they tried to assess the party
'
s handling of this
serious issue. Their feelings toward their mentor, Ikeda Daisaku, played an
important role in their
'
final decision either to continue or to stop their sup-
port for the party when they were in disagreement with the decision it took.
The typical interpretation of the e
ect of religious leadership on political
action as one of authority is, however, also in question.
The ethnography of a nation-wide gathering of some 860 Komeito female
politicians underlines the di
erent ways in which men and women approach
their job as politician and as political actors, and is discussed in Chapter 4.
While Nichiren
is philosophy is promulgated by Ikeda as one of profound
equality, gender roles and norms in Soka Gakkai widely re
'
ect the typical
way that materiality of political ideas intercept with self-actualisation of the
individual. Indeed, in places it is even more conservative than wider society.
The caveat, however, is that those structural arrangements of knowledge and
power about the social world also contain subversive processes. Gender-
structured knowledge becomes the background for imagining a new vision of
society and politics that is intertwined with ideas about what characterises the
Buddhist subject. That gender norms make for di
erent political subjects is a
well-established observation, and also the case here, but what have been seen
typically as
characteristics of empathy and caring for others are used
in wider terms as the ideal of creating a
'
female
'
. This is also what is
seen as the goal of Buddhist practice. This changes the general notion of the
nature of citizenship and politics itself. Simultaneously, gender practices in
Soka Gakkai in many ways continue to restrict the life choices of young
women. Here I discuss how they use their support for Komeito with its liberal
gender ideology as part of a more subtle paradigmatic transformation about
the meaning of human existence that is taking place among these young
people.
Such broader ideas about more fundamental changes are taken up again in
Chapter 5 , which focuses on how the 10-year coalition government with the
LDP came to a crushing end in August 2009. I describe how this defeat on
the one hand was an historic change of government where one opposition
party had won enough trust to oust an unpopular conservative force. On the
other hand, I also argue that the lack of real discussion about the funda-
mental issues that face Japan epitomised how the old way of politics still
worked to woo the electorate with promises of hand-outs. I discuss a two-
month process leading up to the Lower House election, in light of Komeito
'
culture of peace
'
'
s
 
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