Nichiren, Soka Gakkai and Komeito - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 61

now formidable financial resources manipulate Komeito. The following

chapters illustrate that the association between the religious organisation and
its political arm clearly remains strong. That unacceptable financial connec-

tions exist may seem like a natural assumption, but the fact is that there is no
evidence of Soka Gakkai funding or donating money either to Komeito or to
any other political candidates or party. There is, therefore, not much to be
learned from any illegal

financial connections; both organisations display a

high level of financial transparency.

While it is easy to assume close

financial relations, the complexity of the
issues is apparent more in the relationship between the historical forces of the
twentieth-century politics, the mass media and Soka Gakkai as a movement
of millions with a di erent worldview to the dominant one. For instance, to

complicate things further, the statement in 1970 was intertwined with a con-
troversy that broke out in late 1969 in which Soka Gakkai was accused of
curtailing freedom of speech when it tried to object to the publication of the
book S - ka Gakkai wo Kiru (I Denounce S - ka Gakkai), by Fujiwara Hir-
otatsu (1969). The content of Fujiwara s book hardly warrants surprise as to

why Soka Gakkai wanted to sue for libel, but at the same time some Soka
Gakkai members

'

reactions constituted trying to prevent its publication (when
some members working in the publishing world asked publication outlets not
to sell the topic). The controversy focused, arguably correctly, on Soka
Gakkai as trying to suppress freedom of speech; yet part of the issue was also
the state of the Japanese media concerning issues of libel. However, the
argument sways, the accusation of wanting to suppress freedom of speech has
had a long-lasting e

'

ect on Soka Gakkai ' s relationship with the national

press. During my fieldwork in 2004 I interviewed a former journalist, now

associate professor in media studies. Although too young to remember this
incident personally (in his thirties), he animatedly explained to me that the
media

Soka
Gakkai will resort to anything, even taking newspapers to court for libel to
not have anything negative written about it

' is dislike of Soka Gakkai is due to the widespread belief that '

' (interview with author, 11 March

2004). When I asked if it wasn it understandable that an individual or an

organisation would take a newspaper to court for libel, he sighed in dis-
agreement over the atypical way in which Soka Gakkai deals with the media:
'

'

Journalists hate being told what to do ' . He linked this back to the Fujiwara

a air, which seems to have had a long-lasting e ect on the media ' s impression

that Soka Gakkai is a ' cult which is super-sensitive to negative publicity '

(ibid.).
Despite such public tensions, Komeito continued to grow, especially at the
local level. Following nationwide local elections in 1975 it had 3,300 munici-
pal and assembly members. Although it also lost seats, it maintained mostly
around 50 lawmakers in the Lower House during the 1980s and early 1990s,
and in 1993 entered into the first non-LDP government in the post-war

period with 52 seats won in the July 1993 Lower House election. However,
fears about its objectives continued, with the organisation accused of aiming