Aspiration for the good society - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 72

The Young Women s Division talking politics

'

A Young Women s Division (YWD) meeting that I attended in the same area

was held after eight o

'

clock on a Monday night, six days before the election,
and 23 young women had gathered in Kita-ku in North Tokyo to talk about
the election. We were sitting in a comfortable room at one of the pleasant-
looking Soka Gakkai Cultural Centres; it was clean, looked relatively new,
the reception area felt airy and light, with beige coloured carpet, sofas where
people could sit and chat, and pictures of various landscapes decorating the
walls. The room we were occupying was large with tatami

'

floors, probably

seating at least a couple of hundred people (sitting on the n-

ishing evening gongy - we placed ourselves in a circle, and everyone began
introducing themselves and their recent election activities. Some smiled and
nodded at me, a gaijin (foreigner) present at their gathering talking about the
election. One person, when it was her turn to speak, expressed her surprise at
seeing a foreigner at their meeting, upon which the Headquarters leader, to
whom I had been introduced earlier, said,

floor). After

Oh yes, sorry, this is Anna Metta-
san who is here studying about Komeito and is an SGI member from the
UK

'

figured out I was an SGI member since I had joined
in the chanting, but they all nodded with approval as they must have assumed
I was striving for the same ideals as them. The atmosphere was friendly and
relaxed, and everyone was taking their time to talk about their experiences
during this period of canvassing for Komeito, which had started in earnest a
week before. The Headquarters leader noted down every time someone men-
tioned she had succeeded or were in the process of succeeding to get someone
to vote for Komeito (which was three or four times). An estimate of how
many votes were potentially forthcoming was taking place. Was this part of
the good organisational skills that were so often seen as the reason for their
success?
One by one, they shared their recent experiences about canvassing for
Komeito, who they had called, how their conversation went, and how they
felt about it. They talked about struggles, victories and funny episodes. Most
of these young women were in their twenties, and some of them relayed how
their biggest challenge was to have enough courage to talk to people about
politics. Some of them worried about their lack of ability to explain policies,
others about how their friends might react. During these talks they sometimes
made fun of their own

' . They had probably

in their attempt to speak to friends,
relatives or neighbours about why voting for Komeito was a good choice.
They spoke with a sense of intimacy without any performance-like

' inadequacies '

' shouting ' .

Then again, this was of course not a kick-off meeting such as the young men ' s

meeting had been. These young women ' s stories would often end with a

renewed determination to gambar - orts to

talk to more people about voting for Komeito. In these accounts one could
detect that they felt a personal transformation going on through these activ-
ities. Someone felt she had gained more courage to speak out and in return

(continue to persevere) in their e