Book Reviews / Journal of Religion in 1 (2012) 247-276 253

Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan: Youth and Komeito. By Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. xiv + 246 pages. ISBN 978 0 415 69424 7.

The aim of Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen’s Religion and Politics in Contempo- rary Japan: Soka Gakkai Youth and Komeito, is to analyze the political activ- ities of young members of the new religious movement, Sōka Gakkai, in order to provide a corrective to the stereotypical view according to which Japanese society is necessarily politically apathetic. Fisker-Nielsen is a social anthropologist and political scientist based at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London). Her book is divided into six chapters, with an introduction and an appendix on the organizational structure of Sōka Gakkai. The main thesis of the book is outlined in the introduction. The activities of the young members of Sōka Gakkai reveal that a signifijicant number of young people in Japan have a noteworthy interest in politics (particularly in one party, the Kōmeitō, or Clean Government Party), and this is based on their “religious philosophy” (p. 3). Fisker-Nielsen wants to show that the positive role played by new religious movements in Japanese society is obscured by the national media, which have contributed to the general per- ception of these groups as undemocratic anomalies involved in coercive practices. According to the author, it is difffijicult to understand the great success of Sōka Gakkai at the grassroots level if one merely relies on tradi- tional categories, such as the old neo-Confucian concepts of benevolence of superiors for followers and on the call for obedience. This would imply that religious movements attract naïve subjects—which is a simplistic view of the way power relations are created within society. Inspired by authors such as Michel Foucault, Fisker-Nielsen is of the opinion that human beings are not abstract individuals, but are socially creative agents that may be strongly motivated by alternative visions of society, which can, in turn, gen- erate social change. In the case of Sōka Gakkai youths, such an alternative is shown to be especially linked to Ikeda Daisaku’s “philosophy” (pp. 17-18). Chapter 1, titled “Nichiren, Soka Gakkai and Komeito: A Question of Political Attitude,” introduces the main doctrines of Sōka Gakkai from a historical perspective, starting with the work of the founder of Nichiren , the medieval monk, Nichiren (1222-1282). Following other simi- lar interpretations, Fisker-Nielsen argues that Nichiren did not endorse the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/22118349-12341239 254 Book Reviews / Journal of 1 (2012) 247-276 controversial idea of a national high sanctuary (kokuritsu kaidan), which was instead central to the doctrines of one specifijic lineage of Nichiren Bud- dhism, Sōka Gakkai’s mother organization, Nichiren Shōshū. Yet, for the author, Nichiren was a supporter of the idea that “the ruler of the nation must govern under the guidance of the ‘religious’ ideas expressed in the Lotus Sutra” (p. 42), which is featured conspicuously in the thought of Sōka Gakkai’s founder, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō. Sōka Gakkai is presented here as a form of Nichiren Buddhism that promotes Nichiren as an “internation- alist,” namely, “a champion of the view of human beings as inherently noble, dignifijied, and with unlimited potential,” which is “the primary mes- sage of the Lotus Sutra” (p. 46). Another prominent aspect of Nichiren’s heritage in this new religious movement is his exclusivist understanding of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra that also provides “a basis for moral resist- ance,” and is related, among other things, to the emphasis on courage that is found in Ikeda’s thought (p. 49). Moreover, Fisker-Nielsen bypasses the Nichiren Shōshū nationalistic interpretation of the kokuritsu kaidan and establishes a direct connection between Toda Jōsei’s (the second president of Sōka Gakkai) interpretation and the teaching of Nichiren. Toda, she claims, understood the kokuritsu kaidan more as a religious symbol than a “political end in itself ” (p. 56). In this context, the author seems to imply that Sōka Gakkai’s 1970 well-known public statement on its relationship with the Kōmeitō has been efffective in liberating the idea ofōbutsumyōgō (the fusion of Buddhism and secular law) and the political activities of the Kōmeitō from any ambiguity (pp. 60-61). The chapter further presents the historical development of the Kōmeitō party founded by Sōka Gakkai in 1964 and its progressive shift from a radical approach to politics (e.g. calling for the abrogation of the Japan-US Security Alliance) to more moderate positions, especially after its alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1999, and how such changes in its policy have brought about some degree of tension among its supporters. The second chapter, “Aspiration for the Good Society: In Support of a Political Party,” is the result of the author’s fijieldwork among members of the Sōka Gakkai Youth Division in the area. While acknowledging the fact that these young members’ focus on the party (the Kōmeitō) sup- ported by Sōka Gakkai may reveal some degree of conformism, Fisker- Nielsen notes that this commitment should be rather understood as a discursive practice challenging a homogenizing tendency in Japanese