Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan: Soka Gakkai Youth and Komeito by Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen (review)

The Sōka Gakkai is one of the great anomalies of Japanese society. It is at its heart a thoroughly religious organization based on its own interpretation of the Buddhist teachings of the thirteenth-century Japanese religious figure Nichiren. At the same time, it is a significant social and political movement with its own educational system, cultural organizations, and a powerful affiliated political party, the Kōmeitō. It claims a membership of nearly ten million in Japan and another two million abroad. While these numbers may be somewhat inflated, the Sōka Gakkai is a powerful and controversial force in Japanese society.

Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen, a senior teaching fellow in social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, has produced a lengthy monograph, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan: Soka Gakkai Youth and Komeito. This work is a study of Sōka Gakkai’s unique culture with a focus on the social and political activism of many of its younger members. The general notion is that younger Japanese are politically apathetic, that while they do indeed vote in elections, they are not active politically and have no deep interest in the affairs of state. Fisker-Nielsen carefully documents a very different trend among younger members of the Sōka Gakkai, a vast majority of whom have a great interest in major social and political questions and many of whom play some active role in political activities and elections in support of the Kōmeitō. She argues this activism stems from the activist religious and social philosophy and idealism of the Sōka Gakkai and its leader, Ikeda Daisaku. This political activism, the author feels, stems from the view that political activism in support of the Kōmeitō is an important aspect of the proselytization of their faith. This devotion to their religion brings about the development of “young people who stand up for wider social issues of concern with confidence and relatively nuanced debates” (p. 217).

Fisker-Nielsen begins her work by examining the Buddhist ideas of Nichiren himself. Living and writing in the very troubled and violent mid-1200s in Japan, Nichiren saw salvation for the nation if the people and ruling authorities would base their lives on the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. The Nichiren school grew and divided and subdivided into numerous sects following Nichiren’s death in 1282. The Sōka Gakkai evolved before and after World War II as a lay support organization for one of these sects, Nichiren Shōshū. The huge growth of the Sōka Gakkai in the decades following the war and numerous philosophical differences with Nichiren Shōshū led to a breakup of the relationship and the true emergence of Sōka Gakkai as a distinct Nichiren sect in its own right in the early 1990s.

Fisker-Nielsen stresses that the Sōka Gakkai emphasizes a two-step process demanded of its faithful. The movement “sees its practice of Nichiren Buddhism as a process of self-empowerment intertwined with a focus on becoming a socially contributing citizen with a global and international mindset” (p. 44). There is a strong link for a member to become a strong compassionate person who then enters society to serve the public good. This public service doctrine has Buddhism as its foundational philosophy and not as its raison-d’être. The Sōka Gakkai and its members are meant to contribute to the betterment of human society rather than the total conversion of society. Ikeda and other Sōka Gakkai leaders urge members to ceaselessly strive for social justice, peace, and a safe world where all humankind may thrive.

The Sōka Gakkai, according to the author, has set up a network of social and cultural institutions whose goal is the betterment of society. The Sōka school system is meant...