[Vision2020] Buddhists Cheering While Bombs Drop on Pearl Harbor??

[Nick Gier]

Visionaries:

I'm resending this from my UI address because adelphia/roadrunner is 
not sending properly.

Greetings:

Life can't get better than this.  As I write, I can see Mt. Fuji from my hotel
window and beautiful fall colors down below, made possible by a 
6-week delay of
Tokyo's winter.

We've enjoyed the exquisite food and the hospitality of the most well mannered
people in the world. Yesterday I also received excellent feedback on my paper,
which I've reduced to the column below.

Back in Moscow today, arriving before we leave Narita airport!

Nick Gier

A SAD CHRONICLE OF COMPLICITY:
BUDDHISM AND JAPANESE NATIONALISM

When one investigates the origins of religious violence, it becomes clear that
one of the main causes is the fusion of religious and national identity.  This
was certainly true of Christian countries such as late 15th Century 
Spain, where
Jews and Muslims were given three choices: conversion, immigration, or death.

In the 20th Century we have seen the unfortunate development of Hindu
nationalists, some of whom who declare that Indian Muslims and Christians are
aliens in their own country.  I have also written about Buddhist 
nationalists in
Sri Lanka, who say the same about their Muslim, Christian, and Hindu 
minorities.

One other Asian country followed a similar policy earlier in the 20th century.
Using the authority of State Shinto, Japanese authorities convinced most of
their people that their nation had a divine mission to transform Asia and even
to conquer the world.

It is strange to think that Japanese Buddhists, following a religious 
leader as
opposed to war as Jesus Christ, cheering the attack on Pearl Harbor 66 years
ago, but sadly it is true.

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 had a liberal side, with the importation of
Western learning and technology, but also a conservative aspect in 
the return of
the emperor and the establishment of Shinto as the state religion.

Hozumi Yatsuka, an influential conservative voice at that time, declared that
"the Sun Goddess is the founder of our race, and the [imperial] throne is the
sacred house of our race." Race, soil, and blood played the same role in
Japanese fascism as it did in Nazi Germany.

The general Buddhist reaction to these new religious policies was to join the
nationalist cause and submit to all imperial laws and Shinto ritual.  Buddhist
complicity with imperial rule, with some exceptions, continued 
through four wars
to 1945.

Some militant nationalists criticized Buddhism as an alien religion, but
Buddhists answered with poetic pleas such as the following: "With a sincere
heart this wife [Buddhism] worked hard to take care of our home, 
having children
and then grandchildren. Our home, not her original home [China], has been
foremost in her mind." For the nationalists to now demand a divorce 
after such a
long, successful marriage was very offensive to these Buddhists patriots.

There were two major exceptions to Buddhist accommodation: 
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi
(1871-1944) and Josei Toda (1900-58). During the 1890s Makiguchi distinguished
himself as an innovative and caring teacher on the island of Hokkaido. On
mainland Japan he served as head of five schools over the next 30 years.

In the 1930s Makiguchi became a strong opponent of State Shinto and condemned
Buddhists who failed to speak out about the loss of religious and political
freedom.  In 1943 Makiguchi was brought before a Buddhist priest and was
commanded to accept an amulet of the Sun Goddess and affirm his belief in the
divinity of the emperor.  When he refused, he was arrested as a "thought
criminal," subjected to harsh interrogation, and died in prison in 1944.

Josei Toda, Makigushi's friend and very successful book publisher, was also
arrested.  He spent his prison years in a deep study of Buddhism, 
finding in it
a powerful self-actualizing humanism.

Toda's followers were so enthusiastic that they engaged in an aggressive
door-to-door proselytizing campaign, the excesses of which they now 
regret. Toda
was especially active in leading his organization, Soka Gakkei (Value Creation
Society), to join a world-wide movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

For over 40 years Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI),
has extended Makigushi's and Toda's vision around the world, growing SGI into
the largest lay Buddhist organization in the world, whose 12-million 
members are
dedicated to world peace, interfaith dialogue, and nation building in the
developing world.

By means of Ikeda's leadership, SGI has established two campuses of Soka
University (one in Tokyo and other in Orange County) and dozens of schools
around the world, whose curricula avoid narrow sectarian viewpoints.  SGI's
Research Center for the 21st Century in Boston has drawn scholars from around
the world to dialogue on issues of world peace.

One could argue that Soka Gakkai has taken the best ideas of the Meiji
Restoration, rejecting the narrow nationalism and militarism that grew out it,
and melding moral and spiritual values from Europe and America with a
distinctive Japanese spirit.





"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to 
human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each 
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole 
and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our 
intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between 
science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the 
sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift.htm

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