Beatitudes of the Republican Jesus

Blessed are the rich: for only they have earned the kingdom of heaven the hard way.

Blessed are the bold: for they shall possess the land and the mineral rights below the surface.

Blessed are they who rejoice in their success: for they shall be comforted in the lap of luxury.

Blessed are they that have eaten their fill: for they shall have seconds and thirds after they loosen their belts.

Blessed are the vengeful: for they shall mete out retribution upon the Darkies and have mercy on Whites with Affluenza.

Blessed are the conservative of heart: for they shall see God in their own likeness and it will be very good.

Blessed are the chickenhawks: for they shall be called the children of both Patriots and God.

Blessed are they that persecute others for law and order’s sake, for they will have the keys to the kingdom of heaven as well as the keys to the for-profit prisons.

Dubious Science

HRP's campaign poster for the 2014 general election features party president, Shaku Ryōko. The former party head used to be Ōkawa Kyōko, the wife of Happy Science founder Ōkawa Ryūhō. Seems they failed to realize their happiness together.

The first time I heard of Happy Science was during the 2009 Lower House election that would had the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a well-deserved drubbing.

One day during the 12-day campaign period before the election,[1] a noisy political sound truck sped past me with the usual contingent of white gloved hands waving out of the windows and the improbable name Kōfuku Jitsugen Tō (幸福実現党, The Happiness Realization Party, HRP) plastered on the side of it.

“You gotta be kidding,” I said to myself as I waved back listlessly to the enthusiastic lackeys in the van.

In 2009, there was no shortage of minor political parties with silly names, including “The Essentials”, “The Freeway Club”, “Japan Smile Party” and “The Forest and Ocean Party”, none of which would gain any seats in the election. The Happies, however, would press on election after election.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I did a bit of research into the party when I got home that day and I learned that HRP was the political wing of Kōfuku no Kagaku (幸福の科学, Happy Science), a cult founded in 1986 by Ryūhō Ōkawa.

According to an article in The Japan Times, “the Happies have an eye-catching manifesto: multiply Japan’s population by 2 1/2 to 300 million and make it the world’s No. 1 economic power, and rapidly rearm for conflict with North Korea and China. If elected, the party’s lawmakers will invite millions of foreigners to work here, inject religion into all areas of life, and fight to overcome Japan’s ‘colonial’ mentality, which has ‘fettered’ the nation’s true claim to global leadership.”             

I don’t know about you, but it sounded to me as if the person who wrote the manifesto had been smoking meth.

Pipe dream or not, Kōfuku Jitsugen Tō fielded 345 candidates, or nearly one in each electoral district—more than the either the Democratic Party of Japan, which would go on to win the election, or the ruling Liberal Democratic Party—in the 2009 election, yet failed to win any seats in the National Diet. Further bids in 2012 and 2014 with a similar number of candidates also yielded zero seats. At a cost of 3 million yen per individual electoral district and 6 million yen per proportional representation block, The Happies have squandered almost six billion yen (over $50 million) over the past three campaigns.

Or have they?

If the real aim of these hopeless election campaigns has been brand recognition rather than electoral victory, then The Happies must be very happy indeed. Six years ago, I had never heard of either the cult or its leader, but now I have. I’m sure it is no different with your average Tarō in Japan.

Still, fifty-plus million dollars ain’t chump change. By comparison, Mitt Romney spent $42 million of his own money in his failed attempt to win the Republican nomination for presidential candidate in 2007-08, the second most spent by a candidate self-financing his run. All of this got me thinking how The Happies were able to finance not only their election campaigns, but also their construction boom which has seen several gaudy new palaces dedicated to the ego of Ōkawa erected throughout Japan over the past several years.

It’s hardly news that religions, old and new, are able to generate fabulous amounts of tax-free income, but to make money, they’ve got to have adherents to their faith.

According to Happy Science’s, the cult claims to have twelve million followers in ninety countries. I found this number to be highly dubious as it is the exact same figure claimed by another cult, Sōka Gakkai. Although considered a “new religion” in Japan, S.G. International has been around since 1930 and has its origins in Nichiren Buddhism, which itself dates back to the 13th century. Although, I do not know anyone who is a follower of Ryūhō Ōkawa, I have come across quite a few members of Sōka Gakkai over the years. The entertainment world in Japan is famously peopled with followers of the religion.

By comparison, the Mormons[2] have over 15 million followers and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have 8.2 million, thanks to both religions’ aggressive missionary work throughout the world and unfortunately at my doorstep.

The more I ruminated on it, the more Happy Science’s claim of twelve million believers just didn’t add up.

Then it hit me. I knew how to get a fairly accurate estimate of Happy Science’s followers in Japan: the results of the 2009 election.

In the proportional representation blocks, The Happiness Realization Party and Kōmeitō, the party closely tied to Sōka Gakkai, got the following number of votes:

Hokkaidō Block

20,276 votes for HRP vs. 354,886 for Kōmeitō

 
Tōhoku Block

36,295 vs. 516,688

 
Northern Kantō Block

46,867 vs. 855,134

 
Southern Kantō Block

44,162 vs. 862,427

 
Tōkyō Block

35,667 vs. 717,199

 
Hokuriku Block

32,312 vs. 333,084

 
Tōkai Block

57,222 vs. 891,158

 
Kinki Block

80,529 vs 1,449,170

 
Chūgoku Block

32,319 vs. 555,552

 
Shikoku Block

19,507 vs. 293,204

 
Kyūshū Block

54,231 vs. 1,225,505

 
The Happiness Realization Party garnered about 459,000 proportional representational votes, less than 6% of the 8,054,000 votes for the Kōmeitō, which suggests that The Happies actually have around 720,000 followers. After watching this video of Ryūhō Ōkawa’s great psychic power, it makes me wonder how he managed to even get that many.

Obviously, I'm in the wrong business.

 
 
[1] For more on elections in Japan, go here.

[2] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Al Hysteria

   If you follow the news you may have already heard about Hamza Kashgari the Saudi blogger/journalist who was sent back to Saudi Arabia from Malaysia after fleeing to the southeast Asian country due to death threats arising from three allegedly blasphemous tweets.

  As for the controversial tweets which sparked the controversy? According to the Daily Beast, Kashgari tweeted on the prophet’s birthday:

   “On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.

   “On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.

   “On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.”

   For his honesty, the 23-year-old journalist may receive the death penalty in a country where apostasy is a capital offence. That, however, might not be enough for some: The National Post reported that an online reader of al-Madina had written, “The only choice is for Kashgari to be killed and crucified in order to be a lesson to other secularists.” A Facebook page, “Saudi people want punishment for Hamza Kashgari”, was reported to have grown to more than 20,000 members, but appears to have been removed by the administrators.

   Unlike many Americans, I do not hold the religion of Islam in contempt or fear its followers. There are Muslims in my own family. Also, I feel that the United States would better advance its aims in the Middle East by taking a more Arab-friendly stance rather than continuing to do the bidding of Israel, a country which I believe is the second greatest source of instability in the region after the United States.

   That said, I can’t help but feel that Muslims do a great disservice to their cause whenever they overact like this. How do you expect us in the West to take you seriously when your hypersensitivity to questions of religion brings all debate to a crashing halt? With almost one and a half billion Muslims in the world today, your faith should be more than strong enough to permit those few who harbor doubts to speak frankly.

   Free Hamza Kashgari!

Knock 'em Dead

   The line which drew the loudest applause in last week's Republican debates at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was a question moderator Brian Williams started to pose for Governor Rick Perry of Texas, noting that under the governor's tenure 234 death row inmates had been executed.

   How odd, I thought, that the vast majority, if not all, of those clapping probably considered themselves not only good Christians, but pro-life, to boot. How do they reconcile their unbridled enthusiasm for capital punishment with the teachings of Christ?

   Boggles the mind, it does.

Bon - 4

O-haka (お墓):tombs with offerings of flowers at Myôhôji in Tôjin-machi, Fukuoka City

Buckets for cleaning tombs. Generally speaking, Japanese visit the tombs of their ancestors during the Bon Festival, the equinoctal weeks in spring and autumn, and on memorial days.

Butsudan (仏壇): my family's Buddhist altar.

Shôrô-nagashi (精霊流し): lanters floating down a river on the last day of the Bon Festival returning the souls of the dead back to where they came from.

O-Bon 1

Sets of O-bon offerings on sale at the local supermarket

   O-Bon, Japan's Buddhist festival of the dead, begins tomorrow for most living people in Kyūshū. While the "festival" is generally held from the 13th to the 15th of August in most parts of Japan, some areas in Japan observe the Bon in the middle of July and as late as September. 

   Ask the Japanese if they like the Bon festival and they'll usually answer by screwing their faces or sucking air throught their teeth. The holiday doesn't have quite the cachet of o-Shōgatsu (New Years). Perhaps that's because the Bon is more about things you have to do rather than would like to do.

   On the 13th, families are expected to visit their ancestor's grave where they tidy it up and make offerings of flowers and incense. Some will light a lantern known as a mukae-bi (迎え火) at the cemetery and carry it all the way back home to guide the spirits of their ancestors. In the past these lanterns would have contained an actual flame, but in today's modern Japan, the flame has been replaced by a flickering lightbulb. (Safety first, I guess.)

   A Google search of mukae-bi will show you small fires lit before homes. Personally, I have never seen this, nor have I heard of anyone doing this. Most families hang a lantern up in front of their home, especially if it is their hatsu bon, that is the "first bon" since someone in their family has died. 

   To be continued.

Miyaji Daké

   I first went Miyaji Daké Shrine about five years ago when I was on my way to see the fireflies at a nearby river. Although the shrine was holding its annual iris festival at the time, there were very few visitors. What a shame, I thought, because I had never seen anything like it. The inner courtyard between the shrine's main gate and the grand shinden had been filled with purple and white irises that were just starting to bloom. 

   When I returned a week later with my camera, there were still only a handful of worshippers.

   Only a handful, and yet one of them was a young woman dressed in a beautiful kimono the color of irises.

   Every June I try to return to the shrine and explore its grounds in order discover something new about the place. I have posted some photos of my most recent visit here.