1)
“Soka Gakkai — Japan’s Militant Buddhists”
This book was written in
1965, and starts with the tragic story of a man who was driven to murder
his son. The son was a Gakkai member, and had destroyed his family’s Shinto
shrine, despite the pleading of his father.
A very tragic story — and, perhaps, a valid anecdote about the Soka Gakkai in 1965.
However, Cebunet (and SG-eye’s) inclusion of it in 2001 is so intellectually dishonest as to be an outright lie. Here they use the requirement to purge the artifacts of other religions as an excuse for chastising the Soka Gakkai. Elsewhere on their sites, they chastise the Gakkai for abandoning that requirement.
The truth of the matter is that the purging of artifacts was imposed on the Gakkai by the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood. For Nichiren Shoshu to drag out an old article condemning the Gakkai for obeying the priests, and then condemning the Gakkai for it now, is the height of dishonesty.
Since splitting with the priesthood, the Gakkai has, as noted, become more tolerant. It is understood that a new member may not be totally committed, or that the other members of his/her household may not be joining the Gakkai. It is cruel, then, to require that the household be required to abandon all indications of its traditional beliefs. The member will, with time, realize the benefits of practicing Buddhism with the Soka Gakkai, and would probably then discard these things voluntarily; to require such faith from the beginning is unrealistic, and to make it a requirement for membership absurd. But this is what Nichiren Shoshu insisted on, and what the Gakkai did indeed practice in 1965. If Cebunet, SG-eye, and Nichiren Shoshu want to blame someone for this tragic incident, they could start with themselves.
Later on in part one of this book (it’s excerpted in 28 parts!) the author gives serious consideration to the idea that Japanese who were joining the Gakkai in great numbers were not actually Japanese, but belonged to some other, unnamed race. That’s as far as one has to read to get a feeling for the credibility of the book. But if you want to read all 28 parts, go ahead, and enjoy.
2)
“Australia - Rush Hour of the Gods”
“San Francisco Chronicle”
Both of these are political.
The latter also covers the death of Akiyo Asaki, the suicide that Nichiren
Shoshu likes to allege was murdered by the Gakkai. It is noteworthy that
the Soka Gakkai has recently won a libel suit against a Japanese publication
that continued these allegations long after the death was ruled conclusively
to be a suicide by all official investigations.
Kyodo News Service (Japanese), May 15, 2001:(Similar stories appeared in the all major Japanese newspapers Yomiuri, Nikkei, Mainichi, Tokyo and Sankei Shimbun on May 16, 2001)
Court says Asaki family also libelous for accepting interviewOn May 15, the Tokyo Superior Court found the surviving family of Akiyo Asaki, the Higashi Murayama City Councillor who fell to her death in September 1995, was guilty of defaming the Soka Gakkai, reports Kyodo. The Asakis — Daito, husband of the deceased councilwoman, and Naoko, her daughter — were co-defendants along with publisher Kodansha and Masahiko Motoki, former editor of its weekly tabloid Shukan Gendai, in a libel suit filed by the Soka Gakkai in 1995. The tabloid published interviews with the Asakis earlier that year that alleged the councilor, who was an ardent critic of the Soka Gakkai, had been framed for shoplifting charges by the Buddhist group and eventually murdered. Although the Tokyo District Court ruled in July 1999 that the publisher and magazine was guilty of willful defamation and ordered to pay 2 million yen in damages, it exonerated Daito Asaki and his daughter based on the fact that the latter two lacked control of the articles’ editorial direction. The defendants subsequently filed an appeal with the Tokyo High Court, only to have the high court to go beyond the lower court ruling by finding the two surviving members of the Asaki family guilty as well. Superior Court Chief Magistrate Hideichi Yazaki said the Asakis was “fully cognizant” that their interview would be “editorially exploited” to “criticize the religious organization” and thus are equally accountable for libel as Kodansha and then-editor Motoki.
Nichiren Shoshu/SG-eye/Cebunet is well aware of all this, but maliciously and deceptively maintain the original story, as if that were the end of it.
More rebuttal of SG-eye: