My post about popular right-wing blog mumur has stirred some interest on 2ch. That has led me to try and look into just what the mumur blog is about, which hasn’t been easy. Despite being the 19th most popular blog in Japan right now, there’s no wikipedia entry for it, and no real description of the author on the blog itself. That’s pretty typical of a lot of blogs (like Kikko’s), so that doesn’t surprise me. Anonymous message boards are so common in Japan that they are a main feature of one of the most popular manga/anime in Japan right now, Death Note (the movie version of which was terrible, btw).
The content mainly consists of criticism of the media (Mainichi and Asahi, two left-leaning organizations, get the brunt of it) from a perspective similar to that of anti-American right wing manga artist Yoshinori Kobayashi (who actually has a pretty good English wiki article. Seemingly tied into the very concept of the blog, considering that it is subtitled “Site to support Tokyo Municipal Assemblyman Hiroaki Hatsushika” (in a reference to the campaign the blog led to harass the man), mumur regularly identifies people (usually public figures) whom he directs his readers to harass for their unacceptable actions. It’s reprehensible conduct that is sadly likely to go unpunished given that Japan’s remedies for libel are weak.
But in my brief research, I came across a forum thread in which a number of people claimed that mumur was among Japan’s “religious right” and cited as “evidence” the observation that mumur observes some of their common traits:
1. Writes frantic responses that would be inconceivable by common sense standards.
2. Pretends to be multiple people using dial-up connections. Also there will be many posts from multiple sources but from the same area.
3. As soon as the topic comes to religion the pace of posts drops.
4. Frantically emphasizes the fact that “I’m an average person.” An average person wouldn’t write frantic responses.
5. Hates deletions. It seems there is an order to post “a deletion means you lose” when that happens.
6. It seems there is an order to post “people like you are just a small sample” to the object of their abuse.
7. Hates Kobayashi, who betrayed right-wing religions and criticized the Iraq war.
Now, among the attentive, Japan-focused English-speaking public there’s some recognition of Japan’s right wing and their belief in the holiness of the emperor, etc. Less well-known is the large number of right-aligned religious groups that form a major wing of the conservative elements in Japan. The issue is especially poignant now that news stories have broken indicating that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a follower of “Ekojuku.”
Let me point out that I have no idea who writes for the mumur blog, so in no way do I wish to imply that this anonymous person is a member of any specific religious group. Quite the contrary, I often have no idea what to believe on the Japanese net since it’s so mired in conspiracy and backdoor manipulation. All I’m saying is that reading about mumur inspired me.
For starters, let’s take a look at one of the main groups:
Unification Church: The well-known group known as the Moonies is very active in Japan (perhaps the most followers of any country) and is subject to many conspiracy theories, including that the right wing textbook writing group “Tsukuru kai” is controlled by church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon. A recent scandal hit PM Shinzo Abe after videos surfaced showing that Abe had sent a letter of congratulation to a mass wedding earlier this year. The discovery seemingly backs up rumors of continued close ties between the church and Japan’s elites (including Abe’s grandfather and several other former prime ministers) due to his contributions to the fight against Communism during the Cold War. The founder is well-known for his conservative beliefs and support of the Republican Party. The group is controversial in Japan for the fanatical devotion of its followers, its many dummy corporations, and its fraudulent sales of “spiritual goods” at inflated prices. The Japanese government began monitoring the church after Moon was known to have deepened ties with North Korea. (Source: incredibly long Japanese wikipedia article)
OK, it’s getting late, so other groups will have to wait.
I noticed Marxy picked up on Abe’s alleged ties to the Unification Church back in September. What I’d like to know is, will this give the Moonies any significant influence over Abe (or Abe moving to pander to their interests) now he’s in power? It seems to me to be a simple confluence of interests, as both happen to be very anti-North Korea.
the forum thread you mentioned (yy31.kakiko.com/x51pace/) is well known “chukakuha” forum.
read top of the page. (反体制派の情報交換の場ですのでプロキシ経由での投稿を推奨します。)
they are the kind of people who launch homemade bombs against US military bases.
damn, that’s eerie.
“It seems to me to be a simple confluence of interests”
IMO, There is nothing simple about Moon. Most people don’t know that Moon absorbs you into his world view if you connect with him. All he wants is acceptance, then his manipulative deceptive organization does the rest. Moon has more to do with the political direction of American than any single person. He has spent billions bringing the hard right to power.
The thing most people don’t mention is that Moon isn’t a fan of democracy either.
But your suggestion of him being anti-North Korea is way off base.
He has given them much financial support starting back at least to 1991 when Moon visited Kim Il Sung.
a good run down on that here:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9868
and here:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/101006a.html
and though Moon makes a lot of money in a variety of ways, and then launders much of it into the USA to manipulate our political system according to his x-daughter in law — the “inflated” priced sales items are much more than simply that also. These are elaborate cons which, if you do the math, have swindled billions from the Japanese targeting widows.
Abe shoud be very ashamed.
Find some of what Moon does with his swindled bucks here:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/9/13513/46197
they are the kind of people who launch homemade bombs against US military bases.
Opposed to the right-wing organizations who burn down politicians’ houses and never get their pictures on the WANTED sections of the koban walls or harassed by the police.
You also forgot to talk about Sasakawa Ryoichi and the Unification Church. These guys were up to a lot of no good.
By “religious” are we talking Xian here? Or does Shinto count too? If both, do the two get on well?
I saw someone on another board claiming that there were 6% Xian in Japan now, not the commonly quoted
Well there are some right-leaning Christian groups in Japan like the Unification people, but there are also Shinto-based ones as well with some influential members.
The Unification Church is not “Christianity” in any conventional sense. They are certainly a derivative of Christianity, but I doubt that any Catholic, Protestant, Coptic, etc. would consider them even as much of a Christian as a Mormon might be.
Adamu,
I thought that the main feature of Death Note was the notebook of death dropped by Ruke, a god of death, which makes its human owner a virtual god of death. People in Japan are currently fed up with the justice system who let people off too easily based on their “lack of ability to take responsibility for their actions due to mental conditions.” I have the manga and have watched the movie DN, but seemed to have completely missed the “anonymous message board” theme. Are you sure you are not confusing it with Densha Otoko?
Well at least in the movie I the Death Note kid spread his messages with semi-anonymous messages, did he not? And the whole movie revolves around no one knowing the kid’s true identity. I mean, sure it doesn’t figure in quite as heavily as in Densha Otoko, but that is so last year, 2004 even.
Moon has used Jesus as a tool to manipulate Christians. In fact, Moon believes Jesus failed in His mission and that Moon is here to clean up His mess. Moon is a complete megalomaniac. He says he is God incarnate, every word he utters is God’s revelation, and that in ways he is better than God.
He sees God as this sad creature in heaven looking down on his failed creation and that Moon came along and agreed to fix it for Him.
Moon believes he is the greatest peroso to have walked the face of the earth and his controlled cult buys it. I have yet to find anything the Moon organization does which is not rooted in deception.
When they came to the USA they added “Christianity” to their official name because they wanted to manipulate Christianity so they played games and acted like Jesus was cool. Jesus is a tool to Moon.
check out the video clips in these:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/23/01913/3060
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/14/22322/6980
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/29/03943/6196
quoting the Unification News April 2005 below:
Children’s Workshop and Youth Workshop in Winston Salem, NC
By Rev. Mike Lamson
From March 18-20, 2005 a children’s workshop was organized in Winston Salem, North Carolina. The workshop focused on helping children from 6- 11 years old learn the “Family Pledge”…
Over the three days we all learned a lot about Father’s vision for us to become engrafted into his family….
After lunch we went outside for an “activity pertaining to the messiah’s course”. This activity involved groups of two people washing and getting their feet washed. The idea was to humble yourself before someone else by washing their feet. It seemed those getting their feet washed were more embarrassed than those washing.
The next activity was “the Crucifixion.” We all got crucified! One person at a time would pick up a wooden cross and run around a storage shed once and then meet on the hill where everyone would ridicule and throw things. We all felt some heartistic pain. After that we had a human wheelbarrow contest by team. The next activity had us laying firewood logs on top of each other to reach a certain height, which represented the foundation for the messiah to come. At our first success Takamitsu just pushed them over and informed us that Jesus failed and we have to start all over again. Later we went to a large field where the staff had hidden small scraps of paper with our names on them, representing how hard it was for True Parents to find the principle. Some kids found their paper and some did not.
Adamu,
If the kid who spread his message = the main character, Raito, I don’t think that was so. Fan sites of “killa” run by anonymous supporters of Raito popped up all over the net, but it wasn’t Raito doing it. He didn’t need to promote what he was doing. The mass needed no such prompting to cheer him on. Raito, at first, didn’t even like to be killa because the name was derived from the word “killer.”