Potential anti-war protests/religious sermons in Japan

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Cantankerous
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Potential anti-war protests/religious sermons in Japan

#1

Post by Cantankerous » 26 May 2020, 22:10

We know that what the Japanese did to Chinese civilians in China was very cruel, but lost in talk of Japan's involvement in World War II is whether or not there were any anti-war protests in Japan. Is it possible that there were Mahayana (Zen) Buddhist priests in Japan who dared to speak out against the Japanese armed forces' abuses against innocent civilians in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, given that Buddhism in generally encourages anti-authoritarianism? Is there any record of pacifist Japanese civilians protesting Japanese aggression in the Far East and SE Asia.

cstunts
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Re: Potential anti-war protests/religious sermons in Japan

#2

Post by cstunts » 30 May 2020, 01:14

There were about 1800 persons arrested during the war "for offences connected w/religion..." of which ~210 were Christians. The rest primarily 'more independent' Buddhist sects that opposed the war, or at least refused to alter their teaching curriculums according to new regulations from Japan's Ministry of Education: Tenrikyō, Seichō-no-ie, Nichirenshū, & Tendai sects in particular.

Although Japan was a police state in effect & would brook no political dissension generally, there were only about 5,000 prosecutions between 1928 and 1945 for violations of the Peace Preservation Law. (All told, there ~75K arrests in that period.)
And while there were many deaths from disease, malnutrition, (or late in the war, allied bombing raids), etc. while in prison, only two persons were ever executed under that Law: the Soviet spy, Richard Sorge & his Japanese accomplice, Ozaki Hotsumi.
This in marked & drastic contrast with Soviet Russia under Stalin and Hitler's Nazi regime.


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Re: Potential anti-war protests/religious sermons in Japan

#3

Post by Cantankerous » 29 Jul 2020, 03:43

cstunts wrote:
30 May 2020, 01:14
There were about 1800 persons arrested during the war "for offences connected w/religion..." of which ~210 were Christians. The rest primarily 'more independent' Buddhist sects that opposed the war, or at least refused to alter their teaching curriculums according to new regulations from Japan's Ministry of Education: Tenrikyō, Seichō-no-ie, Nichirenshū, & Tendai sects in particular.

Although Japan was a police state in effect & would brook no political dissension generally, there were only about 5,000 prosecutions between 1928 and 1945 for violations of the Peace Preservation Law. (All told, there ~75K arrests in that period.)
And while there were many deaths from disease, malnutrition, (or late in the war, allied bombing raids), etc. while in prison, only two persons were ever executed under that Law: the Soviet spy, Richard Sorge & his Japanese accomplice, Ozaki Hotsumi.
This in marked & drastic contrast with Soviet Russia under Stalin and Hitler's Nazi regime.
That is quite remarkable, because even though Japan was technically a multiparty government, it was a police state in practice. It's possible that Japanese Buddhist monks staged joint anti-war sermons with beleaguered Chinese Buddhist monks in secluded areas of Japan calling on Japan to end its wars of aggression in East Asia.

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