I’m not Japanese and have never been to Japan so if you can shed some light on this question, it would be greatly appreciated.
I was reading this article and realized it doesn’t really answer the question in the headline.
**An Unholy Alliance: How the Unification Church Penetrated Japan’s Ruling Liberal Democratic Party**
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c12101/
The article itself goes to mention that it is unfathomable how a Korean religious sect with anti-japanese sentiment became so tightly knit with the LDP. Yes there is the shared conservatism, but surely there are other grassroots Japanese conservative religious groups or cults to align with.
The quid pro quo of the seemingly unlikely duo is a mystery, no doubt. But my real question is how a Korean cult managed to infiltrate Japanese society, to the extent that Japanese “donations” were the largest single source of donor funds for the church?
Is it playing off a perceived guilt that Japan did Korea dirty during the occupation? Seems like a weak foundation, but that’s all I can think of. Are there a lot of Japanese that feel that? I wouldn’t be surprised at the opposite outcome, in fact that would make sense, but this is a head scratcher for me.
by FuckMilk
13 comments
I would go way back and listen to Season 3 of Blowback, it doesn’t go into UC but is an extremely well researched account of US presence in this whole part of the world. Not much can surprise you after that 😅
UC was founded by K-CIA director. He was also a CIA asset and a friend of the Bushes.
The CIA had a huge role in the founding of the LDP.
> a Korean religious sect with anti-japanese sentiment
I might be a cynic, but except for the “Korean”, that described the LDP pretty well, imho.
It probably helps the very first series was UC. So from 1979-1994 every single series and movie was set in the UC. It wasn’t until G Gundam came along that we began to explore other universes/timelines.
The Unification Church is a very disgusting and hateful organization. They constantly brainwash Japanese women that they should marry Korean men and have children with them. They extort money from Japanese people, put them in debt, and when they have nowhere else to turn, they bring them in and force them to marry Korean men in the name of a joint wedding. It’s about 200 to 300 people a year. It’s almost at the level of human trafficking. And then they use the money they extort from them to fund elections for the LDP. It’s just a vicious cycle that keeps repeating itself. Of course, I don’t think any one religion can do this, so I think there’s a very high probability that state intelligence is involved.
[Here](https://apjjf.org/2022/17/McGill.html) is an extensive article on the topic, rather than some random conspiracy nonsense.
I’m always impressed by how many whitebread US academic types joined the Moonies in the 70s. Seems like religious/cult studies academia is chock full of current/former Moonies.
I guess it was hangover from the 60s counterculture stuff. Maybe a bunch of nerds who missed out on being hippies were still looking for meaning and got caught by Moony flirty fishing or whatever…
Here I thought you were talking about Gundam…
The only UC I know is the Universal Century Gundam timeline.
The fuck I thought Universal Century
What I find more surprising is the Unification Church’s decades old relationship with the Republican Party in the United States, with the church having donated estimated hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, and financing the Washington Times, an anti-communist mouthpiece.
Even as recently as Trump, who filmed a video for them, GOP leaders have been accepting millions of dollars.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-nov-16-op-54375-story.html
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20231026/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
The Japanese people are generally indifferent to politics and have taken no action against these organized voters. This includes other organized voter in Japan. Organized voting can easily keep certain parties elected and manipulate Japan. The LDP has chosen to continue lining its own pockets rather than the public interest.
Because they took advantage of Japanese guilt.
As we can see from Germany’s defense of the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli army, “guilt” is a very useful emotion.
That’s a mystery also when you know that most of the Yakuza are Korean too.