Re: Former SGI members
Date: December 19, 2009 11:23AM
This is Polly Toynbee's account of her Ikeda-sponsored trip to Japan. She, her husband, and their daughter were wined and dined by Ikeda and his people in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. They stayed in luxurious hotels, rode in limousines, ate at the best restaurants, given expensive gifts. An entourage of drivers, interpreters and aides saw to their every desire. Your SGI zaimu contributions at work! They were shown huge conventions, with thousands of people cheering Ikeda. And at the end...they were asked for this favor.......
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The Value of a Grandfather Figure
Manchester Guardian/May 19, 1984
By Polly Toynbee
On the long flight to Japan, I read for the first time my grandfather's posthumously, published book, "Choose Life -- A Dialogue," a discussion between himself and a Japanese Buddhist leader called Daisaku Ikeda. My grandfather, the historian Arnold Toynbee was 85 when the dialogue was recorded, a short time before his final incapacitating stroke. It is probably the book among his works most kindly left forgotten -- being a long discursive ramble between the two men over topics from sex education to pollution and war.
A few months earlier, I had received a telephone call out of the blue from Mr Ikeda's London representative: Mr Ikeda was inviting my husband and myself to Japan, in memory of, and in gratitude to, my grandfather. We were puzzled at this -- eight years after his death.
We arrived at Tokyo airport, and at least 10 people were there to greet us, with a huge bouquet each for myself and for Milly, my astounded twelve-year-old daughter. A long solemn message of welcome from Mr Ikeda was read out, and we were driven away in a vast black limousine with electric darkened windows and Mr Ikeda's emblem emblazoned on the carpet in gold thread. Walkie-talkies between the vehicles of the motorcade to the hotel relayed further messages from our mysterious host. The scale of operation was soon made clear.
Two representatives from the English branch of Mr Ikeda's movement had accompanied us all the way from London and were scarcely to leave our side, together with a phalanx of interpreters, drivers and aides of all kinds. Mr Ikeda wishes you to feel entirely at home," and "Mr Ikeda wishes you to make every use of the hotel's services and 36 restaurants" came the messages at regular intervals, as we gazed down out of our fourteenth floor window on to the hotel garden -- full of waterfalls, bridges and carp squeezed, like everything in Tokyo between intersecting flyovers.
Night and day, surrounded by his aides, we heard his name mentioned in tones of reverential awe.
The evening came when we were at last to meet him. The great black limousine pulled into the palatial headquarters. The doorway was flood-lit with camera lights, and there stood Mr and Mrs. Ikeda, surrounded by bowing aides and followers. Dazed and dazzled by this unexpected reception committee, we were lead up to him to shake the small, plump hand. There he stood a short, round man with slicked down hair, wearing a sharp Western suit. Camera bulbs flashed, movie cameras closed in, and we were carried away with the throng, past corridors of bowing girls dressed in white to an enormous room.
Vast white armchairs were arrayed in a huge square and we were ushered to a throne-like set of three chairs at the head of the room, one for each of us and one for Mr Ikeda. He speaks no English, so behind us sat his beautiful young interpreter who accompanies him around the world. She sat at a microphone, so all our words could be heard clearly echoing round the room by all the aides and followers, who had taken to their rows of armchairs in strict order of precedence.
We sat there awed, appalled, intimidated, while royal courtesies flowed. "I want you to feel absolutely at home this evening," said Mr. Ikeda as we felt about as far from home as it is possible to be. "Just enjoy yourselves on this very informal occasion," he said. What would a formal meeting have been like? We talked of the weather in London and Japan, the city, the sights -- desperate small talk, conducted in public for half an hour, balancing champagne glass and smoked salmon plate, while the aides round the room nodded solemnly. Our host's style of conversation was imperious and alarming -- he led and others followed. Any unexpected or unconventional remark was greeted with a stern fixed look in the eye, incomprehension, and a warning frostiness.
As we took it in turn to sally forth in this game of verbal royal tennis, we each had time to study the man. Worldly he seemed, down to the tip of his hand-made shoes, earthy almost, without a whiff of even artificial spirituality. Asked to hazard a guess at his occupation, few would have selected him as a religious figure. I have met many powerful men -- prime ministers, leaders of all kinds -- but I have never in my life met anyone who exuded such an aura of absolute power as Mr Ikeda. He seems like a man who for many years has had his every whim gratified, his every order obeyed, a man protected from contradiction or conflict. I am not easily frightened, but something in him struck a chill down the spine.
He turned eventually to reminiscences of my grandfather and their meeting in London.
"It is my mission in life to see that his work is read by everyone. You will support me in this?" I could hardly say no. "You promise? I have your promise?" I felt uneasy at what exactly was expected of me. Then he suddenly mentioned the fact that there are in existence some more parts to the Toynbee/Ikeda Dialogue, as yet unpublished, which he would like to be able to publish soon. A part of our reason for this journey fell neatly into place. Later I was to find out more.
There was one sticky moment in the course of the meal. He asked us what we thought my grandfather's last word of warning to him had been as they parted. We racked our brains until, in desperation, my husband ill-advisedly answered, "Greed." An icy look passed across Mr Ikeda's ample features. He looked as if he might summon a squad of husky samurai to haul us away. I hastened to explain that Peter meant the greed of mankind, of course, as referred to frequently in the Dialogues -- man's grasping selfishness and so on. He looked not entirely mollified and the moment passed.
After dinner we returned to the room of the great armchairs, and lavish present-giving followed
Next day our photographs appeared on the front page of Ikeda's multi-million circulation daily, the Seikyo Press, with a record of our dinner table conversation. No-one told us it was on the record--but it didn't matter, since it was the words, mainly of Mr Ikeda, that went reported, and little of us beyond our presence as his audience.
We departed for a brief trip to Kyoto and Hiroshima, only to be greeted again by more bouquets, banquets, black limousines and local Soka Gakkai groups.
One night we were shown a film of Ikeda's triumphal tour round America, at massed rallies in stadiums from Dallas to San Diego. Formation teams of majorettes and baton twirlers spelled the words SOKA and PEACE in great waves of thousands of human bodies and Ikeda, spot-lit and mobbed by screaming fans, delivered his usual speeches on peace -- always peace. The stadium burst out in delirious applause.
We asked for a proper, serious interview with Ikeda, but later we doubted if anyone had dared relay our comments or our request. It was at Soka Gakkai's founder's day, with the same kind of mass rally of 6000 majorettes we had seen on the film, to the theme tunes of "Dallas" and "The Sound of Music." After the finale Ikeda took a lap of honour round the stadium, while carefully rehearsed groups of girls shrieking with adulation, pealed away towards him.
We didn't see him again but he sent us yet another silk-bound tome, in which there was no text, but only 296 huge full-page photographs of himself and his family -- a book of colossal narcissism.
What had the whole trip been for? By the time we left, it all became clear. We had been taken to be interviewed by newspapers and television -- Peter about international affairs, I about my grandfather. Each interview in which we appeared bound Ikeda and Arnold Toynbee closer together in the public eye. Ikeda was making a firm bid to become the chief official Toynbee friend and spokesman.
I had no idea of the extent of my grandfather's fame and importance in Japan. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, and his work is compulsory reading in all universities. As the prophet of the rise of the East and the decline of the West, he has long been a hero in Japan. There is a Toynbee Society, run by distinguished academics, some of whom knew my grandfather well for many years, and they print a quarterly journal.
My grandfather never met Ikeda on his visits to Japan. His old Japanese friends were clearly less than delighted with lkeda's grandiose appropriation of his memories, on the basis of a handful of rather vague interviews in extreme old age.
Soka Gakkai is the most powerful of Japan's "New Religions" which have sprung up since the war, It is rigidly hierarchical, with no democratic elements, and absolute power in Ikeda's hands. It imposes few religious or moral duties, beyond chanting twice a day, but it expects a high degree of obedient social participation in its organisation.
Soka Gakkai has non-governmental organisation status at the United Nations, a fact used much by Ikeda, as it establishes them as a world-wide "peace movement" and helps to give Ikeda access to heads of states around the globe. At Soka Gakkai's founders' day, we found representatives of many foreign embassies, and the French Ambassador was the guest of honour. People who seek influence in Japan cannot afford to ignore Ikeda, and indeed his own books sport hundreds of pictures of himself meeting people like Edward Kennedy, John Galbraith, and Presidents from every continent.
As we were leaving, Ikeda's secretary took us aside and asked if we could help with the publication of a second batch of Ikeda/Toynbee Dialogues left over from the first book. There were, it appeared, problems with executors and rights. Also it was hinted that in Ikeda's forthcoming tour of Britain in June 1985, we might be of some assistance. Exactly what was unspecified, but the marker was put down.
Back in England, I telephoned a few people round the world who had been visited by Ikeda. There was a certain amount of discomfort at being asked, and an admission by several that they felt they had been drawn into endorsing him. A silken web is easily woven, a photograph taken, a brief polite conversation published as if it were some important encounter.
I talked to the Oxford University Press, my grandfather's publishers. They said they had firmly turned down the Toynbee/Ikeda Dialogues, which were being heavily promoted by Ikeda after my grandfather's death. It would have been better if they had stuck to that decision. But Ikeda succeeded in getting it published in New York and the OUP felt obliged to follow suit. In the file lies a later letter referring to the possibility of a second batch of dialogues being published.
A reply from OUP tells inquirers that the manuscript can now only be obtained with the permission of the literary executors. The papers are stored, unsorted, in the Bodleian library in Oxford. It emerged that even while we were in Japan, Ikeda's representatives had been making discreet calls to England about the Toynbee papers. That, in the end, I suspect, was the purpose of our trip -- but from the present firm attitude of the OUP, it is highly unlikely that further Toynbee/Ikeda material will appear.
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It's blatantly obvious that Ikeda brought Polly Toynbee, and her family to Japan with an agenda. He'd arrange to have the Toynbees treated like royalty, and in exchange, she'd happily hand over her grandfather's papers so that Ikeda could publish a second book. She'd also help publicize the books. So he thought, but Polly Toynbee is clearly nobody's fool.
I think that her observations on Ikeda and SGI are right on target. She saw through him -- and he'll never forgive her for that.
Interesting, how Ikeda courts anyone who might be useful to him...people felt "drawn" into endorsing him, and later embarrassed that they had. But then, the psychologist, Cialdini, did say that giving gifts and doing favors were effective means of manipulating people -- people then feel obligated to reciprocate in some way. Ikeda and his people are masters at taking a photo or brief conversation with a famous person -- and spinning it into an important encounter.