Elections the world over are bizarre spectacles of bravado, ego, hope, victory, power, change, and money. A showcase of all that is good, and all that is bad about society, brought to the fore on a silver platter, on which the masses can vote. Some may argue that the power to vote is the single-most important, and vital, human right awarded to mankind, whereas others may not even care. In Japan, though the DPJ has wiped the board clean, Caught*Red-handed takes a look at what could have been in store, had the Happiness Realisation Party had its way..

An outfit borne in just May of this year, the Happiness Relisation Party is headed by one Ryuho Okawa, born in Tokushima, in 1956. To understand the party, you have to get a little under the skin of this more than a little eccentric individual. A graduate from the University of Tokyo and a student of advanced finance at the University of New York, as well as the author of 500 books, many of which are bestsellers in Japan, and three of which have been made into feature length films; on first impressions, at least, his credentials seem to be emphatically impressive. Dig deeper however, and it’s then that you begin to realise that things are not quite as one would expect.

In 1981, Okawa announced to anybody that would listen that he had reached Great Enlightenment, that he had moved beyond the realms of humankind, and that he had managed to awaken El Cantare, who resides in the 9th dimension of the spirit world, and was seemingly waiting for Okawa to pop along and have a chat one day. Nobody is quite sure what happened from that point forward, however predictions range from Okawa receiving a gift of ever-lasting hope from El Cantare, all the way through to some even proclaiming that Okawa may have actually lost the plot. Of course, anything is possible.

From that point forward, Okawa made his way around Japan, on a mega-tour, to gain access to the people in even its furthest reaches to give lectures, each even more precariously named than the previous, all with such enigmatic titles as ‘The Challenge of Eternity’ or ‘The Revolution of Hope’, or one that I particularly enjoy: ‘Our Spoiled, Mediocre Left-Wing Bureaucrats’. Designed to instil hope (I think) and a measure of change into the minds of the Japanese nation, one could say that although El Cantare may have been just a whim through which Okawa could make himself believe that he was enlightened, at least it led to a productive attitude that recognised that politics needed to change. That would be so of course, had anyone heard of these self-proclaimed lectures, all of which feature in lights on the party’s website, but nobody can remember them, and nobody knows anybody else who has ever attended..

His basis for life, he says, is built on the Fourfold Path, which incorporates love, wisdom, reflection and progress. Again, very commendable, and, one could argue that the policies that the HRP is striving to install are all built on this mantra. In fact, his headline statement is: ‘I want to build a spiritual backbone for the politics of Japan. I have always held this wish in my heart. I want to guide people to true happiness realisation. I want to create a world where people feel truly happy, that they are born, in this country, in this age.’ There are definitely the beginnings of a politician in that speech, one that is, people could argue, truly devoted to making Japan a better place. Of course, that may be true, but when you look again, you see that even his opening gambit is fraught with contradiction.

I managed to obtain a copy of the party’s manifesto publication, a great clunking book of over 200 pages, and decided to look through the first 25, to see if I could spot any of these contradictions, or anything else for that matter. I found my first irregularity at the heady heights of page one:

This is a weird contradiction, in that Okawa blatantly has installed himself at the head of the HRP, not just as a political leader, but a supposed religious one too. Fourfold Path, path to happiness realisation, bringing a spiritual backbone to Japan: of course, it may just be me, but all of those mantras seem to strike me as the words of a religious, and burgeoning political figure.

He also has fundamental issues with the current Constitution of Japan, and to be honest, it’s not difficult to see why many people would think of it as a document that ties Japan’s hands behind its back, especially with areas involving armament. That said, it would appear that Okawa has used this as a platform on which to spout off about his detestation of North Korea. Nearly every page I read mentions the country. We cannot do anything about North Korea, protect our people from the missiles of North Korea, North Korea is a Japan-hating nation.. and so it goes on. He links half the issues that the LDP has had with not been able to tackle North Korea, everything right from childcare through to ‘foreign affairs negligence’. Hang on a minute, I thought that he had been enlightened? I thought that a measure of enlightenment actually meant that you were beyond humankind, that you could look beyond their problems and that you could think unlike a human being and evaluate the whole world on equal terms, that all were good and that all problems could be solved? I may be wrong of course, but that is of course what Okawa said at his lecture entitled ‘For the Goodness to Prevail’.

Okawa seems to directly take offense at this statement, believing it to mean that foreigners, those nasty, simple-minded gaijin with their big noses and their peanut-sized brains, may interpret this to mean that Japan sees itself as it was in the 1600s, under the feudal rule of Shogun Tokugawa. That we could interpret this statement to mean that we thought all Japanese were subservient creatures, answerable only to the Great Sun Goddess Amaterasu, and that somehow Japan had reverted to a time (may I add) that has gone, has not been for a good 400 years and is not likely to come back.

How he can see this, as he states, as an ‘infringement on the human rights of the Japanese people’ is beyond me. I mean, in the UK, we have royalty too. Sure, they sit on their thrones eating caviar for breakfast and polishing their crowns, all of which we pay for, however that does not mean that we are subservient, that we cannot see beyond them..

And it gets even more bizarre (of course, the best I have saved until last):

Not so hilarious a title, you hasten to tell me, until you read:

‘In November 2008, an ‘Interview with Obama’s Guardian Spirit’ was published. In this interview, Okawa tapped into the latent subconscious of Barack Obama, the first African American President elected in the United States, in order to find out the true thoughts of the US leader. Among the things learned was that Obama “thinks the Japanese are a despicable race, and hates them”. Thereafter, there was a change in Japanese public opinion, which up to that point had been in frenzy over Obama. More and more people became wary of Obama. Sensing this change in the debate, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose anti-Japan sentiments are well known, chose Japan as her first foreign visit after assuming her post, while President Obama invited Prime Minister Aso to the White House as the first foreign dignitary to visit Washington after his inauguration. As can be seen by these summaries, Master Okawa’s remarks and pronouncements have been exerting an enormous influence over both domestic and international events for almost twenty years. We should continue to pay attention to his statements, as Master Okawa has already proven himself time and time again in his capacity as a national teacher.’

I sit here writing this post, and find myself utterly wordless. I feel I should write a summary, but don’t really know what to say. Of course there are crackpot parties that manage to infringe on the..well, fringes of politics in almost every country, and let’s be honest, some countries are unfortunate enough to have these lunatics actually rule them, however I can’t help thinking that a man who believes he can tap into the subconscious of political leaders and then ascertain a hit list of supposed Japan-haters on the back of that, seriously needs to evaluate his understanding of the world.

Thank goodness that the DPJ has had its stand, and thank goodness that at last, change is occurring in Japan. I remain contented and invigorated by this change. I believe wholeheartedly that at last, the system is being channelled down a new road from within, and for better or for worse, change is always good. Taro Aso may have been the unlucky inheritor of a party fledgling in the wind, however never at anytime did I think him as intrinsically bad for Japan. His changes marked his card, and that of the LDP, but still, they were change. He made choices, and he stuck by them. His changes changed Japan, perhaps for the better, some can argue, as now we have a historic shift in political power, and now, the opportunity for something new is apparent.

All that said however, I sincerely cannot entertain the idea that Okawa’s changes, or indeed his methodology for those changes, could ever be anything do with the ‘realisation of happiness’, more the ‘return of madness’.