Ise Shrine is the spiritual centre of the Association of Shinto Shrines (AoSS). AoSS is an umbrella organisation for a large majority of Shinto shrines across Japan, established in 1946 to protect Japan’s shrines after they lost the support of the state.
The association has also grown to be an influential actor on the political stage. The political wing of AoSS, the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership, boasts the support of a number of cabinet ministers, including Abe. It has carried out extensive lobbying on issues such as the mandatory singing of the Japanese national anthem in public schools and the public display of the national flag.
AoSS also retains informal but intimate ties with the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), which includes the high priest of Ise Shrine amongst its members. While Japan Conference focuses on a broader range of political issues than AoSS, both organisations share the same brand of post-war ‘Imperial Shinto’, placing the Emperor at the centre of the Japanese nation.
Despite a history going back at least 1400 years, Ise Shrine’s role as a centre for national Shinto is a product of Japanese modernity, closely related to the development of so-called ‘State Shinto’ under the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century. But whereas the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is the target of domestic and international criticism due to the enshrinement of war criminals, Ise Shrine is perceived as far less controversial. This seems to be one of the reasons behind Abe’s decision to frequent Ise Shrine and, with the exception of one visit in December 2013, refrain from visiting Yasukuni.
Besides visiting the Shrine for his hatsumōde (first shrine visit of the year) every January, a practice that has been common for prime ministers since the 1960s, Abe and eight of his cabinet ministers were also present during the enshrinement rites following the rebuilding of the shrine in 2013. This made Abe the first prime minister to do so in the post-war era.
In one sense, the symbolic value of Abe’s promotion of Ise Shrine is similar to his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi’s frequent visits to Yasukuni Shrine: visits to these shrines cater to the sentiments of the same supporters on the nationalist right.
In present-day Japan, Shinto continues to play a central role in the politics of the nation. Many of the people visiting shrines for hatsumōde in January this year were surprised to find petitions for constitutional reform. These petitions were part of the campaign Kenpō 1000 initiated by the Japan Conference subgroup Citizens’ Association for the Creation of a Constitution for Beautiful Japan. The campaign, which seeks to garner public support for the Abe-led Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) initiative to revise the constitution later this year, is run with the official support of the AoSS.
Since 2013, Abe has worked hard to initiate constitutional reform. The draft constitution that Abe is promoting is the same as that published by the LDP in 2012. As such, it contains changes to the constitution that could undermine the foundations of post-war Japanese democracy.
The draft has also been written specifically to accommodate renewed ties between the state and the Shinto establishment.
Articles 20 and 89 of Japan’s post-war constitution provide for a strict separation of religion and state, in effect prohibiting the state and its organs from sponsoring religious organisations. The Japanese Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in the 1997 Ehime case put Shinto on equal terms with other religions. Where justices in earlier post-war cases had often considered Shinto rites to be something other than religion, the Ehime case made it harder for political actors to visit shrines in their official capacity.
In the 2012 LDP draft, Articles 20 and 89 have been subtly altered to accommodate state involvement in Shinto rites that were generally allowed prior to the Ehime ruling. The state is no longer allowed to interact with religion, but those things that are not religious — such as ‘social courtesy’ or ‘manners and customs’ — are still exempt. Under the pre-1997 paradigm, this would include groundbreaking ceremonies, rites in front of chūkonhi (monuments to the souls of soldiers killed in battle), and the enshrinement of Self-Defense Force officers at Yasukuni Shrine — precisely the sort of activities in which AoSS would likely be involved.
Abe will visit Ise Shrine together with the leaders of the G7 nations on the first morning of the summit. By doing so, he will be playing into the hands of forces in Japan that seek to encourage closer ties between the Shinto establishment and the state. A visit to Ise Shrine can be seen as a quiet form of sponsorship of the AoSS, an organisation currently working hard to assist the LDP in their quest for a complete overhaul of the post-war constitution.
Ernils Larsson is a PhD candidate in the History of Religions at the Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University.
I wish that the other G7 leaders shall well inform themselves about the nature of the problem, and not to visit the beautiful (may have never run short of funds for restorations!), but of too much political and historical connotated Imperial sanctuary (the state-shinto, the Shinto Directive of 15.12. 1945, the Humanity Declaration of 1.1.1946, and so on). I am one of those Japanese who very much worried (or rather scared) about the political evolution of recent years, oriented towards farther conservative, nationalist and revisionist direction(for ex. the legislation of the secrecy law, easening of exportation of ordnance, of the new security law violating the legal procedure), led by Abe and his LDP party mixed with some different right-wing associations as mentioned above. The new constitution draft they promote contains a Weimer-art.48-like Emergency Decree clause, restrictions of fundamental rights and freedoms.
I wonder if any of the other leaders of the G-7 realize the implications of their visiting the Ise Shrine. Are they just going along with Abe’s invitation in order to be good guests?
This is a question that I hope future research will be able to answer. When I watched the cars pass by on Thursday on their way to the Inner Shrine, I kept wondering what was going through their heads at the time. They must have known the symbolic importance of this visit, that this was different from visiting a spot of simpe scenic beauty. And still they all went! In particular President Obama should have been much more careful, but it seems as if the visit to Ise was overlooked because of the visit to Hiroshima.
At least the US itself has long promoted the Japanese rehabilitated-nationalist’s gvts, and it seems impossible to ignore its nature.
While, Obama, in his speech in Hiroshima, made more than one reference to nationalism, religion, history, etc., for example. “..war..compelled by nationalist fever or religious zeal. Empires..”, “..justify violence in the name of some high cause..and yet no religion has been spared from believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill. Nations arise telling a story that binds people togher in sacrifice and cooperation, allowing for remarkable feats. But those same stories have so often been used to oppress and dehumanize those who are different”. May these phrases have been delivered to soothe a little the Chinese or Korean counterparts?
As I didn’t know well about the Ise Shrine, I looked for information on it on the web (as I’m not in Japan). I was unable to find anything about it (and the announced G7 visit) written from the critical points of view, neither in Japanese nor in Entlish, until I’ve got that of the Banyan. I’m afraid but there seems to be very subtle manipulation of information, if not the censorship.