Kirk here with a note about my continuing research on Kumamoto’s Moonie connections. This has to do with Kumamoto’s “family education” law (くまもと家庭教育支援条例) which was established in 2013 and can be read here on the prefecture’s website (in Japanese): https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/site/kyouiku/8775.html
As I have written previously, I have learned through media reports that pushing (or encouraging) local governments to establish such laws has been a long-standing objective of the Moonies:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/167033417187237/posts/1164986174058618/
Today, I came across an article in the Akahata, published by the Communist Party of Japan, that is related to this issue. The focus of the Akahata article is the municiple government of Tokyo. It points to several connections that municipal politicians have had with the Moonies, one of which is the attendance of NOGAMI Junko (Komeito member of the Tokyo Municipal Assembly) at events sponsored by the World Women’s Association for Peace (世界平和女性連合; English is my translation), a front group for the Moonies. The article says that Ms. NOGAMI wrote in a 2020 report about how she learned at a one such meeting “that Tokyo should pass a law like Kumamoto’s family education support law.”
This doesn’t prove anything about how the Kumamoto law came to be written and passed. But, at the very least, it indicates that the Moonies in Tokyo were paying attention and considered the Kumamoto law to be a model.
For me, the actual content of such laws is of secondary interest. What interests me most is the possibility that Moonies and conservative politicians were cooperating on a project of this nature. It could be that the conservative family values embedded in these laws were supported even more strongly by the politicians themselves than by the Moonies. However, whatever the answer to the “who-was-leading-whom” question, the likelihood of strong cooperation between Moonies and conservative politicians deserves some serious investigative reporting in my view.
I’ll continue to wait for the local media in Kumamoto to start publishing a series of articles on this topic. In the meantime, I’ll try to ask movers and shakers I know here why nothing seems to be happening.
— start quote — 公明党の野上純子都議（当時、葛飾区選出）は１７年１０月と２０年１１月の２回、統一協会のダミー団体「世界平和女性連合」主催の講演会に出席し、計３０００円を政活費から支出。 ２０年１１月には講演内容として、家庭教育について「都政の中で、くまもとの家庭教育支援条例のような責任ある子育てができるように親を支援する条例が必要」と書いた「研修結果報告」を添付していました。 — end quote — https://www.jcp.or.jp/akahata/aik22/2022-09-07/2022090704_02_0.html
