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whatisonthemoon · 10 months

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Ten Years After Jonestown, the Battle Intensifies Over the Influence of ‘Alternative’ Religions (1988)

by Bob Sipchen - November 17, 1988 - Los Angeles Times

Eldridge Broussard Jr.’s face screwed into a grimace of such anger and pain that the unflappable Oprah Winfrey seemed unnerved. It hurts to be branded “the new Jimmy Jones” by a society eager to condemn what it doesn’t understand, the founder of the Ecclesia Athletic Assn. lamented on TV just a few days after his 8-year-old daughter had been beaten to death, apparently by Ecclesia members.

At issue were complex questions of whether the group he had formed to instill discipline in ghetto youth, and led from Watts to Oregon, had evolved into a dangerous cult. But Broussard couldn’t have found a less sympathetic audience than the group gathered around the TV in the bar of the Portland Holiday Inn.

There last month for the annual conference of the Chicago-based Cult Awareness Network were people whose kin had crumpled onto the body heaps at Jonestown, Guyana, 10 years ago, and people who believed they or family members had lost not their lives, but good chunks of them, to gurus and avatars less infamous but no less evil than Jim Jones.

One group’s cult is another’s “new religious movement,” though, and in the 10 years since Jonestown, a heated holy war of sorts has been mounting over the issues of how to define and contend with so-called cults.

The battle lines aren’t always well defined. Ongoing guerrilla actions between those who see themselves as crusaders against potential Jonestowns and those who see themselves as the persecuted members of outcast religious groups comprise the shifting legal and political fronts. On the outskirts of the ideological battleground is another loosely knit force that sees itself as the defender of a First Amendment besieged by vigilantes all too eager to kiss off the Constitution as they quash beliefs that don’t fit their narrow-minded criteria of what’s good and real. As one often-quoted definition has it: “A cult is a religion someone I don’t like belongs to.”

“It’s spiritual McCarthyism,” Lowell D. Streiker, a Northern California counselor, said of the cult awareness cause. To him, “the anti-cult network” is itself as a “cult of persecution,” cut from the same cloth as Colonial witch hunters and the Ku Klux Klan.

The key anti-cult groups, by most accounts, are CAN, a secular nondenominational group of 30 local affiliates; the Massachusetts-based American Family Foundation; the Interfaith Coalition of Concern About Cults and the Jewish Federation Council’s Commission on Cults and Missionaries.

Although they contend that their ranks continue to fill with the victims of cults or angry family members, they concede that the most significant rallying point came in the fall of 1978 when the leader of one alleged cult put a rattlesnake in an enemy’s mailbox and another led 912 people to their deaths.

Even though nothing so dramatic has happened since, cults have quietly been making inroads into the fabric of mainstream American life, and the effects are potentially as serious as the deaths at Jonestown, cult critics say.

With increased wealth and public relations acumen--with members clothed by Brooks Brothers rather than in saffron sheets--the 1,000 or more new cults that some estimate have sprung up in America since the ‘60s have become “a growth industry which is diversifying,” said Dr. Louis Jolyon West, director of UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. “They have made steady progress on all fronts.”

Uglier Connotations

In the broadest sense, Webster defines a cult as simply “a system of religious worship or ritual.” Even before Jonestown, though, the word had taken on broader and uglier connotations.

To make a distinction, critics use the term destructive cult, or totalist cult. The issue, they say, pivots on the methods groups use to recruit and hold together followers.

CAN describes a destructive cult as one that “uses systematic, manipulative techniques of thought reform or mind control to obtain followers and constrict their thoughts and actions. These techniques are imposed without the person’s knowledge and produce observable changes in the individual’s autonomy, thoughts and actions. . . .”

A 1985 conference on cults co-sponsored by the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and the American Family Federation came up with this definition:

“A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control . . . designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.”

The “manipulative techniques” in question are what cult critics call mind control or brainwashing.

To critics of the critics, on the other hand, brainwashing amounts to hooey.

And both sides say the weight of evidence is on their side.

New Beliefs, Personalities

Cult critics often point to classic surveys on brainwashing, which catalogue methods which they say are routinely used by cults of every color, religious and secular, to manipulate unsuspecting people into adopting new beliefs, and often, in effect, new personalities.

Among the techniques are constant repetition of doctrine; application of intense peer pressure; manipulation of diet so that critical faculties are adversely affected; deprivation of sleep; lack of privacy and time for reflection; cutting ties with the recruits’ past life; reduction of outside stimulation and influences; skillful use of ritual to heighten mystical experience; and invention of a new vocabulary which narrows the range of experience and constructs a new reality for cult members.

Margaret Singer, a former professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, describes psychological problems that have been attributed to cultic experiences, ranging from the despair that comes from having suddenly abandoned ones previous values, norms and ideals to types of “induced psychopathy.” Other psychologists and lay observers list similar mental and emotional problems linked to the indoctrination and rituals of cults.

Sociologist Dick Anthony, author of the book “Spiritual Choices,” and former director of the UC Berkeley-affiliated Center for the Study of New Religions, argues the exact opposite position.

“There’s a large research literature published in mainstream journals on the mental health effects of new religions,” he said. “For the most part the effects seem to be positive in any way that’s measurable.”

He and other defenders of new religions discount so-called mind control techniques, or believe the term has been misappropriated by anti-cult activists.

“Coercive Persuasion is a bombastic redescription of familiar forms of influence which occur everyday and everywhere,” said Streiker. “Someone being converted to a demanding religious movement is no more or less brainwashed than children being exposed to commercials during kiddy programs which encourage them to eat empty calories or buy expensive toys.”

“An attempt to persuade someone of something is a process protected by our country’s First Amendment right of free speech and communication,” said attorney Jeremiah Gutman head of the New York City branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and an outspoken critic of the anti-cult groups. “What one person believes to be an irrefutable and obvious truth is someone else’s errant nonsense.”

‘Fraud and Manipulation’

But anti-cult spokespeople say they have no interest in a group’s beliefs. Their concern is when destructive cults use “fraud and manipulation,” to get people to arrive at those beliefs, whatever they may be. Because people are unaware of the issues, though, cults have insinuated themselves into areas of American life where they are influencing people who may not even know where the influence is coming from, they contend.

The political arena is the obvious example, anti-cult activists say.

Followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had a major impact on the small town government of Antelope, Ore., and Jim Jones had managed to thrust himself and his church into the most respectable Democratic party circles in San Francisco before the exodus to Guyana, for instance.

But recently the process has expanded, with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church the leading example of a cult that is quietly gaining political clout, they say.

“What Jim Jones did to Democrats in San Francisco, Sun Myung Moon is doing to Republicans all across country now,” Kisser said.

Moon’s most obvious stab at mainstream legitimacy, critics say, was his purchase in 1982 of the Washington Times, a D.C. daily newspaper, and his financial nurturing of the paper’s magazine Insight--both of which have an official policy of complete editorial independence from the church.

In September, 1987, the conservative American Spectator magazine published an article titled “Can Buy Me Love: The Mooning of Conservative America,” in which managing editor Andrew Ferguson questioned the way the political right is lapping up Moon money, citing, among many examples, the $500,000 or more the late Terry Dolan’s National Conservative Alliance accepted in 1984. When the church got wind of the article, the Spectator received a call from the executive director of the Unification Church’s World Media Assn. warning that if it ran, the Times “would strike back and strike back severely,” Ferguson wrote in an addendum to the piece.

‘Everyone Speaks Korean’

Therapist Steven Hassan, a former “Moonie” and the author of the just-released book “Combatting Cult Mind Control,” estimates that the church now sponsors 200 businesses and “front organizations.”

Moon “has said he wants an automatic theocracy to rule the world,” explained Hassan, who, on Moon’s orders, engaged in a public fast for Nixon during Watergate and another fast at the U.N. to protest the withdrawal of troops from Korea. “He visualizes a world where everyone speaks Korean only, where all religion but his is abolished, where his organization chooses who will mate, and he and family and descendants rule in a heroic monarchy.”

Moon “is very much in support of the democratic system,” counters John Biermans , director of public affairs for the church. “His desire is for people to become God-centered people. Then democracy can fulfill its potential”

Besides, he said, “this is a pluralistic society, people of all faiths inject their beliefs into the system on every level . . . Using terms like ‘front groups’ and ‘insinuating,’ is just a way to attack something. It’s not even honest.”

Some observers dismiss concern about alleged Unificationist infiltration as self-serving hysteria whipped up by the anti-cultists.

“How much actual influence (the Unification Church) has seems questionable,” said David Bromley, a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and the author of the 1981 book “Strange Gods, the Great American Cult Scare.”

Bromley estimates, for instance, that the church brings $200 million a year into the U.S. from abroad. But he sees no evidence that the money, much of it spent on all-expense-paid fact-finding tours and conferences for journalists, politicians and clergypeople, is money well-invested as far as political impact goes.

The church, he estimates, is losing about $50 million a year on its Washington Times newspaper and the ranks of Unificationists, and most other new religions, in America are thinning as well.

Veterans of the anti-cult front, however, say that the appearance that cults are fading is an illusion. “Like viruses, many of them mutate into new forms,” when under attack, West of UCLA said. And new types of cults are arising to fill the void, they say.

Cult critics point, for instance, to the rise of such groups as the est offshoot called Forum, and to Lifespring and Insight--all of which CAN characterizes as “human potential cults” and all of which are utilized in mainstream American business to promote productivity and motivation.

Observers such as Gordon Melton of the Institute for the Study of Religious Institutions in Santa Barbara explain that many of these New Age-type trainings have their roots in the old fashioned motivational pep talks and sales technique seminars that have been the staples of American business for decades.

But critics see the so-called “psychotechnologies” utilized by some of these groups as insidious. For one thing, they say, the meditation, confessional sharing, and guided imagery methods some of them use are more likely to make employees muzzy-headed than competitive.

Other critics say the trainings violate employee’s rights. Richard Watring, a personnel director for Budget Rent-a-Car, who has been charting the incorporation of “New Age” philosophies into business trainings, is concerned that employees are often compelled to take the courses and then required to adapt a new belief system which may be incompatible with their own religious convictions. As a Christian he finds such mental meddling inappropriate for corporations.

He and other cult critics are heartened by recent cases, still pending, in which employees, or former employees, have sued their employer for compelling them to take trainings they felt conflicted with their own religious beliefs.

Most observers scoring the action on the broader legal battlefield, however, call it a toss-up, and perceived victories for either side have often proved Pyrrhic.

Threats of Litigation

Richard Ofshe, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, fought three separate legal battles with the drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization Synanon over research he published on the group. Although he ultimately won the suits, he said the battle wound up costing the university $600,000. And evidence obtained in other lawsuits showed that Synanon had skillfully wielded threats of litigation to keep several other critical stories from being published or broadcast, he said.

Similarly, a recently released book “Cults and Consequences,” went unpublished for several years because insurers were wary of the litigious nature of some of the groups mentioned, said Rachel Andres, director of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles’ Commission on Cults and Missionaries and the book’s co-editor.

But the most interesting litigation of late involves either a former member who is suing the organization to which he or she belonged, or a current member of a new religious group who is suing a deprogrammer who attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the person to leave the group.

The most significant case, everyone agrees, is last month’s Molko decision by the California Supreme Court, which anti-cult groups have cheered as a major victory.

In that reversal of lower court decisions, the justices agreed that David Molko and another former member of the Unification Church could bring before a jury the claim that they were defrauded by recruiters who denied they had a church affiliation and then subjected the two to church mind control techniques, eventually converting them.

Mainstream religious organizations including the National Council on Churches, the American Baptist Churches in the USA and the California Ecumenical Council had filed briefs in support of the Unification Church, claiming that allowing lawsuits over proselytizing techniques could paralyze all religions.

“What they’re attacking is prayer, fasting and lectures,” said Biermans of the Unification Church. “The whole idea of brainwashing is unbelievably absurd. . . . If someone had really figured out a method of brainwashing, they could control the world.” The church plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. Paul Morantz, the attorney who was struck by the rattlesnake placed in his mailbox by the “Imperial Marines” of Synanon, gave pro-bono assistance to the plaintiffs in the Molko case.

“For me, it was a great decision for freedom of religion and to protect against the . . . use of coercive persuasion,” he said.

Morantz currently is defending Bent Corydon, author of the book “L. Ron Hubbard, Madman or Messiah” against a lawsuit by the Church of Scientology. He said he’s confident of how that case will turn out.

But he shares the belief of others on several sides of the multifaceted cult battle, in concluding that education rather than litigation should be the first defense of religious and intellectual liberty.

He’s not, however, optimistic.

“If anyone thinks they’re ever going to win this war, they’re wrong,” he said. “As long as we have human behavior, there will be sociopaths who will stand up and say ‘follow me.’ And there will always be searchers who will follow.”

Source: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-17-vw-257-story.html

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 7 months

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September 26, 2023 (Mainichi Japan) Japanese version

TOKYO -- The Unification Church has published a protest against Japanese public broadcaster NHK, demanding that it stop airing and apologize for a program dealing with the religious group's recruitment methods. NHK changed part of the program's title, which the group viewed as problematic, and aired it as scheduled. It is unusual for the Unification Church, now known formally as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, to demand the cancelation of a program before it is aired, and an expert pointed out that the group may have been seeking to discourage media coverage.

The program "Kikenna Sasayaki," or dangerous whispers, was aired late at night on Sept. 23. Based on court documents from a lawsuit filed against the church by a former female member -- a suit she won -- the program included a dramatization of past attempts to recruit believers, including hiding the group's name and door-to-door sales tactics disguised as charitable activities.

Initially, the program was introduced on NHK's website under the title "Akuma no Sasayaki," or the devil's whispers. The Unification Church posted a letter of protest dated Sept. 21 on its website. At the time, the program title had already been changed to "Kikenna Sasayaki," but the church stated in the letter, "The program has already been introduced and publicized by multiple celebrities under the name 'Akuma no Sasayaki,' resulting in serious damage to our organization's reputation."

The letter also demanded that the program be canceled and an apology for phrases including, "victims whose lives have been ruined," which had originally been on the broadcaster website but have now been removed. The group claimed that the expressions "make it sound as if our organization is fraudulently inducing believers to join us and ruining their lives," and that the terminology is "clearly insulting."

Before the letter, a person believed to be an active believer wrote on "X," formally known as Twitter, that they had "called NHK in protest while crying loudly." On the other hand, once the group raised its objections, former believers and others wrote and shared posts calling for people to watch the program, and the show gained more attention.

Speaking to the Mainichi Shimbun, NHK's public relations bureau said of the program, "Based on the records of an actual court case, it attempts to clarify why people are captivated by illegal solicitation and why they lose their composure with these dangerous whispers, by using a reenactment and psychological analysis to show the mechanisms of the mind in that moment."

Regarding the circumstances surrounding the program title change, the PR bureau commented, "Sometimes the title is changed before the program is aired based on a comprehensive judgment."

Journalist Eito Suzuki, who is familiar with Unification Church issues, said, "The program used facts from the court documents, and it is not the kind of content that the religious group would usually ask to be canceled. Protests by the church have become more intense since (the government's) request (to the court) to issue an order to formally dissolve the organization. The latest move was probably aimed at making the media think, 'This group is troublesome, so let's not get involved with it.'"

(Japanese original by Hiroyuki Tanaka, Digital News Group)

___________________________

Almost 90% of Japanese public said the government should disband the Unification Church

Japan Aims to Dissolve Unification Church with Request to Court as Early as October; Investigation Suggests Criteria Met to Prove Religious Group Violated Law

#unification church #moonies #sun myung moon #hak ja han #family federation for world peace and unification #cult

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bizzluv48 · 1 year

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Day 🌝or~ moon🌙

Interior energy cleaning 🌼

In clear thought and intention

Send light codes.

To clean and increase energy

Vital by the chackra of the з чен Eye

The practice of medication

Has for repair the divine adn

Healing of the soul пускати

Thanks to the 4el) element

Air ~ Water ~ Earth ~ Fire

♾The air; the breath of life

Breathing oxygenates the cells

Inhale the Prana White Light and exhale gently.

Element of Water; 60 to 70% largely composes the body, hydration binds the body to its fluids and by mechanism transports vibration like an echo.

The Element of the Earth; Is your planet or you live

Or you anchor the one that connects you under the feet energy points, imagine from the roots a golden thread to the central core of the earth the anchoring and rooting of your being.

The fire Elment; To light your interior your candle your flame love is the fuel par excellence by forgiveness, benevolence or any means that creates magic for your essence

Guerir of everything 🕉♌️😇🌸🙏💎💧🗝

528 hrtz Frequency 3rd chackra

Regeneration of nerves and

Cells, complete healing of the body

Meditation:

https://youtu.be/EYoNlp9HB6k

#cosmic angels #spirituality #peaceful #art #spotify #essencity #yoga #gaia #family federation for world peace and unification #cosmic energy #soul #om namah shivay #shivashakti #conciencia #Earth #nature #mindfulness #SoundCloud

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zvaigzdelasas · 11 months

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The suspect in a recent explosive attack on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had sued the Japanese government as he could not run in the upper house election last year, and had criticized the state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and politicians' ties with the controversial Unification Church, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned from investigative sources. Ryuji Kimura, a 24-year-old resident of the Hyogo Prefecture city of Kawanishi, was arrested on the spot on suspicion of forcible obstruction of business for throwing an explosive device at Kishida in the city of Wakayama where the prime minister's stump speech for a House of Representatives by-election was scheduled on April 15.[...]

In the brief for his lawsuit, Kimura apparently criticized the Kishida Cabinet's decision to hold a state funeral for Abe, who had been killed in the July 2022 shooting, without going through Diet deliberations, saying that "challenging democracy should not be tolerated." It has also emerged that he had called Abe an "established politician" and claimed that "established politicians have been able to remain legislators because of their collusive relationships with cults and groups with organized votes, such as the former Unification Church," now formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

Personally if my ties with a powerful cult had culminated with attempts on 2 prime ministers lives, id simply cut off all relations with that cult [18 Apr 23]

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divinum-pacis · 11 months

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May 6, 2023: The Family Federation of World Peace and Unification, commonly known as the Unification Church, hosts a satellite Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main mass wedding event was held in South Korea. Hundreds of couples participated. (Photo by FFWPU USA/CC BY-ND)

#religion #cult #unification church #moonies #wedding #marriage #people #south korea #divinum-pacis

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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A Japanese minister resigned Monday following scrutiny over his links to a religious sect that is under pressure over ties with top politicians after the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Daishiro Yamagiwa, minister for economic revitalisation, said his conduct had "caused trouble for the government" but did not name the Unification Church.

The movement and its links to senior politicians have been in the spotlight because the man accused of killing Abe in July reportedly resented the organisation over massive donations his mother made that bankrupted the family.

The church, officially known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, has denied wrongdoing.

But a parade of former members have gone public with criticism of its practices in Japan, and last week Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered a government investigation into the group.

Its members are sometimes referred to as "Moonies" after Korean founder Sun Myung Moon, who died in 2012.

Yamagiwa has been under fire in parliament following local media reports about his alleged ties to the church -- partly because he appeared in a group photo in 2019 with Hak Ja Han, Moon's wife.

The politician had confirmed it was him in the image, but said in parliament on Monday that his memory about "the photo with her... is unclear".

He also previously disclosed that he joined an event organised by the church in 2018.

#nunyas news

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nyantria · 2 years

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Speculation about the identity of this "certain organization" is currently centered around The Unification Church. The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification—formerly known as the Unification Church but perhaps best known as the church that "The Moonies" belong to—was founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon in 1954. Although known primarily in the West for its mass weddings (and its ownership of The Washington Times), its Japanese branch has been identified as part of "the grassroots conservative movement in Japan." More to the point, some have noted that "Abe’s grandfather had played a major role in establishing the early Unification Church in Japan," and Abe himself reportedly sent a congratulatory telegram to a "front group" for the church back in 2006, an act which generated some controversy at the time.

この「ある組織」の正体については、現在、統一教会が中心となって憶測が飛び交っている。世界平和統一家庭連合（旧称：統一教会）は、1954年に孫文師によって設立された教会で、「ムーニー」が所属する教会として知られている。欧米では主に集団結婚式で知られているが（ワシントン・タイムズ紙も所有）、日本支部は「日本の草の根保守運動」の一翼を担っているとされる。さらに言えば、「安倍首相の祖父が初期の統一教会の設立に大きな役割を果たした」という指摘もあり、安倍首相自身も2006年に統一教会の「フロントグループ」に祝電を送り、当時は物議を醸したことが伝えられている。

Another organization that comes up in association with Abe (and with the Unification Church) is Nippon Kaigi. Described as the "largest and most powerful conservative right-wing organization", Nippon Kaigi (the "Japan Conference") was established in 1997 as a result of a combination of two previous Japanese political groups. It pushes a wish list of Japanese nationalist agenda items—the restoration of the Japanese Imperial family as head of state, the restoration of the Japanese military, constitutional changes and education reforms—that only the hard-of-thinking will fail to notice coincide with Abe's political agenda. This is no coincidence; Abe served as a "special advisor" to the group's parliamentary league.

安倍首相と関連する（統一教会と関連する）もう一つの組織は、日本会議である。最大かつ最も強力な保守右翼団体」と称される日本会議は、1997年に日本の2つの政治団体が合体して設立された。日本会議は、国家元首としての皇室の復活、軍隊の復活、憲法改正、教育改革など、日本のナショナリストが望むアジェンダを押し出しているが、頭の弱い人だけが安倍首相の政治アジェンダと一致することに気づかないだろう。これは偶然の一致ではなく、安倍は同グループの議員連盟の「特別顧問」を務めていた。

https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/the-abe-assassination?s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct

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singaporenewstribe · 7 months

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Center for Studies on New Religions’ Bitter Winter Publishes an Analysis by a Leading Japanese Christian Theologian on the Japan Family Federation for World Peace and Unification/Unification Church Issue

http://dlvr.it/Swt3S6

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thetopbestguide · 1 year

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Could former PM's assassination end the Moonies in Japan?

Could former PM’s assassination end the Moonies in Japan?

Nothing is Foreign30:53Could former PM’s assassination end the Moonies in Japan? The Japanese government has launched an inquiry into the power and influence of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, also known as the Unification Church, or the Moonies. Critics have called this group a cult. This comes after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July. The…

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bluepointcoin · 1 year

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Could former PM's assassination end the Moonies in Japan?

Could former PM’s assassination end the Moonies in Japan?

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whatisonthemoon · 1 year

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Kumi Taguchi’s first Dateline report, The Church and the Assassin, which investigates links between the 2022 assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, and the Unification Church, aka “the Moonies”, opened her eyes to a side of her ancestral homeland she hadn’t seen before.

On family trips, and while filming her 2019 ABC documentary, Kumi’s Japan, in which she sought to understand her father’s last wishes, the Insight host came to know only a peaceful, harmonious country.

“It was the first time I have dug into a current, controversial story, and it felt different being there,” says Taguchi. “It was such a privilege, and a great way in which to look at my own sense of that country, still with these gentle, polite, lovely people, but there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.”

In the potentially explosive documentary, Taguchi meets with investigative journalist Yasuomi Sawa at the Yokohama Archives of History in Tokyo to learn about Abe’s connections with the Unification Church. (Abe’s alleged killer told investigators he was motivated by a grudge he held against the church over his mother’s bankruptcy.) Bizarre footage is also shown of Abe and Donald Trump at a Church event.

“What I know from my dad [who was an investigative journalist in Japan] and what I saw in Mr Sawa, is that Japanese journalists are very thorough,” says Taguchi. “You’d think maybe there’s a sense of restriction and they don’t want to criticise the government. There’s none of that. Speaking to Mr Sawa reminded me of that robust journalistic heritage in Japan, especially in that massive building in which every newspaper in the country is archived daily. Japan still has a very strong print industry where physical newspapers are still massively popular.”

In heartbreaking interviews, Taguchi speaks with people who claim their lives have been destroyed by the church’s donations requirements. She also conducts conversations, inside a shuttered church premises, with church members, including a leader.

“There’s a lot of fear among church members. But when we arrived, they were so welcoming. I was worried it might feel a little like [dealing with the Church of] Scientology, like, ‘Oh god, now I’m on the radar!’ I didn’t feel like that at all. We were very open and honest with what we were doing and what questions we were asking, and why we felt we needed to ask them.”

Regular viewers of Dateline, which is Australia’s longest-running international current affairs program, broadcast since 1984, may notice a shift in tone towards the end of the report. After a commercial break, Taguchi appears in the home of a young mother who has prepared for disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear explosions or military attacks, by installing a tiny portable bunker in her living room.

“It feels like a quirky thing at the end,” says Taguchi. “But it’s part of the culture in Japan and such disasters are not out of the realm of possibility.”

The structural change to include a five-minute human interest segment, following the main 25-minute report, is intended to broaden audience appeal and cater for digital platforms.

As well as umpiring Insight forums for her second year, a job Taguchi relishes because, “I feel like that’s where we need to constantly be aiming for in our daily lives – it’s OK to disagree and it doesn’t have to end in fisticuffs”, she plans to film another, as yet unspecified, report for Dateline. Other topics in the program’s 2023 slate include Scotland’s housing crisis due to the short-term rental industry and stories from Jamaica, Turkey, Ukraine and Denmark.

“I find it amazing that a program like Dateline can be still so strong when there’s so much competition in such a globalised market,” says Taguchi. “Twenty years ago, I remember switching on Dateline, and it was my only window into the world. I wonder whether its longevity is because it’s not a deliberate Australian lens, but there’s a way in which Australians ask questions and frame stories. Generally, as Australian storytellers, I don’t think we’re afraid to be a bit bold.”

#shinzo abe #unification church in japan #japanese church #moonies #kumi taguchi #japan #unification chur #ffwpu #family federation for world peace and unification #religion

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