Posted at 12:00 a.m.
1. The trigger
On July 8, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in the street during a speech. The murderer, Tetsuya Yamagami, explained that he wanted to punish the politician, connected according to him to a “certain organization”, which he accuses of having ruined his family. Local media quickly deduced that the organization in question was the Unification Church, better known as the “Moon Sect”. According to what the Japanese press reports, the mother of the murderer would have given 100 million yen (nearly a million CAN) to the religious organization. Her manager in Japan pleaded that her members’ donations were voluntary and that no one forced the follower to donate her shirt. This story shone the spotlight on the “Moon sect” and its links to the political world.
2. A long-standing relationship
The Unification Church says Shinzo Abe was not a member. On the other hand, the former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) had many links with the Moon sect, indirect, but long-standing. As Arnaud Grivaud, specialist in contemporary Japanese politics at Paris Cité University, explains, it is thanks to Mr. Abe’s grandfather and co-founder of the PLD, Kishi Nobusuke (Prime Minister from 1957 to 1960) that the South Korean organization was able to establish itself so widely in Japan as early as the late 1950s.
3. Diverted Funding
Relations have since multiplied between the two entities, which shared the same conservative and anti-communist ideology. According to Mr. Grivaud, the Moon sect is no stranger to the fact that the PLD has been able to maintain power practically without interruption since 1957. “The services that the sect rendered to politicians were essentially votes. They asked their followers to vote for such a PLD candidate. They also sent assistants to work with parliamentarians free of charge. It was a roundabout way of financing the party,” explains the academic. By a “slightly tacit pact”, the PLD would have in return facilitated the activities of the Church, allowing it in particular to change its name in 2015, in order to be able to benefit from tax advantages. The Prime Minister was then… Shinzo Abe.
4. The Messiah
The Unification Church, now renamed the Family Federation for World Peace, but still referred to by the media as the “Moon Sect”, was founded in Seoul in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012). Starting from nothing, this self-proclaimed Messiah, supposed to have “met” Jesus at the age of 15, has built over the years a Christian organization of international stature which is mainly established in Korea, Japan and the United States. United. It also has a chapter in Montreal.
PHOTO ED JONES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Portrait of Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja-Han, Gapyeong
5. A sect?
The Moon sect made a lot of noise in the 1980s, with its “mass marriages” bringing together thousands of couples. Its members believe that a Third World War will be necessary to complete the pacifist mission of the founder. Is it a sect? “I think it is better to avoid this word, which is associated with something bad, nuance Mike Kropveld, director of Infosect. For me, it’s a very short way to describe a movement that takes up more space. Professor at the London School of Economics and specialist in the matter, Eileen Barker prefers the term “new religious movement”.
6. A dark side
The Unification Church is also a real financial empire, which brews billions in construction, food, automobiles, tourism, education or the media. But this success hides a dark side. Sun Myung Moon was sentenced in 1984 to 18 months in prison for tax evasion in the United States and his Church, which was repeatedly criticized for having financially abused its faithful. After the death of Reverend Moon, the Church was torn apart in a succession crisis. One of Reverend Moon’s sons now runs a branch that advocates the carrying of weapons and allows the presence of machine guns during religious ceremonies.
7. Successful bet
Arnaud Grivaud is surprised that it was necessary to wait for a coup for the Japanese media to look into the links between the sect and the PLD. The political activities of the organization were nevertheless known, at least in the United States, where the Reverend Moon notably supported Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. In this sense, the murder of Shinzo Abe is more than a news item, concludes Mr. Grivaud. “If the assassin’s objective was also to get people talking about this sect and to show the issues related to the political world, it’s successful…”
The Montreal branch of the Federation of Families for World Peace did not respond to messages from The Press.
With the BBC, Discovery, Al-Jazeera, The Conversationdefect