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Tokyo – Execution of the 13 death row prisoners of the Aum sect does not sign the death sentence of sectarian movements in Japan, most of them small groups that do not represent a major threat but can nonetheless become dangerous refuges for socially weakened people, according to experts.
The Sarin gas attack and other murders perpetrated more than 20 years ago by members of the Aum Truth Supreme cult, created by guru Shoko Asahara (whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto), left their mark indelible in the minds of the Japanese, but the sects have not disappeared from the landscape.
Especially since the definition of " sects " in Japan is very evasive and that there exist in parallel many organizations which, abroad, are perceived as sectarian movements.
" It is difficult to draw a line between religious groups and sects, but we can say that sects frighten people to get from them what the group wants ", explains l lawyer Yoshiro Ito who is fighting against these movements.
" I think that the number of sects is important, but they are mostly small groups, unlike the large American occult organizations ," he says.
" Few sects in Japan threaten people's lives but many are involved in fraud, or financial extortion using bullying, a typical example being + you'll go to hell if you do not buy it vase + ", still decrypts Mr. Ito.
The largest sect currently recorded in Japan is the Unification Church, otherwise known as the Moon Sect, which, according to Ito, has tens of thousands of faithful in the archipelago.
Aum, she changed her name, she is now called Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and, although officially defending her, still venerates Asahara, as images of interior of its premises broadcast Thursday by the public channel NHK, where Asahara is photographed everywhere.
The police, even if it establishes the link of continuity with Aum, tolerates anyway Aleph (as well as Hikarinowa, a twin emanation), by watching its actions: the premises of this small group were searched Thursday by the forces of the order when Aum's last six prisoners had been executed after seven earlier this month.
– Love Quest –
" I think Aum's case has been a warning to society over the past 20 years: we know that supporters have not had a happy ending and they were enlisted ", explains Professor Kimiaki Nishida, psychosociology specialist at Rissho University in Tokyo.
But if cults continue to exist and recruit, it is that " society can not bring solutions to all problems, whereas sectarian movements offer the fantasy of the answer to everything. ", he continues.
Kenji Kawashima, a professor of philosophy and contemporary thought at Tohoku Gakuin University (Sendai, in the north-east of the country), judges that sects have occupied the void left by the disappearance of traditions because of the modernization of the habitat and lifestyles.
" There used to be some altars in the houses that kept in touch with the ancestors ," he recalls.
The sectarian movements are particularly interested in adolescents and young adults who sometimes have a tense or insufficiently affectionate relationship with their family.
In a context of declining birth rates, " one might think that parent-child relationships are strengthening, but parents often put pressure on their children to fulfill their desires. and love elsewhere "says Kawashima.
" Those who were involved in the crimes of the Aum sect were very intelligent young people, they had relationship difficulties, sought refuge and failed there ", commented on several Shoko media Egawa, an independent journalist who has been investigating for years on the subject. " We must not think that they were weird people who belong to the past, but badyze their case to avoid falling back into the same situation ," she insists.
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