Recently, Pope Francis of Vatican became the first Catholic Church head to directly address the G7 informal grouping of countries. The G7, primarily made of west-centric 7 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Canada, USA and Japan), has had several religious leaders write to the organization over various issues.
Narendra Modi also met Pope Francis at the G7 meeting in Italy this week.
Table of Contents
Religious leaders at G7
The group is disproportionately addressed by Christian leaders, such as the Archbishop of Canteburry Justin Webley in 2021 asking the world to stop hoarding vaccines, or in 2020 when the Dalai Lama made a call to all world leaders to make strides in preventing global warming, or Dr. Daisaku Ikeda of Soka Gakkai addressing the G7 to make the “No First Use” policy a global policy, or multiple other addresses by Pope Francis on Artificial Intelligence.
In 2016, in Japan’s G7 meet, the world leaders visited the holiest Shinto Shrine of Japan as well. Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan. Yet, no addresses by Shinto priests were made here.
Curious Case of Japan
We have seen a retaliation in Japan, the only non-Christian country, against the rising Christian demographic in Japan. Japan, a country which is not allowed to keep their own military, has been reduced to a vassal of the west, does not have a say in these global decisions despite being a major economy and the only country to experience a horrific nuclear attack.
Church donations in western countries, despite the decline in Christianity, are sums large enough to go into missionary activities across the globe (£1 = ₹106.19, and if even 10 people pay £10 that is £100 which is ₹10,619, more than the average salary of a job after bachelor’s). A stronger economy means that without any government support, merely leaving these organizations unregulated causes them to spread across the globe as a means of further soft power.
In Japan, the rising angst against this form of religious globalization push was seen in the assassination of Shinzo Abe by a certain Tetsuki Yamagami. Tetsuki Yamagami was four years old when his father, an EO at a company, had committed suicide due to overworking. His mother, subsequently, joined the Unification Church, founded in South Korea. His teenage years were spent in extreme poverty as his mother donated around ¥100,000,000 across his childhood.
Tetsuki’s younger brother also committed suicide, but a teenage Tetsuki managed to join the Navy for three years, then spent the rest of his life as a factory worker. Meanwhile, his mother had sold off property and assets worth another ¥100,000,000 to donate to the church and the family declared bankruptcy in 2002. In 2005, Tetsuki also tried to commit suicide, but failed, and his mother did not visit him afterwards as she was on a Church trip.
Finally, Tetsuki Yamagami, at the age of 41, became the man who shot and assassinated Shinzo Abe. Shinzo Abe was accused of having ties to the Unification Church, and took many stances with this Church that made social laws that were in favor of the Church. The assassination sent shockwaves across the world.
Websites like moneycontrol were quick to point the similarities between this incident and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse.
Equal Representation and All Or None
The G7, despite being an informal grouping, is still very influential in the world. Despite only being 7 countries, they account for 43% of the global trade. This is lesser than the 70% share they had in 1994.
The share of the western world has gone down significantly, with China controlling 18.6% of global trade, the OIC controlling 9.6% of global trade and Bharat controlling 8%. This is 36.2% of the global share of GDP, which is a chunk almost equal to that of the West. Although there may still be a population disparity between these two blocs, we can see a new world order emerging, and ground level resentment building up against the west.
The days after the Papal Bull Inter Caetera are gone. The West is getting sidelined. One has to question what role religious leaders play in such events. And we should also ask ourselves why other religions are not represented in the G7.
Both Tibetan Buddhism and Soka Gakkai have huge numbers in the West, particularly in the United States of America. It shows that even the diversity, however token, is still West-centric. The Great Christian Pope will talk about Artificial Intelligence, and the meek Buddhist will talk about fears of the nuclear bomb or climate change.
Where are the Animist leaders of Africa like Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator? Where are the Darkhad of the Tengri religion? Where is the Govardhan Matha’s Shankaracharya?
The last name especially, has focused on several modern issues, including how “13 companies run the entire world”. You can watch that clip here. Dominance of these 13 companies would be much more relevant to the developing world, right? Where are these voices in the G7?
Conclusion
As the West loses its dominant position in world trade, we have to redefine the global world order. A new order is already rising. We see it in global rhetoric like the “global south”, the “BRICS”, the “East vs West” debate, and so on. We should demand equal representation on the global stage, for all religions to have a dialogue on secular topics. Meanwhile, we should also question the role of religious preachers in secular politics especially at the world stage. Global morality has to be redefined in the next few decades.
