You said you could infodump on Okinawa? Could you tell me more about Okinawa? I know some basic stuff (independent Ryukyuan kingdom effectively until late 1800s, culturally distinct, Hawai'i : USA : : Okinawa : Japan, lot of American bases creating tension since WWII, kinda thing), but I'd love to know more.
Oh Omi, I am so late with this response, but I’m so excited to talk about Okinawa!!!
(It’s so funny, I’m actually currently associated with an organization called the Okinawa Memories Initiative (OMI) for short, so this has been a funny little joke for my sleep-deprived mind.)
So, Okinawan history is really long and complicated, as all good histories are, so I guess I’ll start with the idea that even though Okinawa is not formally and officially considered a place where indigenous people live, that is absolutely the case! Okinawa has close to about 800 separate dialects across the archipelago chain, and those have been classified into 6 completely distinct languages by linguists and language preservationists. Okinawan clothes, religion, customs, food and environment are very very distinct from mainland Japanese customs, and actually, Okinawan customs mirror the only indigenous group that Japan does recognize, the Ainu, more than it ever looks like mainland Japan.
Despite all of that, Okinawan people are not recognized as an indigenous group officially, and that’s solely because of the American presence on the island. The base situation on Okinawa would be illegal by the UN conventions, were Okinawa considered to be an indigenous population, so bureaucratically, Okinawans are not considered indigenous peoples. Many Okinawans themselves have debates about this: some people wish to be recognized as distinct from Japanese, but the vast majority of Okinawans think of themselves as Japanese and part of Japan, and although they have a different culture, they see it in the same way that Osaka or Hiroshima has slightly different customs from Tokyo. And even those who consider themselves to be distinct from mainland Japanese folks don’t necessarily like the term “indigenous” very much either!
The base issue on-island today is very heated because these issues actually stem back much longer than just the American occupation. The idea of Okinawan indigeneity is long and tumultuous.
But, let’s take a small detour: Why are the Americans on the island still? That’s a good question. After WW2 and the historically bloody Battle of Okinawa, the Americans took over Okinawa, hoping to use it as a place to launch a mainland attack on Japan, before the idea of atomic bombs were publicized. After the atomic bombs, however, the U.S was very confused about what to do with Okinawa, for a period of about 4 years. They figured they would do to Okinawa what they did to Japan: set the island up to be economically stable, maybe economically dependent on the U.S, and just leave. They didn’t see much to be gained from Okinawa: it’s pretty barren and not super fertile for growing crops, not like the Philippines was. Then, in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War, and the U.S decided that no, actually, they weren’t going to leave.
This is a map of Okinawa. It’s a military strategy map, and it’s one of the reasons America calls Okinawa, “The Keystone of the Pacific” -- in the midst of Cold War Era preparations, the holding of Okinawa became crucial as a part of America’s Communist Containment Strategy against North Korea and China and Vietnam.
The U.S. was like, “Psyche! If any of you start a war or get too cocky, we’ll be there within the hour to send troops down, so. Don’t do that! This is a deterrent strategy :)”
The Okinawans, of course, replied back, “Hey. If you’re close enough to China to drop a bomb on them within the hour, aren’t they close enough to us to drop a bomb on us within the hour?”
And the U.S said, “Don’t worry about it :) Your lives aren’t important enough.” This is where a lot of the anger, fear and frustration about the American presence on Okinawa comes from, the fear that Okinawa could get nuked or bombed, in a Pearl Harbour strategy to get rid of America’s major firepower, a process that would harm Okinawans who don’t feel they’re involved or interested in any of America or Japan’s major fights with the rest of the world.
During the Cold War, Okinawa was used as the launch point for troops headed to the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and even the Afghanistan War. And Okinawans, on their own island, were treated like secondary citizens by the U.S Military Provisional Government. One of the biggest archival records of the injustices that the U.S government inflicted upon Okinawans is the land seizure and underpayment of money for the land seizure, documented and detailed by the U.S provisional government from the 1950s-1960s. By the U.S Government’s own admission, they cheated Okinawans out of millions and millions of dollars, by seizing their land, preventing their crop growth, and underpaying them for the value of the land: and this isn’t even taking into account the significance of the US government stealing ancestral lands, and building bases over and around big ancestral tombs on Okinawa, and barring people access from those tombs.
(This is an image of a golf course onbase, that just has an ancestral tomb there. You can’t get onto base without a U.S passport, and Okinawans have a festival called Obon, which is very similar to Toussaint and Day of the Dead, where you go to your ancestral tombs and clean it up/pay your respects. This is now impossible for this particular family)
Okinawa is the poorest prefecture in Japan, and although it’s certainly because of pre-war discrimination and the destruction of pretty much all Okinawan capital during the war, the post-war suppression of Okinawan wealth, through the U.S. Military Government’s extortion plays a huge role
There was a large protest movement, headed by a man called Ahagon Shoko, against the U.S Base presence, specifically centred around the issues of land seizure and land rights. Another concurrent movement, started by more liberal, anti-war Okinawans, was centred on removing the U.S base presence because of the threats faced by Okinawans during the Cold War. A third movement, filled with people who felt more closely aligned with Japanese nationalists, and were fed up of the strange, new customs that the American government was imposing upon the populace, pushed for Okinawa to return to Japan. These movements all put a lot of pressure on the U.S Military government, and eventually led to the 1972 Reversion of Okinawa from American control to Japanese control.
This wasn’t the happiest solution. After all, during the war, Japan’s fascistic treatment of Okinawans as expendable soldiers who have to give up everything for the Emperor—but also, your language and customs are backwards and we think you’re inherently untrustworthy—was something most Okinawans despised. Going back to Japan was not an ideal solution for many who felt humiliated by mainland Japanese folks.
However. Even though the island was now part of Japan, the U.S bases never left. A few were shut down, but the majority of the large bases remained. This was, in many ways, a problem.
Some statistics (which are highly contested, so take them with a grain of salt!) 75% of the American bases in Japan are congregated on Okinawa, taking up over 35% of the available land on Okinawa. Of the land that has been paved over by the American bases, about 65% is supposed to be arable, fertile land. For what the American bases primarily do, which is working with experimental technology and running field training, the American bases are FAR too close to cities and places where people live, especially in a town called Ginowan.
This is just a screenshot of Google Maps around MCAS Futenma, and you can see just how closely the base hugs the town. What you can also see is the proximity of several schools and universities to the edge of the base, which has been the cause for many tragic accidents. Okinawa International University's incident with the Osprey crashing into one of the buildings, and injuring several students, is perhaps the most well-known issue, but just last year, a helicopter window fell out of a test vehicle, and landed on the elementary school playground, which only just narrowly avoided killing students.
The daily noise pollution is more of a problem, though. One of my friends, is actually in the process of writing a research paper, with an ARC GIS map describing the levels of noise pollution in the cities around bases. It’s not published yet, so I don’t have the images for you, but ALL of the bases violate international laws about noise pollution that’s acceptable for civilians to be exposed to. It’s pretty bad.
So, there’s been a movement to get rid of the bases on Okinawa lately, and in some ways, it succeeded. The U.S government has agreed to eventually get rid of MCAS Futenma. Bill Clinton signed a bill in 1992 saying it would eventually be removed.
However, the military is constantly infighting, there’s a big pissing competition between the Army, Marines and the Air Force, and the Marines were not happy with the idea that their influence on Okinawa would be reduced (MCAS Futenma is one of the biggest Marine bases on-island.) So instead, they decide to expand their base at Camp Schwab, which is up in the north of Okinawa, in a place called Henoko.
(This is a picture of Camp Schwab and Oura Bay: all of the marked-out land has been filled in with concrete by this point.)
You’ve probably heard of Henoko in the news a lot, its construction is a huge controversy. Henoko is special for a multitude of reasons. Not only is it a spiritual place for many of the Okinawans there, it’s also home to one of the largest coral reefs in Japan AND it’s the home of the endangered species, the dugong. To build out Henoko, they would have to destroy the coral reef by filling in the bay with concrete, and they would have to destroy a lot of the natural wildlife on land and in the ocean. Understandably, Okinawans and wildlife activists alike were NOT pleased.
Activists set up a large protest tent outside Camp Schwab, and have been there since the 1990s, when the Henoko construction was first announced. The main protestors there are old folks, and although the news loves to pretend that the base issue is only a thing that old people care about, that’s just not the case. Younger people have jobs and school and can’t be there, but the mood of the populace is very much against new bases being built!
(On a sidenote, a lot of young folks don’t mind the existing bases being around, actually, but it’s a complicated and nuanced topic, especially when we discuss young women. For more details, I would suggest the INCREDIBLE book by Akemi Johnson, Night in the American Village, which details the ways in which Okinawan women interface with American troops in positive and intensely negative ways. The American military gets extremely bad press in Okinawa for the frequent rapes, and violent incidents that occur every couple years like clockwork.)
(I was actually at this protest, which happened in 2018, after the death of beloved Okinawan Governor, Takeshi Onaga, who was a staunch anti-military-base politician. Thousands of people were gathered together on this incredibly rainy and miserable day, that precluded a typhoon, just to voice their support against the bases. It was truly a moment of understanding just how deeply he base issue rings in the hearts of many, even if they can’t afford to express it all the time.)
Anyway, after a lot of back-and-forths, and issues with Henoko constantly being brought to the appeals court in San Francisco and dismissed by the U.S. Government, the issue comes to a head in 2019. New governor, Denny Tamaki, is appointed as the successor to Takeshi Onaga, and he’s very anti-base as well! In fact, one of the first things he does, is hold a referendum, to gauge the Okinawan mood against Henoko’s construction. What’s the outcome?
Absolutely unsurprising for anybody who’d been paying attention. More than 70% of Okinawans are against the bases. Does this stop the American construction in any way? Nope! In fact, just three days after the referendum results were released, the bay was completely filled in with concrete and the coral reef was destroyed.
You might be wondering at this point: why does Japan tolerate the presence of the American military in what is actually a Japanese prefecture? Well, simply put, the Japanese-American alliance is incredibly strong at this point, and is almost entirely from self-preservation. In the Japanese constitution created by Americans in the aftermath of WW2, racist Americans thought that the Japanese people were simply “predisposed towards war” and the only way to prevent Japan’s imperialism was to prevent them from being militaristic all together. Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution bans Japan from having a standing army. Japan doesn’t really obey this. The Japan Self Defense Force is actually the fifth largest army in the world in terms of firepower: with the caveat that they can’t start conflicts, they can only defend themselves and aid their allies. So, America and Japan are deeply tied together, because America could potentially start wars Japan can’t, and help defend them, in the event of a war.
Japan, as I mentioned before, also still has something of a discriminatory attitude toward Okinawans. Pretty every depiction of Okinawans I’ve seen in Japanese popular media is filled with hurtful stereotypes and is pretty xenophobic? And many Okinawans describe going to mainland Japan as something very strange, because there’s this common perception that they’re uneducated hicks or whatever. Okinawans still aren’t really considered Japanese, and so there’s very much a NIMBY attitude about the military bases by the Japanese government. They essentially think, “Well, the American bases are a necessary evil to keeping Japan safe. Oh, and most of them are congregated in Okinawa, where the average Japanese citizen won’t ever see them? Great!”
(Not to mention, a few of the big bases on Okinawa are JSDF bases and are equally despised by Okinawans too, and there’s an understanding of why the Japanese government is fine with American interference, and refuses to allow Okinawan opinion to sway their minds).
Although construction had been halted onsite for a while, because of coronavirus, it’s back to building as usual, despite the ongoing protests at Henoko. I don’t think the Okinawan people win this battle against the will of the American government, destroying things all over the world, as they are wont to do.
In one final piece of tragedy, the last Okinawan dugong has been missing for the past few months, after the other two were found dead. We think it’s almost certainly dead too. The dugongs, who are spiritual vessels in the Okinawan religion, are a true loss.
In terms of Okinawan language and culture and stuff, I think I might need another post entirely to discuss that, but some incredibly special and incredible parts is:
Okinawan Music, usually sung in uchinaaguchi! Both more traditional songs like Tinsagu no Hana (remixed here by some cool folks!) and some newer songs by BEGIN like Nada Sou Sou and Shimanchu nu Takara! Just some incredibly moving stuff.
One of the many folk dances on Okinawa, Eisa! Eisa’s usually performed during the Obon season and it’s such a beautiful and skilled dance coordinated by so many! One of the most fun things during Eisa season is every year, 10,000 Eisa dancers fill up International Street in Naha and dance pretty much all day! Here’s a video of the festival that I went to (but not my video, since I didn’t have a tripod that day)
The UNESCO page and its justifications for why it chose certain Okinawan sites is a good useful place to start, when thinking of unique Okinawan architecture! From the red-brick roof tiles of Shuri Castle (which was tragically destroyed in a fire in late 2019), to the unique constructions of all the old gusuku, made without mortar, to the beautiful Seifa Utaki, where many practitioners of Okinawan religion gather for its spiritual connections, there’s a lot to learn!
Okinawan pottery is absolutely gorgeous! One of the main recognized styles is tsuboya-yaki, which was created in the Ryukyuan Dynasty in the 1400-1500s, but refined by Kinjo Jiro, a man so good at redefining Okinawan Pottery, he was called a Living Treasure! All pottery in Okinawa used to be centred around the Tsuboya district in Naha, but when Kinjo moved up to Yomitan, some many people followed him that Yomitan is now a pottery destination! There are other styles too, influenced by China and Korea.
I could keep going. Okinawa’s known for all of its folk-crafts. From bingata, to lacquerware, to kijoka-bashofu, to ryukyu glass...there’s an incredibly vibrant and alive culture, for all that people want to pretend Okinawan cultures are dead and in the past.
I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the way that Okinawan culture is both dependent on the sorts of tourism that keeps a lot of these folk-crafts and traditional sites relevant and funded, but are also destroyed by the ways that tourists bring their own colonialist visions to Okinawa and how Japan’s influence in Okinawan tourist sites keeps alive imperialist narratives about Okinawa, and how tourist presence often destroys the natural beauty of a lot of these sites. It’s a constant difficult survival of balancing the two, but it’s not an unfamiliar struggle for anybody who studies indigenous island cultures and the way that tourism works in those places. In any case, thinking about Okinawan culture in a non-touristy sense is the best thing to do!
