Page 3 of
3 Okinawa and the
'beautiful country' By Gavan
McCormack
par with the rest of
Japan) basis when secret clauses of the agreement
made clear that it would be neither. Despite the
mounting evidence on this over recent decades,
from US archival sources and from Japanese
officials who played a central part in the
process, the Japanese government sticks to its
formal position of denial.
Most recently,
it was revealed that not only did the Japanese
government pay the $4 million component that was
earmarked to
compensate local Okinawan
landowners (which the US government was obliged by
the agreement to pay), but that it put pressure on
the US to delay the payment - evidently in fear
that the truth might out - with the result that
only one-quarter of the designated sum ever
reached its supposed Okinawan beneficiaries. [17]
Tokyo's stance on war and war memory is
also especially sensitive to Okinawans. The Abe
government is composed almost entirely of those
who deny Japan's war responsibility and call for a
"proud" version of Japanese history and compulsory
patriotism to be taught in the schools.
Not only have they been successful in
eliminating reference to "comfort women" from the
nation's school texts, but in the text-screening
process last year, reference to the "compulsory
suicide" of Okinawans was also deleted. No memory
of the catastrophe of 1945 is more sacred to
Okinawans than that of their forebears being
ordered to kill themselves so as not to
inconvenience the Imperial Japanese Army's war.
[18] Not surprisingly, 81% of Okinawans opposed
this directive. [19] Since then, one after
another, local governments across Okinawa have
passed resolutions of protest and demands for the
withdrawal of the order. [20]
Okinawa
reveals in concentrated form the contours of the
Abe state that are less visible from Tokyo or
Osaka. The Abe project, including proving loyalty
to Washington, depends on purging Okinawans of
their pacifism and overcoming their commitment to
preservation of their environment and co-existence
with endangered species; ultimately, it may even
require purging their war memories, too.
Okinawan bitterness at the Abe government
continues to build. Okinawan elites may be swayed
by promises of subsidies or deterred by threats,
but the Abe sense of beauty is widely seen as a
bizarre 21st-century attempt to return to the
fantasies of the emperor-worshipping militaristic
past.
Most Okinawans watch in fascinated
horror as the Abe government's calls for beauty
contrast ever more starkly with the reality of its
sinking into a morass of corruption scandals and
bizarre statements (women as baby-producing
machines, human rights as a non-Japanese ideology
best kept within limits, and "comfort women" as
volunteer prostitutes providing the wartime
Japanese forces a service akin to present-day
university cafeterias). They are not inclined to
see much beauty in this or in the reorganization
of Japan to serve US security concerns. They sense
that they are prime targets for last month's
reorganization law.
Furthermore, they
understand that the economic benefits of obedience
to Tokyo and dependence in the past have been more
illusory than real, and expect little change under
the "incentive" system of the new law. Tellingly,
those contending for office in Okinawa have never
presented themselves as proponents of
militarization. Instead, both the previous and the
present governors, Inamine Keiichi elected in 1998
and Nakaima Hirokazu elected in 2006, adopted a
pose of studied ambiguity on the bases while
campaigning instead on their promise to use their
superior national-government connections to lift
Okinawa out of poverty.
Yet the poverty
remains, Okinawa's economy remains stubbornly flat
- joblessness at about double the national average
and per capita income half that of Tokyo. Abe's
"beautiful country" policies enforce a dependence
that prolongs and deepens it.
Notes 1. For details,
Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the
American Embrace, New York and London, Verso,
2007, chapter 4 (published June 2007). 2. For
a short account: "Diet passes 'incentive' bill to
realign US forces", Asahi Shimbun, May 24, 2007;
editorial: "US military alignment", Asahi Shimbun,
May 25, 2007. 3. The following account draws
from chapter 7 of Client State. 4.
Details in Client State. 5. Protest
statement by representative Okinawan intellectuals
and public figures to Abe and Defense Minister
Fumio Kyuma, May 24, 2007, courtesy Sato Manabu of
Okinawa International University. 6. Beigun
saihenho - kane to atsuryoku dake de wa, Tokyo
Shimbun, May 24, 2007. 7, Nishi Nihon Shimbun,
May 19, 2007. 8. Launched last month by Save
the Dugong Campaign Center and Citizens Assessment
Nago, with support of WWF (World Wide Fund for
Nature)-Japan, Nature Conservation Society of
Japan, Save the Dugong Foundation, and the Ten
Districts Association of Eastern Nago.
(Information from Hideki Yoshikawa, Nago city. For
an earlier analysis, see Yoshikawa's January 2007
Japan Focus essay "Internationalizing the Okinawan
struggle".) 9. Beigun saihenho seiritsu -
chiiki no jiritsushin mushibamu, editorial,
Okinawa Times, May 24, 2007. 10. Hantai
ketsugi o bankai - Henoko ku hyosei-i kensetsu
nara yobo jitsugen o, Ryukyu Shimpo, May 16,
2007. 11. Nago-shi wa ukire bun - saihen
kofukin, Okinawa Times, May 25, 2007. 12.
Voters might have assumed, when voting in the
March 2006 plebiscite, that they would not get any
future defense-related subsidies; that was their
choice. But probably none suspected that Tokyo
would go so far as to renege on an existing
commitment, unrelated to base issues but stemming
from the huge expansion in the size of the city
under an administrative reorganization. 13.
Quoted in Imai Hajime, Abe seiken ga Iwakuni
shimin ni kaeshita 'utsukushii kotae', Shukan
Kinyobi, March 23, 2007, pp 56-58. 14.
"Realignment of US forces should be sped up",
Yomiuri Shimbun, May 24, 2007. 15. Hondo no
Beigun saihen, Asahi Shimbun, February 19-22,
2007. 16. The official figure is $320 million,
but Gabe Masaaki of the University of the Ryukyus
concludes from his painstaking research that the
real figure was $685 million. See my discussion in
Client State, p 158. 17 Kyodo, "Sordid
details of Okinawan reversion deal revealed: Japan
asked US to delay compensation for landowners",
Japan Times, May 16, 2007, posted on Japan Focus,
May 17. 18. For a recent assessment of the
evidence on this tragic story, Shudan jiketsu
'gun kyosei' o shusei, Asahi Shimbun, March
31, 2007 (and other articles in same issue of
Asahi). In the worst cases, on and around the
Kerama Islands in late March 1945, close to 500
people are thought to have died. Detailed
testimony is in the official histories of Okinawa
prefecture and of Tokashiki village (on Kerama).
19. Monkasho no Okinawa 'shudan jiketsu'
gun kanyo massho o yurusanai, Shukan Kinyobi,
April 20, 2007. Also Kataritsugareta
Okinawa-sen, Okinawa Times, May 13, 2007.
20. Okinawa Times, May 29, 2007.
Gavan McCormack is an emeritus
professor of Australian National University, a
coordinator of Japan Focus, and author of the just
published Client State: Japan in the American
Embrace (New York and London: Verso).
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
