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Okinawan Resistance, 1945-2007:

Memory, Gender and Leadership

41st Annual Conference, Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast, Honolulu, 15-17 June 2007


Panel 2B
Friday, 15 May 2007
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 Noon
Moore Hall 153B
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Co-organizers:

1. Vincent K. Pollard
Asian Studies Program
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

and

2. Linda Isako Angst
Department of Anthropology
Lewis and Clark College

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Panel abstract:

As World War II in the Pacific ended, a Movement to Demilitarize Okinawa sprung up in reaction to U.S. military occupation of ancestral lands. Those were lands where Okinawans had resided, pursued agriculture, and carried out religious observances. With the intrusion of additional threats to the security of Okinawans (especially from the fact and the threat of sexual and environmental violence), the Movement to Demilitarize Okinawa responded with a variety of nonviolent tactics. What accounts for Okinawans' surprising vibrancy and resilience in the face of daunting challenges from powerful military occupation force? Answers to this question will vary according to 1) the researcher's standpoint, 2) broader or narrower time periods of interest, and 3) specific examples selected as windows into Okinawans' resistance to the Governments of the United States-and, especially since 1972, Japan. Some usefully point to networking advantages offered by political and telecommunications globalization and to potentially receptive audiences enabled by a broadening of civil society in Japan and elsewhere. Scholars contributing to the "Okinawan Resistance, 1945-2007: Memory, Gender and Leadership" panel, however, take a different tack. In turn, they examine three interrelated developments: 1) changes in the remembering and representation of the Battle of Okinawa-a crucible of modern and contemporary Okinawan worldviews; 2) structural violence in pre-Reversion Okinawa; and 3) the dramatic rise of Okinawan women's leadership in the anti-base movement since 1995. Using a variety of research methods and theories, these papers deepen our understanding of the depths of Okinawan resistance and of the resources nourishing it.

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Discussants:

1. Vincent K. Pollard
Asian Studies Program
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

and

2. Joyce Chinen
Division of Social Sciences
University of Hawai‘i - West O‘ahu

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Co-panelists' paper abstracts:

1. "Re-working Memory: Remembering the Battle of Okinawa in the 21st Century"

Kyle Ikeda
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Within the past four years, changes in how Okinawans have been remembering and representing the Battle of Okinawa have appeared. At the 2003 Okinawan film festival, the six-hour documentary film Shima kutuba de kataru ikusa yu (Narrating the War in Local Words) was receiving critical praise and attention. Unlike earlier video recordings of war testimonies that had been given by survivors in "standard" Japanese, the narrations in Narrating the War in Local Words were being recorded in the local words and "dialects" of each speaker. In early 2004, the Himeyuri Peace Museum almost completely renovated its floor display for the first time since it opened its doors in 1989. In spring of 2005 the museum hired a 28-year-old woman who had not experienced the Battle of Okinawa, for the duty of answering questions and passing down stories about the Himeyuri from sixty years ago to the visitors at the Himeyuri Peace Museum. Until then, only the Himeyuri survivors had performed this task.

Why have these changes in the representation of war memory taken place? What has been the effect of and reaction to these transformations? In addressing these questions, I will trace the history and origins of these recent developments, revealing a longer process of (re)evaluation, planning, and action. Additionally, I will offer thoughts on the significance of these changes in representation and remembrance, as well as consider some further challenges that Okinawans face over the next few years in relation to remembering the Battle of Okinawa.

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2. "The Making and Unmaking of Okinawa: Everyday Forms of Violence"

Linda Isako Angst
Department of Anthropology
Lewis and Clark College

In Social Suffering, Arthur Kleinman defines social violence as everyday forms of suffering inflicted on peoples of the world at local, national, and global levels. In Okinawa, the presence since 1945 of 50,000-plus U.S. military servicemen training for deployment to Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, and most recently Iraq, along with arsenals of war supplies — including hidden nuclear warheads in the 1960s and '70s-as well as a growing Japanese Defense Force presence, have profoundly disturbed residents' lives. Seepage into soil of chemicals from military equipment and sound pollution from low-flying jet fighter planes roaring over residential areas in twice-daily flights have had dramatic physical and psychological effects on Okinawans-from loss of hearing, to low birth weight, to nervous disorders. The culture of violence implicit in the military has affected family structure unexpectedly, too: Okinawan women activists note higher levels of domestic violence and incidences of rape than in the mainland. In 2001, Japan's then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tanaka Makiko, commenting on the rape of a Japanese (not Okinawan) woman in Okinawa by a U.S. serviceman, questioned the woman's morals, squarely blaming the girl. Doing so, Tanaka, like other Japanese officials before her, turned a blind eye to the daily violence wrought by the huge military presence. Indeed, her comments (and the related comments and actions of U.S. administrators) are an example of ways in which violence in Okinawa has been perpetuated and reproduced through a range of hegemonic practices, belying the facade of a safe and peaceful Japan.

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3. "Women's Rights Perspective: A New Direction in the Anti-U.S. Base Movement in Okinawa"

Rinda Vishnu Ramnani-Yamashiro
Department of Sociology
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

This paper examines the emergence of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, a women's anti-base group in Okinawa. Seventy-five percent of the U.S. military bases in Japan are concentrated on this small island. Since 1945, Okinawa has been suffering from various problems that stem from the U.S. military presence. Rape has been among the most heinous of crimes committed by U.S. soldiers. Rape and sexual assault continue to threaten women and children in Okinawa.

However, issues of violence against women regarded as, private matters, have not been properly addressed by the male dominant anti-base movement in Okinawa. In 1995, a turning point for anti-base feminists was marked when a twelve-year-old Okinawan girl was raped by three U.S. service men. This crime triggered a huge uprising in Okinawa. Women played a central role in mobilizing people and demanding justice. Since then, women's continued efforts to raise women's rights consciousness have helped women and the general public to view rape and rape-prevention as women's rights issues. Women's efforts also led to the establishment of an alternative public sphere where women articulate and disseminate a woman's perspective concerning the anti-base movement.

However, the questions raised concerning these issues are complex and require closer consideration. What were the elements that helped empower women to speak out and establish themselves and their perspective to the movement? What is it about the 1995 rape case that differentiated it from a multitude of previous rape cases and that made women play a leading role in a historically male-dominated anti-base movement? Social movement theory usefully aids in analyzing these questions. The paper answers these questions by drawing on three theories relevant to this social movement-political opportunity, framing, and resource mobilization.

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Last modified, 29 May 2007.

© 2007, Vincent K. Pollard and the individual co-panelists.
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