Oppression: Then and Now

Naoki Uraski & Ayako Tome, OCU

Okinawa has been under a great deal of pressure for such a long time. These pressures have been exerted from the outside over a long period. There are two major periods when pressure has been applied to Okinawa and has forced Okinawans to accept certain conditions from outside influences.

Firstly, it came in 1609 with the Satsuma invasion which set up a vassal relationship with the mainland. This relationship continued until 1879 when Japan formally annexed Okinawa by force and subsequently began abolishing local Okinawan culture and language. For many hundreds of years Okinawans enjoyed our own culture, language, and ways of living, etc. However, this massive change began 134 years ago, so now Okinawan people have already been essentially Japanized, despite their resistance and interest in saving the local culture and language. We feel today that want to Japanize ourselves, and this process includes even us, the authors.

When people live in such an unusual world for so long, the unusual seems to feel usual and normal. Perhaps, this feeling in people locally has lingered for a long time. We are basically Okinawan, but no one says I'm an Okinawan when they are asked. Do you know what this unwillingness or inability to respond from the perspective of an Okinawan actually means? It means that we subconsciously think that if I say I'm an Okinawan, no one understands it. So, it is better to say I'm Japanese. This is sort of oppression we are facing now, which we can't really see.
 

Okinawa Prefectural Government 2004

Secondly, as you may know, American military bases problems in Okinawa have continued for the past 68 years. The local problems are huge and sadly they seem to be ignored in the mainland of Japan. The Secretary of America's Department of Defense and a Japanese dignitary publicly proclaimed that there is no way that American military bases in Okinawa will move to another prefecture, except within Okinawa. After hearing that news, the Okinawan Prefectural Governor Hirokazu Nakaima was shocked and lost for words: "I don't understand," he responded.

So, what are some ways in which the imposition of these bases affect people locally? Noise is a huge problem. In the interior of rooms of unauthorized daycare centers located near Kadena Air Base and Marine Corps Air Station, Futenma, the noise levels were recorded at 70dB. The World Health Organization warns that sustained noises above 35dB can have significant negative effects on humans.

The problem is that fifty-eight of ninety-seven schools are still ineligible for government-sponsored grants for sufficient soundproofing. Warplanes fly their training missions over densely populated areas even when young children are trying to take afternoon naps at their daycare centers and kindergartens.

We wonder how our readers would feel, if their children attended schools where war planes and

Futenma "Family Day"[1] (i.e. Osprey Safety Propaganda)

helicopters flew overhead every day, shaking the windows and buildings and the lives of people on the ground? Would our readers stand for this in communities throughout the United States or in Tokyo or Osaka? Pilots at Futenma MCAS say that they fly their routes far away from facilities such as schools, hospitals, shopping malls, and people's homes "as far as their possibly can," but this simply isn't possible with an military airfield surrounding a highly populated urban area.

Another bizarre question that critics of the Okinawan perspective seem to pose almost by reflex is, "why do the Okinawans build their towns so close to our bases?"

This question seems to come from complete ignorance that the land on which Futenma MCAS was taken by American military force using their power after the war. The local people who were driven from the land could not return as the concrete and asphalt covered over their former lives, their former crops, and their former communities. As the years turned into decades, the communities of people living on the perimeter outside the fence began to grow. So, the question is strange. The people never left that area of Okinawa.

The lies that are told about Futenma and about the imposition of American military bases and their negative impacts are also oppressive. We don't need the military to remind us that even ideas and stories told about our history are oppressive to us.



[1] Photo credit to Lance Corporal John S. Gargano, July 18, 2013