Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

The second wave 85
Kenrōkyō. The division among Okinawan unionized labour mirrored that between
the socialists and communist party members in mainland Japan (Tōyama 1987:
412). Although workers’ unions were internally divided, and also tended to place
priority on their specific economic agendas, they nevertheless became leading actors
in local political activism against the US.
Early in the 1960s human rights activists also became part of the community of
protest. Thus, in April 1961, together with more than three hundred citizens,
Fukuchi Hiroaki established the Okinawa Human Rights Association (Okinawa
Jinken Kyōkai). This organization is the oldest of its kind in Okinawa. It raises the
awareness of Okinawan residents in relation to such issues as personal safety,
freedom, and private property. Roger Baldwin, a US citizen and Executive Secretary
of the International League for Human Rights 21 was a key influence on Fukuchi
and the Association followed Baldwin’s advice to establish an apolitical or
politically neutral image (Watanabe 1970: 140).
Yet its executive members included the most influential leader of the Council
for Reversion, Yara Chōbyō, and Fukuchi himself, was an active Okinawa Teachers’
Association member and executive member of the Council for Reversion. To the
present, Fukuchi exemplifies many Okinawan political activists with overlapping
organizational memberships among progressive political parties and unions. Far
from being politically neutral, the Human Rights Association was closely related
to the progressive coalition, and campaigned for reversion. The inauguration
statement of the Okinawa Human Rights Association in February 1961 stated the
Okinawans’ strong wish for reversion, and stressed the importance of the Japanese
Constitution:
After WWII the Japanese Constitution clearly stipulated the eternally inviolable
nature of basic human rights. Unfortunately, because the political administration
of Okinawa was taken over by the US Occupation forces, the Okinawan
people have been unable to benefit from the Constitution.
(Nakano 1969: 356)
The statement also clearly recognized the lineage of the historical struggle of the
‘Okinawans’ as one people: ‘In Okinawa, pioneers’ efforts to protect human rights
existed since Meiji as exemplified by Jahana Noboru’s People’s Rights Movement’
(Nakano 1969: 356). 22
It is clear now that, in Okinawans’ collective actions for reversion, teachers’
and workers’ unions, and political parties played a central role, framing the struggle
for reversion as a ‘class struggle’. The unions were able to do this for a number of
related reasons. First, many of the primary grievances of the Okinawans were, as
we have seen, related to work and to the conditions under which Okinawans sold
their labour to the Americans. They were related to pay rates, to working hours,
to conditions of work, to holiday entitlements, to free rights of association and
organization, and so on. Second, unions could assume a leadership role because
once organized, they could more easily assemble resources than other protest actors
and they were, for related reasons, the most capable of organizing and mounting