Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

88 Myth, protest and struggle in Okinawa
one. In the early 1960s, schools enhanced the standard Japanese speech training:
teachers pursued the ‘correct use of the Japanese language’ to an extent that often
involved corporal punishment for the use of the Okinawan dialect (Takara 1995:
157–8). 26 It is worth noting that the Okinawan teachers’ reversion campaign
appealed widely to the Okinawan public.
These two forms of nationalism – one anti-capitalist and the other pro-Japanese
– merged in ‘reversion nationalism’, which was then able to appeal to both progressive
activists and the wider general public who did not identify with any
particular political ideology. Under the direct rule of the US military officers who
were ‘foreigners’ and spoke a different language, the Okinawans’ emotional
closeness to yamato was amplified. ‘Reversion nationalism’ served as an ideological
resource for the Council for Reversion, until later political developments gradually
but seriously revealed its weaknesses.
The turbulent 1960s: demonstrations, strikes, and struggles
During the 1960s, the Council for Reversion and its member organizations engaged
in a number of collective actions in radical, intense, and, at times, violent ways
and these have been remembered with pride in the community of protest. Reversion
was the ultimate goal of – and source of unity among – the multiple actors involved
and ‘reversion nationalism’ continued to be the dominant framing of protest under
which collective action was conducted.
The Chief Executive election struggle and Satō’s Okinawa visit
The system of appointing the GRI Chief Executive by the US authorities highlighted
the lack of Okinawans’ authority in political administration. 27 The limited electoral
system set up by the US administration favoured the pro-US parties in the Legislature
and the GRI Chief Executive nomination. 28 Protesting against the Chief
Executive nomination system and requests for public elections were among the
progressives’ and the Council’s main demands.
On 29 October 1964, when Matsuoka Seiho was about to be nominated Chief
Executive at the Ryūkyū Legislature Special Meeting, some two thousand protesters
destroyed the front door and entered the Legislature building. They were a ‘petition
troop’ organized by the Council for Reversion, and eventually removed by the riot
police. But the conservative Liberal Democratic Party and Liberal Party members
had been forced to flee the building and the nomination was postponed (Sokoku
Fukki Tōsōshi Hensan Iinkai 1982: 1010). Subsequently, the Council held three
mass public rallies on 26 June, and 1 and 27 October, calling for autonomy and
the pubic election of Chief Executives. The rally in June attracted over fifty thousand
people. 29 The Council also launched a massive door-to-door signature collection
campaign (Sokoku Fukki Tōsōshi Hensan Iinkai 1982: 199–201).
On 19 August 1965, Prime Minister Satō visited Okinawa, raising hopes for
reversion. Satō had been an LDP nationalist protagonist for the reversion of
Okinawa. Schoolteachers ‘mobilized’ local children to welcome the Prime Minister