Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

Conclusion 179
Diet, the central government abolished this municipal authority guaranteed by the
US Special Measures Law. Arasaki explained:
Without that kind of viable and reliable legal means [i.e. the Governor’s
authority assured by the US Special Measures Law], the prospect of mobilizing
an all-encompassing mass movement is limited. Today, protest movements
are conducted by smaller groups, making trips overseas (such as to Korea and
Iraq) . . . However, they do not have general Okinawan public support.
(Arasaki et al. 2003: 45–6)
According to this argument, under the US military rule – when the Okinawans were
deprived of basic civil rights – there was still faith in representative politics, rights,
and legal processes. The mobilization of mass protest was possible on the basis of
this faith in democratic processes. However, in the post-reversion period, trust in
the Japanese democratic system has been seriously and progressively weakened.
The constitutional rights of the Okinawans are eclipsed by the requirement and
need to maintain the US–Japan security alliance. The Okinawans are made to feel
powerless and are unlikely to turn to mass uprising against the military bases. In
order to understand Arasaki’s pessimism fully, it is necessary to quickly revisit
the conditions that made mass protest possible in the past and what has changed
since then.
In the 1950s and 1960s the anti-base movement was also a repatriation movement,
aimed at securing rights to live under a pacifist Constitution free from military
bases and war. In this period the community of protest experienced the most
successful anti-base coalition under the Council for Reversion. ‘Reversion nationalism’
became a hegemonic ideology. Strong identification with mainland Japan
involved a desire for institutional integration with the Japanese democratic system
and attachment to the principles of the Japanese Constitution. The central actors –
unionized workers, teachers, and communist/socialist party members – were
capable of working together to achieve a common goal.
On the other hand, the Council of Reversion was unable to represent the dayto-day
humiliation and danger of those living in proximity to the US military bases.
The Council’s campaign did not fully address the grievances of workers in and
around the bases who wished for an anti-US base general strike: in order to achieve
early reversion, the Council called off the planned general strike which would
have seriously inconvenienced the US military and the Japanese government.
Furthermore, the spontaneous Koza riot revealed that the voices of non-unionized
base town workers and victims of crimes and accidents caused by the US military
had been unrepresented by the reversion movement. Neither was the plight of many
thousands of women involved in prostitution addressed. Furthermore, reversion –
achieved without any major change in the US military presence – was far from
what most Okinawans, including the Reversion Council, had wanted.
After the reversion, coalition building became more difficult in the community
of protest. Pluralization within the community of protest – in terms of protest
organizations, strategies, and reform agendas – made it almost impossible to form