Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

Introduction 7
common, invisible elements are sometimes more encompassing and cohesive and
sometime less so, sometimes more able to outbid competing claims on loyalty
and sometimes less so, sometimes more single-minded and sometimes less so.
The ‘community of protest’, however, is always there, always a virtual presence;
always, as Arasaki’s image suggests, able to become real and visible in the form
of a wave. But this image is not so much an explanation as it is a way of restating
the problem: How is this complex and shifting social constellation possible? And
more specifically, what sustains the sense of a unified Okinawan community of
protest and what sustains the idea of its invisible presence?
As will be more fully explained in Chapter 2, this book bases much of its inquiry
on constructivist currents in social theory – particularly new social movement theory
– in anthropology and, to a more limited extent, contemporary history. The often
interwoven ideas of collective identity, myth, and the political imaginary are central
to these answers. Briefly, I will explain that Okinawa’s community of protest
(conceived of as a unified entity) has important mythic qualities. The meaning of
this perhaps provocative claim will be more fully explored in Chapter 2 but here
I want to briefly emphasize what it does not mean.
It does not mean that expressions such as the ‘Okinawan movement’ (Okinawa
no undō) or the ‘Struggle of Okinawa’ (Okinawa no tatakai), frequently used
by protesters, are empty. It is not the movement’s existence but its mode of existence
that is in question here and the single most important characteristic of the
movement’s life is its informality: undocumented experiences and memories, shared
stories transmitted orally, and unwritten histories. It is these which give the
movement its mythic character.
It is important to note that my appeal to the notion of ‘myth’ is predicated on
the suspension of questions of truth or falsehood. Thus, I certainly do not mean
that the abuses or experiences of marginalization experienced by the Okinawans
were fictional as opposed to factual. The myth of an ‘Okinawan Struggle’ does not
refer to the series of actual events that took place, but to the ways in which they
are described and told, and redescribed and retold.
In myth are expressed the thought patterns by which a group formulates selfcognition
and self-realization, attains self-knowledge and self-confidence,
explains its own source and being and that of its surroundings, and sometimes
tries to chart its destinies. By myth man has lived, died and – all too often –
killed.
(Puhvel 1987: 2)
Myth in this book means a story or a narrative that resonates in the community of
protest. It connects present action to the collective remembrance of the past of a
group of people, in this case, the ‘Okinawans’. Historical experiences of marginalization
and discrimination, in particular of the Battle of Okinawa, and of the
experiences and legacy of protests such as the all-island struggles against the US
military regime, shared by different generations, locations, and sectors within
Okinawa, again, are important strands in this myth. ‘Myth’ is to be taken seriously