Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

22 Myth, protest and struggle in Okinawa
collective identity has also been a site of contention. Okinawan intellectuals
and elites, such as Iha Fuyū and Ōta Chōfu, made the conscious choice to emphasize
‘Okinawa’ as part of Japan, that is, the sameness rather than distinctiveness.
The campaign for Okinawans’ political rights led by Jahana Noboru exemplifies
the Okinawans’ strategic assimilation to Japan for political reasons. At the same
time, however, this assimilationist position did not sit comfortably with Okinawa’s
‘uniqueness’ or ‘distinctiveness’ from Japan. This indicates the origin of an important
source of tension among concerning the most fundamental of questions: who we
are and why we protest?
The ‘Ryūkyūdisposal’
Until the late nineteenth century, Ryūkyū (Okinawa) was under the authority of
the Satsuma domain (han) in southwest Kyūshū. This state of affairs had persisted
since Satsuma soldiers, mainly from the Shimazu family, invaded and took over
the Ryūkyū Kingdom in 1609. Ryūkyū was, at the same time, one of China’s
tributary states, since a formal tributary relationship was established with Ming
China at the end of the fourteenth century. 3 Under Satsuma’s rule, Ryūkyū was a
direct part of neither Japan nor of China; however, the independent status of the
kingdom was only notional. 4 Satsuma’s control over Ryūkyū was much harsher
than that of China, which hardly interfered with Ryūkyū’s domestic affairs. The
Ryūkyū kings had to pay onerous taxes to Satsuma, but these were confiscated by
local authorities who were dominated by the Shuri court, the royal court of the
Ryūkyū kingdom. Thus, people in Ryūkyū were doubly subjugated by Shuri and
Shimazu. 5 Tax burdens on the residents in remote islands were even greater than
on Okinawa Main Island.
In East Asia, the tributary system formed a different kind of international order
from that of the sovereign states first established earliest in Europe. The centre of
the East Asian order was hegemonic China. 6 It is also important to note in this
context that Ryūkyū’s tributary relations with China were direct, and separate from
those between China and mainland Japan; the special ties in the form of distinguishable
Chinese cultural influence and customs have been a source of
contemporary Okinawan identity that mark differences from mainland Japan.
Japan imitated China and assumed a morally and culturally central position in
relation to the Ryūkyūans, the Ainus, and the Ogasawara islands (Morris-Suzuki
1996: 50). Until the late nineteenth century, the boundary of ‘Japan’ was commonly
thought to be ‘a series of frontiers marking gradually increasing degrees of difference’
rather than ‘the frontier as a single, unequivocal line marking the boundary
between one nation and another’ (Morris-Suzuki 1996: 54). The status of Ryūkyū
(current Okinawa) in relation to ‘Japan’ was not quite domestic or foreign but
ambiguous. This was the case at least until the Meiji government constructed the
sovereign body under ‘Japan’ in 1868.
However, this view ceased to be dominant among the Meiji elites who came to
see that the world order was transforming into one composed of capitalist economies
and sovereign nation-states with clear geographical boundaries. By the late