Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

30 Myth, protest and struggle in Okinawa
‘Ryūkyūan’, and permitted dissimilarity to live alongside commonality. Importantly,
an Okinawan identity could be established here. 25 Iha attempted to establish
‘Okinawa’ as a unique entity within ‘the pluralist vision of the Japanese state’,
which consisted of many nations and peoples in Asia (Siddle 1998: 126). Through
his work, Iha attempted to provide ‘evidence of Ryūkyūan cultural achievements
upon which a sense of local pride could be based’ (Christy 1993: 624). His wish
was to establish a strong sense of a ‘Ryūkyūan’ subject, to be reproduced by
generations to come in modern Okinawa. This subject, importantly, is a flexible
one, in the sense that, once again, it allows for flexibility in stressing ‘sameness’
with Japan and unique ‘distinctiveness’ of Okinawa.
Influential as Iha’s work and his arguments were in Okinawan studies, his version
of ‘Ryūkyūan’ identity has had its critics. Shimabukuro Zenpatsu (1888–1953),
an Okinawan intellectual who came after Iha, called attention to the ‘ethnic selfperception’
of the people themselves.
Ordinary Ryūkyūans call mainland Japanese people ‘yamatonchu’ (yamato
people) and differentiate them from ‘uchinanchu’ (Ryūkyūans). This sense
of distinction has existed since early Meiji. Isn’t it sensible to think Ryūkyūans
are quite intimately connected to the yamato people, but nevertheless belong
to a different ethnicity?
(Shimabukuro quoted in Yakabi 1998: 121)
Giving credit to Iha and others’ ‘objective’ findings from wide-ranging ‘scientific’
research in anthropology, linguistics, ethnology, religion, and history, Shimabukuro
stressed the importance of the ‘subjective’ element, that is, what ordinary locals
normally felt and perceived about who they were (Yakabi 1998: 122). Shimabukuro’s
view highlights the difficulty in forming a consensus among critical
local intellectuals and activists, even today, regarding the self-definition of
‘Okinawans’:
despite the rhetoric of many anti-base activists and the emotional power of
their message, Okinawans are not themselves united in their understanding of
the past and have not succeeded in forging a ‘nation’ in Okinawa . . . [T]hese
divisions are a continuation of an older discourse on colonialism and
modernization, identity and history, that stretches back to the early days of
Okinawa Prefecture.
(Siddle 1998b: 133)
Iha defined ‘Ryūkyū’ as a nation, to build a sense of an historical ‘Ryūkyūan’
subject that is equal to that as yamato. However, the emergence of an ‘Okinawan’
identity was such that it perpetuated ambiguity and internal contention: how can
Okinawa be different from yamato, but, at the same time, be treated as an integral
part of Japan?