Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

The first wave 69
Figure 5.1 Beggars’ march in Naha – Heiwa Dōri (Source: Ahagon 1989: 75, courtesy of
Christian Conference of Asia)
officers and American soldiers secretly made contributions, asking bystanders
to hand them to the farmers (Ahagon 1973: 130–2). The beggars’ march was a
tactic that avoided being labelled and suppressed as ‘anti-Americanism’ and
‘communism’ at the time. It was also a tactic to inform a wider public about US
land policy (Arasaki 1995: 54–5).
Other communities in Okinawa, such as Isahama and Oroku hamlets, and later
Konbu hamlet in Gushikawa village, 29 experienced similar struggles for land against
the US military. Many of these experienced desperate material conditions and/
or emigrated. The land struggle was primarily a struggle for survival, not about
political principles or ideologies. Only in retrospect, in his later book, Inochikoso
Takara: Okinawa Hansen no Kokoro (1992 [1998]), does Ahagon point out that
‘absolute pacifism’ (predicated on the experiences of the Battle of Okinawa) was
at the heart of the Ie-jima version of Okinawan anti-militarism. The Ie-jima struggle
exemplifies collective action at its most desperate and symbolically powerful.