Section 7 | History, Politics and International Relations | Session 7A, Panel
Chair and Organiser: Gabriele Vogt (German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tôkyô)
Discussant: Gregory Smits (Pennsylvania State University)
In 1879, Japan forcibly annexed the Ryûkyû Kingdom, creating Okinawa Prefecture from its territory. The annexation and subsequent decades had a Janus-faced quality in that vis-à-vis the world, the position of Japan's central government was that Ryûkyû had always been an integral part of the Japanese homeland. Vis-à-vis the residents of the Ryûkyû Islands, however, government policy, official rhetoric, and social practice reinforced a message of inadequacy. Through education, cultural reform, and self-sacrifice Okinawans would have to work hard at becoming full-fledged Japanese. The resulting sense of unease (iwakan) regarding Okinawan identity persists to some degree in the present day. Postwar Okinawa remained under U.S. military control until 1972 and is home to a disproportionately large foreign military presence. Bases and other military facilities occupy roughly twenty percent of Okinawa's land, and result in noise pollution and crime. The disruptive presence of the U.S. military bases has been and remains the most prominent political issue in Okinawa.
During the 1990s, with the much-publicized rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl in 1995 serving as a catalyst, Okinawan affairs have attracted a scholarly following throughout the world. Much of this scholarship is connected with political activism in the service of the anti-base cause. A characteristic of journalistic and academic anti-base rhetoric is a tendency to romanticize the Ryûkyû Kingdom to emphasize the poignant sense of tragedy in Okinawa's present situation and to imply that Okinawa could or should be an autonomous political entity. One prominent myth, for example, is that the Ryûkyû Kingdom was a place without weapons or coercive force of any kind. Although especially prominent in recent decades, this tendency to romanticize Ryûkyû has historical roots in the early nineteenth century.
This panel seeks to historicize certain aspects of Ryûkyûan romanticism and to analyze critically the modern and contemporary functions of these romantic elements in Okinawa political discourse. The opening remarks of Gregory Smits and Gabriele Vogt's presentation aim to provide the framework for the panel by tracing the origins of the myth of Ryûkyûan pacifism and by analyzing the myth's current use by local politicians as well as by members of social movements in Okinawa. Rosa Caroli and Nicole Altmeier will contribute to the panel's topic with case studies on the last king of the Ryûkyû Kingdom, Shô Tai and on the Shuri Castle exhibitions. They will provide insights into the former as well as contemporary interpretations and presentations of the myth of Ryûkyûan pacifism, inside and outside of Okinawa. The panel follows an interdisciplinary approach, combining historical and political sciences with elements of cultural studies, anthropology and art history. It aims to draw a detailed picture of the historical origins, the process of passing down over the centuries and also the current (ab)use of the myth of Ryûkyûan pacifism, as an underlying source of one of the most crucial political conflicts in contemporary Japan.Shô Tai (1843-1901) was the last monarch to ascend to the Ryûkyûan throne in 1848 and to receive investiture as King from Qing Emperor in 1866. With the transformation of the Kingdom into a Japanese domain (han) by the Meiji government in 1872, he became "Ryûkyû han'ô" (King of the Ryûkyû domain), and seven years later, he was forced to abdicate by the establishment of Okinawa Prefecture. At the time of his abdication, Shô Tai moved to Tôkyô, where he received the title of marquis and where he resided until his death. Although historiography has paid him little attention, the image of Shô Tai as a romantic or tragic hero has survived. In the rhetoric of the time, his submission to the Japanese government's will became a symbol of Okinawan subordination to Tôkyô's political and military priorities. Shô Tai's image seems to have been frozen inside a profile that Higashionna Kanjun created eight decades ago. Since then Shô Tai's image has been periodically dusted off and put on display for various purposes: to substantiate Okinawa's tragic experiences from 1879 onward; to support the idea of the local people's traditional rejection of militarism or even to inspire a "hope for the future", as President Clinton did in the su mmer of 2000 quoting a poem allegedly recited by Shô Tai on his final departure from Shuri Castle in 1879. This paper (which is part of work-in-progress biographic research on Shô Tai) aims at deconstructing Shô Tai as an icon, and separating the various layers of historiography, collective memory and myth.
Nicole Altmeier (Tübingen University)
Shurijô Castle Park is an excellent site for observing present-day Ryûkyûan romanticism. The castle, residence of the Kings of Ryûkyû for more than 500 years, was reduced to rubble in the battle of Okinawa in May 1945. Its reconstruction by the central government completed in 1992, transformed Shuri Castle into an historic park featuring the theme "The Kingdom of Ryûkyû has come back to life". Today the park is one of the major tourist spots in Okinawa, visited by more than 2.5 million people in fiscal year 2003. About 90% of the park visitors are tourists from mainland Japan. To them the castle and its surroundings are presented as the symbol of the culture and history of Okinawa. Its architecture, which merges Chinese, Japanese and South-East-Asian and originally Okinawan elements, even received an award from the highly prestigious World Heritage Co mmittee in 2000 for its unique qualities. In its contemporary setting, the architecture of the castle and the culture of Okinawa are both described in terms of demonstrating a peaceful and open-minded character. One objective of this paper is to analyze and finally reject the idea of the castle architecture as revealing a pacifist tradition. In the process, I will discuss comparatively the different information and exhibition panels in both the nationally and prefecturally administered park sectors and their esteem of the past in regard to the present and the future of Okinawa.
Gabriele Vogt (German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tôkyô)
Ever since the latest eruption of an island wide anti-base struggle in the mid 1990s local politics in Okinawa has been characterized by an extraordinary distinct rivalry between conservative and progressive groups. This rivalry, however, is only to a limited degree mirrored in the groups' specific political goals. The existence of a co mmon political "enemy", actors that aim to secure the status quo of a forward deployment of large numbers of military units in the prefecture, serves as a strong enough inducement to unite both groups in a co mmon front. Their rivalry becomes much more obvious in the groups' various interpretations of Ryûkyûan history, with the conservative groups focusing on the co mmon origins between Ryûkyû and mainland Japan, and with the progressive groups stressing the victimization of the "pacifistic" Ryûkyû Islands through militaristic actions of mainland Japan. This paper aims to define and analyze the objectives, methods and results of integrating the concepts and contents of historical consciousness and collective identity into political activism of local political elites as well as of members of civil society. The Naha mayoral election of 2004 shall serve as case study on how the myth of Ryûkyûan pacifism influences local politics in contemporary Okinawa.