Okinawa and the U.S. Military: Identity Making in the Age of Globalization

by Masamichi S. Inoue

In 1995, an Okinawan schoolgirl was brutally raped by several U.S. servicemen. The incident triggered a chain of protests by women's groups, teachers' associations, labor unions, reformist political parties, and various grassroots organizations across Okinawa prefecture. Reaction to the crime culminated in a rally attended by some 85,000 people, including business leaders and conservative politicians who had seldom raised their voices against the U.S. military presence.

Using this event as a point of reference, Inoue explores how Okinawans began to regard themselves less as a group of uniformly poor and oppressed people and more as a confident, diverse, middle-class citizenry embracing the ideals of democracy, human rights, and women's equality. As this identity of resistance has grown, however, the Japanese government has simultaneously worked to subvert it, pressuring Okinawans to support a continued U.S. presence. Inoue traces these developments as well, revealing the ways in which Tokyo has assisted the United States in implementing a system of governance that continues to expand through the full participation and cooperation of residents.

Inoue deftly connects local social concerns with the larger political processes of the Japanese nation and the global strategies of the United States. He critically engages social-movement literature along with postmodern/structural/colonial discourses and popular currents and themes in Okinawan and Japanese studies. Rich in historical and ethnographical detail, this volume is a nuanced portrait of the impact of Japanese colonialism, World War II, and U.S. military bases on the formation of contemporary Okinawan identity.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Japan

344 pages, Hardcover

First published March 16, 2007

Reviews

[Teresa]

An anthropologist’s ethnographic field study of Henoko and Nago City in Okinawa,
Japan explains the history of Okinawa and the changing cultural identity of Okinawans
while also exploring their political agency to protest the continued presence of U.S.
military bases in Okinawa.

A trigger warning is also needed, because the book uses protests against a sexual
violence case involving the rape of a minor by a group of U.S. Marines as a historical
milestone for considering the changing identity of Okinawans and their response to
American military bases. The subject of rape is de-emphasized compared to Japanese
politics and the history of Okinawa, though feminist scholars might find the statistics and
footnotes regarding rape cases in Japan to be interesting and lead to other helpful
sources from Linda Angst and Susan Sered. I believe Dr. Inoue tried to respect the
terrible nature of sexual violence in the key criminal case and the book specifically
mentions that turning a young survivor of rape into a community political symbol should
be questioned. Female interview subjects are Okinawan priestesses, housewives, and
activists to bring in voices who are not victims. The female activists are most interesting
with their impact on a referendum campaign voting on a new replacement military base
for Futenma air base which is land to be returned to the people of Okinawa. However,
the end effect is that, while problems for women are mentioned throughout the book,
civil rights for women as a topic is diminished as the book pivots to Japanese politics
and many decisions made by men. That may just be where Japan is, with women just
starting to tell survivor stories about sexual violence and men still having more decision
making power in politics despite the increasing presence of female politicians.

This book’s strength is in its presentation of the outcomes from the mid 90s protests and
the analysis of changes to both Okinawa and the role of the U.S. military over time.
Okinawans were first subjugated by the mainland Japanese and then by United States
Americans during the U.S. occupation of Japan. Even after the reversion to Japanese
administrative control in 1972, US military bases have continued to be maintained in
Japan with a disproportionate concentration of bases in northern Okinawa. During
Japan’s economic recovery following World War II, Okinawa’s economy became
dependent upon land rental income from the U.S. military’s use of Okinawan land. The
identity of Okinawans changed due to growing wealth disparity between the middle
class who more greatly benefitted from the rental of the land and an impoverished
working class dependent upon jobs related to military bases. Also, economic
development projects benefitted southern Okinawa near Naha more than northern
Okinawa where more of the land is used by military bases. Concurrently, the strategic
use of the U.S. military changed from spreading democracy and capitalism in a fight
against Communism to preventing wars via preemptive war, functioning within a
“constellation of flexible, rapidly deployable, fully integrated units.” (See pp. 214-218 for
a summary of changes to the U.S. military over time.). Presently, Japan continues to be
used as a Power Projection Hub by the U.S. military to convey Marines via Navy ships
to various deployment points used to police the trade activity at locations between
Japan and the Middle East.

The author’s field work experience was in Henoko and Nago City in Okinawa in 1997
during the 1997 referendum campaign when citizens of Nago City voted against
construction of the new base to replace Futenma. The reasoning of politicians and the
achievements of activists are explained. Politicians are on a delicate tightrope walk
between what their local constituents want (freedom from noise, accidents and crime
resulting from the bases) and the economic development projects and stimulus money
granted by the Japanese government for continued cooperation with the American
military’s strategic use of Japan. Dr. Inoue uses Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s
model of globalization with Emmanuel Levinas’s model of the intimate society to explain
how the international relationship between the United States and Japan works.
Okinawans against the military base hold protests and use modern discourse
concerning the effects of base construction on the environment, while Okinawans for
base construction cite continued need for construction work and base related jobs for
future generations as necessary. The middle class fail to address the economic
vulnerability that prevents the working class from fully embracing new progressive
arguments on the environment and women’s rights. The national government
manipulates this class divide to coerce Okinawans to accept the new base, with
coverage of the Nago City mayoral election as an example of how the Nago City mayor
and the Okinawan prefectural governor effect changes to the amount of economic
stimulus money sent to Okinawa by the national government. Construction of the new
base has been slowed several times but has not stopped and continues today.
The book ends with a call for Okinawans to continue to receive stimulus money from the
Japanese government while also continuing to reject U.S. military bases. Dr. Inoue also
illustrates the role of anthropologists as third persons in the intimate society, the need
for third persons like Okinawans and anthropologists to participate in discourse about
the U.S. military in the public sphere, and for academics to conduct research in the
language of the culture they are studying to remove Orientalism from the field of
anthropology.

Empathy is invited for all perspectives both Japanese and American as this field study
invites readers to both question and answer the U.S. military’s actions in our
postmodern world of globalization.

[Boyd Cothran]

A wonderful, anthropological examination of the intricate politics of bases in Okinawa and the various identities which give arise to conflicting perspectives on these bases.