Final Paper by Irene Signorelli

Osaka University
20/12/2019

The construction of Okinawan Collective Identity:

the role of the anti-base movement

Introduction

The “Okinawa Issue”, or the post-1972 Revision Treaty difficult relations between Okinawa

prefecture, Japan national government and the U.S. military bases administration, has been studied

through a maze of different academic lenses.

From one side, historians, post-colonial and Marxist theorist focused on the complicated external

relations of the Island and its long past of subjection to Japan mainland.

Indeed, the current situation cannot be understood without considering the long and troubled history

of Ryukyu Kingdom and its peculiar positions between the Chinese and Japanese sphere of influence.

The geographical location and the rich trading routes managed by the kingdom made of the Okinawan

Islands a perfect prey for the aspirations of Meiji Japan, a new “expansive, rapacious, and militarized”

modern state, competing inside an arena of other greedy empires (McCormack e Norimatsu 2012, p.

1). The post II World War arrangement, the Cold War, the U.S. occupation period and the 1972

Revision Treaty complete the historical and political setting used to explain the today Okinawa Issue.

This explanation is usually linked to the struggle for more political autonomy coming both from

Okinawans citizens and the authorities and the contrary tight grip of Japanese national government

over all the relevant decisions concerning the relations between U.S. military facilities and the

territory/population of the islands.

The request of independently decide how to use its own land can be studied as well thorough post-

colonial lenses: the right of self-determination of native populations, in this case, clashes against the
dual colonial structure of power in which Okinawa is embedded: the old unrecognized colonial status

where the newly englobed Japanese prefecture of “was marked by persistent suspicion, discrimination,

and forced assimilation” form the mainland side; (McCormack e Norimatsu 2012, p. 4) and the most

recent U.S. colonization that consider this islands position too strategically important to allow a wider

emancipation of the dwellers.

From another side, the international and political level cannot leave the internal and sociological one

unaltered. For this reason, many studies focused on the double identity of Okinawans and their

struggle to be defined/to proof their Japaneseness. (Allen). The turbulent history and the many

unresolved questions of the Japanese repeated “turning back” to Okinawa, raised many voices (and

studies) on the need to re-invent Okinawa identities in the light of this traumatic experience.

In this sense, historical, and post-colonial studies on Okinawan society melt with social psychology

and Identity theories.

This paper will draw on this intersection, by comparing the different phases of the Okinawa anti-base

movement with the swift of Okinawan identity. The focus will be given to the concept of postcolonial

identity, with the aim to link the different facets of Okinawa identity, with the political and social

phenomenon of the anti-base movement.

The hypothesis to confirm is that identity, conceptualized as socially constructed and therefore highly

malleable by external factors, reproduced itself and at the same time is constructed through, in this

case, the anti-base movement.

Collective identity and post-colonial society

The concept of Collective Identity has per se different facets/meanings according to scholar’s point

of view, however, is one of the most used for the understanding of social movements and activism.

(Saunders 2008, p. 228)

From a sociologic perspective, Alberto Melucci defines collective identity as

 “ […] the process of "constructing" an action system. Collective identity is an interactive and

shared definition produced by several individuals (or groups at a more complex level) and

concerned with the orientations of action and the field of opportunities and constraints in which

the action takes place.” (Melucci 1996, p. 44)

In other words, collective identity is the set of relational practices and interactions that constantly

define and redefine the meaning of group’s actions, behaviour and believes. Indeed, in order to be

established the collective identity needs to be linked to a shared understanding of the goals, the

field and the significance of the action itself. This shared understanding is constantly negotiated

and reproduced through the interplay of the group, where the members influence each other

behaviour and interaction within the scope of the group. Finally, in order to build a collective

identity, the shared understanding needs to raise emotional responses from the group’s members

in the sense that they need to feel part of the group and that their membership goes beyond merely

cost-benefit calculations. (Melucci 1996, pp. 44–45)

With these three characteristics in mind (shared understanding, member’s interactions and

emotional response to the group) is easier to see how the concept of collective identity turns

essential in explaining how social movements originates (through shared understanding within a

group), how they operates and adjust to external influences (through its own members constant

interaction and redefinition of the shared understanding of the group) and finally, how social

movements guarantee the member’s loyalty and the existence of the movement itself (through the

emotional connection that doesn’t end with the accomplishment of the goals).

From a more psychological stance focused on the single group’s member, collective identity

defines and explains the “we-ness” that brings different people from different social contexts to

participate together into a social movement. It constitutes one of the us-vs-the other dialectic that

shapes individual identity. (Horowitz 2017, p. 2)

In this sense Collective Identity can be easily exchanged for Social Identity, defined as the

psychological awareness to belong to a certain group with whom we share common features and
on this awareness we automatically build the out-group category for whom doesn’t share these

feature. However, rather than being only in-group/out-group definition collective identity’s second

component comes from the political interpretation of the common social identity. (Horowitz 2017,

p. 3) In many studies the political stance of the social movement generates from “shared grievance

and the designation of a common enemy”. (Horowitz 2017, p. 3) Therefore, the official goals,

values and narratives conveyed through the common actions of the social movement drawn their

strength from the shared feeling of having suffered an injustices of any kind from the end of the

out-groups. (Horowitz 2017, p. 3)

This synergy between social movement and collective identity, political goals and the collective

victimization (perceived or experienced) prevailing within the members of the group can be

detected inside the long history of Okinawa social movements.

I refer to social movements in plural exactly because, even if apparently the goal seems to have

always been to end of the coercion and mistreatment endured by the local population after the U.S.

military occupation, Okinawa social movements held very different strategies and employed very

different narratives to support this fight, that the anti-base movement can hardly be called as one.

Can be argued that every social movement changes in time, according to both external and internal

factors that re-direct the action toward new or revised goals. However, what is interesting in the

Okinawan case is that the different phases of the anti-base movement are associated with dramatic

changes of the collective identity of the group itself, into a continuous re-shaping of the relations

between U.S. military bases administration, the Japanese “mainland” policy and Okinawa identity

itself.

As outlined in the Introduction, the complicated quest of Okinawan identity cannot be fully

understood without taking in consideration the post-colonial context of these islands.

Without entering in the discussion on the validity of colonial and post-colonial concept applied to

South-East Asian Nations, (Kennedy 2008) many scholars refer to Okinawa through the paradigm
of colonized/coloniser, even if in Okinawa’s case we have single colonized territory enduring a

double colonization from both U.S. and Japan. (McCormack 2016, p. 9)

Other studies on the construction of identity inside ex-colonial territories remarks the complexity

and ambiguity of the results of this process. (Loomba 2005, pp. 91–92; Chan 2013, p. 14)

In the process of colonization as well the social structure build by through it, the subjected

population, that differs in race, culture and/or language form the colonization force, is formatively

perceived and constructed as different even if politically integrated inside the national structure of

the colonizing nation. In this way, the colonial identity is hybrid in its nature as it is constructed

as something else (normally inferior) from the colonizer’s perspective but, at the same time, the

coercive contact with the colonizer cannot leave the colonials identity unaltered. The different

level of integration/assimilation differ from very each colonial experience, however colonial

regimes have always failed “to produce stable and fixed identity”. (Loomba 2005, p. 92)

If the experience of colonization already brings ambiguity, the postcolonial context doesn’t resolve

the “who are we?” dilemma. At the opposite, the political transformation and the radical changes

in power structure (as well the continuity of the condition of oppression) generates even more

identity crisis and confusion. (Chan 2013, p. 15) By combining the notion of Collective Identity

as fundamental for any social movement, the fact that these identity are normally linked with a

conflict, a sense of injustice, and finally the ambiguity of post-colonial identity quest, we have

now all the theoretical elements with which we can better analyse the issue of Okinawa identity,

and more specifically, how the anti-base movement instrumentally constructed and transformed

the Collective Identity of the group .

Anti-Base Movement and the shaping of Okinawans Collective Identity

In this section I will present the different manipulations that anti-base social movement enacted

on the Collective Identity of the group joining the protests, but that can represent a larger re-

definition of Okinawa identity as such. Even if is incorrect to consider the Collective Identity of a
social movement as applicable to the whole social entity defined as Okinawan population no matter

how spread and shared the movement and its ideals are between the population, I still consider the

instrumental shift of this narration as a meaningful example of the complexity and malleability of

Okinawan Identity in light of its a post-colonial past. (Allen, p. 200)

Further research is needed in order to understand how much the Collective Identity expressed

through the voice of the anti-base movement is shared also by outsider of the movement and in a

general sense by Okinawan population.

I will start this section by shortly presenting the historical external modulation of Okinawan

identity undertaken by the different colonizer forces that subjected Okinawan territory in the arch

of its history.

After, I will present the main shift of narration between the 1960 Revision movement protests and

the 1995 anti-base movement started in the wage of the horrible rape of a 12 years old Okinawan

girl by U.S. military service men. Finally, I will consider recent development and the Henoko

stalemate.

The instrumental manipulation of Okinawan Identity in the history of the island.

As Matthew Allen notices “[…] fragmented identities have long been part of the

Ryukyuan/Okinawan experience”. (Allen, p. 199) Without entering on the details of Okinawan

islands’ history, what is essential to remark is that the practice of shaping Okinawans identity

starter already with the Satsuma invasion. (Matsumura 2015, p. 29) Indeed, in the period of pledge

submission to the Tokugawa clan, Ryukyuan subjects were prohibited to adopt mainland Japanese

habit and customs. Keeping the façade of Ryukyuan Kingdom independence was fundamental for

the fully exploitation of the trade route already existing between the islands and China by the

Satsuma state. (Matsumura 2015, p. 29)

This forced cultural dislocation away from any identification with Japan was radically reversed

when Ryukyu kingdom became the very first colonial addition of Meiji Japan Empire. From 1873
until the American occupation in the aftermath of the Battle of Okinawa, Japanese government

enforced strict assimilation policies where Okinawan language and culture were not only banned

but they become the synonym of backwardness and barbarism. (Allen, p. 192) The keen desire to

be part of the Japanese nation reached the apex of brutality during the U.S. April 1945 invasion,

when Okinawans were expected (and forced) to commit suicide in front of the enemy. This episode

represents the very first chink on the apparent assimilation of Okinawan inside the Japanese

national community, and will wide up in the following years of Japanese policies meant to sacrifice

Okinawa to preserve the mainland form the brutality of war and military occupation. (McCormack

e Norimatsu 2012, p. 5). Finally, the last attempt to reinvent Okinawan identity was made by the

last added colonizer: the U.S. From 1945 the USCAR subliminally referred to the new acquired

territory ad Ryukyu rather than Okinawa, starting a top-down re-appropriation process of the

native cultural identity of the island in the attempt of “de-japanize” it. Pride and interest in re-

discovering pre-Meiji cultural practices had the precise intent to dislocate once again Okinawan

identity from the mainland, making it more malleable and controllable by the new “administrators”

of the island. (Inoue 2007, pp. 49–50)

These series of top-down policies enacted by the several Okinawa subjugators, had already

constructed a fertile terrain for erratic and unfixed sense of identity.

What changes with the start of social movement’s protests and the construction of Collective

Identity is that Okinawans themselves started to use a down-top technic to instrumentalist their

own identity and raise awareness for their cause purposes.

From the Reversion Movement to the “All-Okinawa” movement and the Henoko stalemate

As Inoue remarks, the 1995 grass root movement, started after the rally protesting for the brutal

gang rape of a 12-years old girl from three U.S. servicemen, differs substantially from the very

first social movement who fight for the restitution of Okinawa to Japan.
After the 1955 “Shimagurumi Toso” (island-wide protest) which saw grass root mobilization

protesting against the acquisition of land from the U.S. military base administration, the 1960

Revision Movement manipulated the U.S. attempt to revitalise Okinawan identity by overturning

it. Indeed, through the re-appropriation of the cultural pride supported by the U.S., the Revision

social movement, that saw teachers hold a major role in it, shifted from de-japanisation narrative

to a “solidarity with the Homeland” one. (Inoue 2007, p. 51) Ethnic ties and cultural affiliation

with mainland Japan were reaffirmed in order to achieve the immediate restitution of Okinawa to

Japan sovereignty. (Inoue 2007, p. 52) In spite of Japanese discrimination before and after the war,

the Revision movement expressed the willingness and capability to deploy the same narrative

techniques to autonomously shape the Collective Identity of the Movement, bringing it once again

closer to Japan.

However, the failed promise of the Revision Treaty together with the influx of money from

Japanese government to appease the distress brought by the heavy military presence to the

population, shaped once again the context for a second re-shuffle of group protest identity bringing

to the today’s anti-base movement. The event that trigged this last major change was the 1995

brutal gang-rape of a 12 years old Okinawan girl by three U.S. service men. The repercussions

went way beyond public opinion reprobation: during the largest anti U.S. military protest held in

Okinawa, Governor Ota framed in his speech a new collective identity of the movement based on

the shared perception of injustice endured and frustration over the deaf ears of Tokyo. The rape of

a young girl, innocent victim of such brutal act, was translated into the repeated violation of all

Okinawa itself by the U.S. as first actor but also through the betrayal of Japanese government in

defending its prefecture. (Inoue 2007, p. 39) The creation of a sense of community, bringing

together every citizen sharing the colonial traumatic experience and the present injustice, the All-

Okinawa movement reinforced the perception of the movement’s collective identity as Unitarian,

beyond social class divisions, as every citizen who experienced the daily mistreatment from the

U.S. can now be consider a proper Okinawan. Once again the Collective Identity of the group
shifted away from Japan by proudly stating their divergent past and claiming citizen’s rights and

democratic values as part of their present. (Inoue 2007, p. 39; Allen, p. 198; Souillac e Geneviève

2007).

This new turning point signed as well the beginning of the still ongoing Henoko anti-base protest.

Since 1996 until nowadays, activist and common people continue to gather in Henoko bay to

prevent the construction of the new military base decided precisely after the 1995 crime.

The All-Okinawa concept is still very much present within the group motivations but also within

the political struggle of the pro-base camp vs the anti-base one. In 2014 once again, the “All-

Okinawa camp” obtained a huge majority of vote in the local governor elections. (Fifield e Anne

2014)The winner, Takeshi Onaga, speaking with the journalist re-expressed the victim identity of

Okinawa, as well as the meaning of his victory as symbol of the cohesive repulsion of the bases

from the whole prefecture of Okinawa. (Fifield e Anne 2014)

Conclusions

This paper retraces the complex and chameleonic formation of Okinawan identity by taking as its

expression the several social movements identity narration.

Through the concept of Collective Identity, considered as fundamental for the generation and

endurance of social movements themselves, the historical external influences enacted by the

several colonizers of Okinawa have been confronted with the more recent manipulation of the

“self” performed by social movement. Most striking is the continuous in and out from the Japanese

national sphere that indicates an overall incongruent and intricate positioning of Okinawa as

community. These manipulations more recently have been the lymphatic system of the anti-base

movement and the construction of difference between Okinawa identity and Japan mainland is

functional to support the cause of the anti-base movement. (Allen, p. 198)

However, recent studies on the impression and feelings of Millennials (the generation born after

the restitution of Okinawa to Japan) presents an already changing scenario that might affect the

protraction of the decennial anti-base movement. (Morrison e Chinen 2019)

Young Okinawans are more and more Japanese, and even if they share a strong feeling of “unfair

burden” over Okinawa with the older generations, they are less willing to protest. Their feelings

over the U.S. bases are mixed as well, considering it a burden but also an economic resource, they

would prefer rather a closer contact with the military world and a more constructive relation with

the American community. (Morrison e Chinen 2019, p. 4)

Is Okinawan identity changing again? Only time will tell us.

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