| Shigeki Takeo: | |
| Name: | Shigeki Takeo |
| Academic Institution: | Meijigakuin University, Faculty of International Studies |
| email: | takeo@k.meijigakuin.ac.jp |
| Country: | Japan |
| Paper Title | Okinawa: Narratives of Reversion, Unification, and Independence of/to Japan |
| Abstract: | Since 15 c. Ryukyu Kingdom had a tributary relationship with Ming and Qing dynasties In the Chinese world order, the subservience of tributary system took the form of ritualized cultural subordination. So Ryukyu Kingdom maintained its autonomy of domestic politics, and under this international relationship with China and other East Asian countries, Ryukyu enjoyed its prosperous era through trades that Mainland Japan couldn’t perform. In 1609, Satsuma han (feudal domain), newly reorganized under Tokugawa feudal system, launched an attack. Ryukyu court easily surrendered to an invading army, and Satsuma secured direct control over vital source of revenue, and imposed higher level of taxation from central Tokugawa Bakufu government. Satsuma and Bakufu policy was to keep Ryukyu Kingdom quasi-independent country under the subordination to both China and Satsuma because of the profit of trade with China. And the vassal state of both China and Satsuma persisted from early 17th to the late-19th century. In 1871, after the abolishment of the old feudal domain, or han, Meiji government replaced them with ken, or prefectures. With an emerging nationalism Meiji government sought to establish clear territorial boundaries and it tried carefully to assert complete sovereignty over the area and terminate all relations between Ryukyu and China. In 1872, the Meiji Government declared the creation of the Domain of Ryukyu (Ryukyu han) and nominated King Sho Tai to be domain king. Then in 1879, after a vain negotiation and resistance by Ryukyu Court, an armed Japanese force was sent with an order proclaiming that Ryukyu han was abolished and Okinawa ken was established. Since then strict assimilation policy was introduced; prefectural governors were all sent from the mainland, mostly hard-liners, and gradually local government embraced new policy of assimilation, which is intellectual strategies for portraying Okinawan as part of Japan. People and history were enmeshed with the emerging narrative of Japan as a nation-state. And economic and social backwardness resulted in for Okinawans was discrimination and a growing sense of cultural inferiority. For instance, in 1903, at the Fifth Industrial Exhibition in Osaka, diverse ethnic groups from parts of extended Japan were displayed as “primitives”: Ainu, Koreans, Taiwanese aborigines, and two Okinawan women. Okinawans acted to assimilate more, thinking ‘the quicker they became like the average Japanese, the sooner they will be treated as equals.’ There was of course an underlying feeling of resistance, but it was swiftly whittled away via the harsh education system and other government policies designed to disconnect Okinawa from its past. Meiji Government annexed Okinawa at the tail of 19th century and led to its total cultural absorption as well as structural (political and economical) dependency on Japan. After its harsh experiences during WWⅡ, with its more than 130,000 death of civilians (close to one-third of population), Okinawa has been under US army’s control till 1972 for 27 years. After the Reversion to Japan, unification policy intends to raise Okinawan Prefecture to the same levels of mainland socio-economically was again introduced. Okinawan attitude toward the nation-state discourse is somehow ambivalent now a day because of its historical back-ground. After the Reversion in 1972, a disappointment feeling among the Okinawan has spread because the US bases wouldn’t be substantially reduced and Okinawa is still treated and recognized as special area in Japan. And also Okinawan “national consciousness” was risen, asserting the value of their traditional culture. So, after these process to integrate into Japan, how the identity of Okinawan is established or ninified and what does it cause to create a alternative narratives of Nation-State? |