Okinawa wo Kaese
Signs of Protest
Project Team: John Leisure, Kara Moore, Arfakhashad Munaim,
and Darci Sprengel
Seminar: Tokyo Risk: Postwar Protest and Contemporary Action
Urban Humanities Initiative, Fall 2013
University of California, Los Angeles
www.urbanhumanities.edu
PART 1A: Historical Overview
Performance of “Okinawa wo Kaese” (沖縄を返せ) by Daiku
Tetsuhiro at the People’s Protest on October 21, 1995. Ginowan,
Okinawa.
For Daiku Tetsuhiro the war in Okinawa never ended; the term
après-guerre was a linguistic façade representing a politics of peace
forged in a Faustian bargain between Tokyo and Washington. Legitimized by the 1951 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and reaffirmed by the
1960 Anpo Treaty, Okinawa remained occupied territory and host
1. US-Japan Security Treaty, 1951.
to U.S. military bases employed in the maintenance of “international peace and security in the Far East.” 1 In 1972, Okinawa reverted
back to Japanese sovereignty, but continued to be a container for
2. Inoue, Masamichi S. Okinawa and the U.S.
Military : Identity Making in the Age of Globalization. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2007., 2.
U.S. military forces, carrying 75 percent of U.S military facilities and
65 percent of military personnel despite representing less than one
percent of Japan’s total landmass and population. 2
This outsized burden of bases and the imbrication of U.S. military and Okinawan civilian facilities remain a constant struggle and
cause for protest. In September 1995, three U.S. servicemen stationed at Camp Hansen on Okinawa sexually assaulted a 12-yearold girl in the municipal area surrounding the base. On October 21,
1995, eighty-five-thousand people gathered in Ginowan Municipal
Park to protest the “reduction and return of U.S. military bases in
Okinawa,” as well as the Status of Forces Agreement, which ex-
3. Roberson, James E. “Uchinā Pop: Place
and Identity in Contemporary Okinawan
Popular Music.” In Islands of Discontent:
Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power. Hein & Selden, ed. Oxford: Roman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003., 218.
empted the servicemen from local law. 3 It was at this event that Daiku performed “Okinawa wo Kaese” (Return Okinawa) both in protest
and for the protesters.
The song “Okinawa wo Kaese” represents a diffuse and ongoing form of vocal protest. It was originally recorded in Kyushu in
the mid-1950s “as a ‘movement’ song calling for the return of Oki-
4. Ibid., 217.
nawa to Japanese control.” 4 In 1994, Daiku recorded the song on
his album Okinawa Jinta and again in 1997 on Chibariyō Uchinā.
As Robertson points out, the 1997 version represents a subtle but
significant shift in the lyrics with “wo” (を) changing to “e” (へ), altering the meaning from “return Okinawa to Japan” to “return the land
5. Ibid., 218.
to Okinawa.” 5 The change in lyrics emphasizes that local Okinawans
should be the recipients of Okinawan land, rather than Japan at
large.
Diaku’s reproduction and modification of the song speaks to the
flexibility and endurance of historical memory, politics, and protest
within the genre of Uchinā pop in Okinawa. Uchinā pop music is notable for blending international and temporal modes of production.
By mixing Okinawan instruments like the sanshin with Western brass
instruments, Uchinā pop embraces cultural hybridity at the same
time as it has been used by artists like Daiku to critique the politics
of peace in Okinawa.
While Okinawa continues to feel the impact of the U.S. military
more acutely than other parts of Japan, resistance and protest to
U.S. bases is a nationwide phenomenon. From 1955- 1957, protesters on the main island of Honshu resisted the encroachment of the
Tachikawa Air Force Base onto the abutting land of Sunagawa farmers. The protests consisted of putting physical bodies around the
base to contest ownership and disrupt military activities, as well as
6. Hoaglund, LInda. Protest Art in 1950s
Japan: The Forgotten Reportage Painters. MIT
Visualizing Cultures, 2012., 5.
reportage-style artwork like Hiroshi Nakamura’s Sunagwa #5, 1955. 6
In 1959, the Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of the farmers, blocking the extension of the base. On the basis that the Sunagawa
farmland was preserved, the Sunagawa protests are often viewed as
a success and remain a referent for subsequent anti-base action.
In 1960, thousands of people gathered in front of the diet building in Tokyo to protest the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, which became known as
Anpo (安保). The protest resulted in the death of a university student
Kanba Michiko and the resignation of Prime Minister Nobusuke
Kishi. Though many were satisfied by Kishi’s resignation, the security treaty remained in place. While one of the most visible protests
to-date, the Anpo rally failed to dismantle the political instrument
that provided for and legitimized U.S. military facilities on Japan and
Okinawa.
Daiku’s performance of “Okinawa wo Kaese” can be located
within this larger matrix of local protests regarding specific bases,
as well as resistance to political documents that provide for the
structure of the U.S.-Japan security alliance. The thick map we have
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
created attempts to capture both, the abstract politics as well as
the physical manifestations of protest. We have interpreted Daiku’s
lyrics as references to the physical space of Okinawa and mapped
the song’s performance against the geography of the Okinawan
main island and the territory of U.S. military facilities.
PART 1B: Digital Thick Map
The Digital Thick Map consists of three layers that provide a
framework for our implied artistic action: the “Okinawa wo Kaese”
song and the spatial geography of the 1995 protest in Okinawa.
First, we create the context of the established U.S. Military
Bases in the prefectures of Okinawa. This layer informs us of the
cultural continuity of Okinawa by highlighting the ongoing U.S.-Japan Security Alliance that developed a spatial layout of the military
bases converting them into ‘sites of crises.’ These sites have led to
subsequent protests due to the social temperaments and political
opposition led by the citizens of Japan. The 1995 protest occurred
near the Futenma Air Base, which is located in Ginowan, Okinawa
(Figure 1). There are currently 14 U.S. military bases on Okinawa
that occupy 18% or 90 square miles of the main island’s total area
of 460 square miles.
On this broader perspective, we highlight the ongoing individual
and collective memories that speak of the contending international
forces. According to Fujitani, White and Yoneyama, these ‘memories
[are] in need of recuperation, as memories that continue to generate
7 Roberson, J. (2009). Memory and Music in
Okinawa: The Cultural Politics of War and
Peace. Vol 17:3. Pg. 684.
a sense of danger.” 7 These memories have been embedded during
the protest by the people of Okinawa indicative of both the ongoing
struggle and unity of Okinawan culture and their civil rights (Figure
2).
Third, the 1995 protest inspired many Japanese policy makers
and pro-assimilation Okinawans and vocal artists that have targeted
their cultural and religious practices, including Okinawan folk music
8 Roberson, 2009, Pg. 686.
as a tool for reformation. 8 In examining the Okinawa protest, music
not only reflects and perpetuates the notion of community, collective
memory, and identity, but also acts as a political tool to augment the
tangibility and non-tangibility of space. We embody the narrative by
Fig. 3
simulating sound clips of both the 1950’s and 1997 version of “Okinawa wo Kaese.” The song advocates the returning of Okinawan
land to its rightful inhabitants and fights for their human rights
9. Roberson, 2009, Pg.685.
against Japanese and U.S. domination (Figure 3). 9 A sample of the
lyrics includes:
Breaking down the enemy land
Island burning with a people’s anger
Oh, Okinawa
We and our ancestors
With blood and sweat
Protected and raised in this Okinawa
We will shout-Okinawa!
This is ours-Okinawa!
Return Okinawa!
Return it to Okinawa!
As a result of our analysis, the discourse on music as protest in
Okinawa reinforces the “authentic and unchanging” Okinawa that
10. Roberson, J. (2001). Uchinaa Pop: Place
and Identity in Contemporary Okinawan
Popular Music. Critical Asian Studies: 33:2,
211-242.
exists far away, yet remains intact to the culture of Japan.10 We
began to speculate the conditions of the post-protest and gauge
the degree to which the citizens of Okinawa have shared their experience through the reflection of protest music. Yanagi Setsu, the
pre-war leader of the mingei folk arts movement, states that Okinawa was a place of redemption for Japan. According to M. William
Steele, “Yanagi saw Japan already inflicted, especially at its centre,
but the periphery was still capable of salvation. Okinawa, with its
11. Roberson, J. (2001). Pp. 211-242.
unspoiled beauty, offered a key to the salvation of Japan.” 11 Our
spatial critique on this relationship further alludes to the premise of
our thick map which we will present in Part 2— the dissemination
of music that acknowledges Okinawan’s socio-cultural beliefs and
political identity.
Fig. 4
Part 2: Projective Component - Toward Practice and Theory
In cities of the eastern part of the world, there is an organizational structure of space that is often ritualized as we witnessed
from the formal kinship traditions in Tokyo Story. On the other hand,
the protest is an act of expression that breaks apart the norms and
traditions of these spaces. Thus, we began to speculate and render
new meanings by creating a music champuru—“mix.”
During the protests themselves, music is used as a strategy,
whereby amplified sound is a powerful tool for bringing people to
the protests. Amplified sound occupies more space than bodies can
fill and volume expands the space of protest. Thus, those not present in the protest have no choice but to “hear” the event and this
resistance can take place in the lyrics of the song and in the space
that the sound occupies. To illustrate this into a model, we referred
to ethnomusicologists that have studied the ways in which music
can be used to organize and encourage peoples’ movements. Thus,
a champuru serves the significance of Uchinā (Okinawa) Pop as a
vehicle for expressing popular sentiments and shared experiences.
This overlap of temporality of music from the 1950’s, 1990’s and the
present relinks these ‘sites of crises’ into a ‘world of peace’ (Figure
4). The music performed live in Okinawa has a clear point source,
the stage, and a central point that radiates sound outward. Thus,
the sound is multi-directional; it creates a center-periphery that
orders the space around it. As with programmed music that helps
direct people’s movements in a store, music at protests in Okinawa directs people’s movements towards the protests, even from far
away. Bringing large crowds reinforces the collective aspect of the
social and cultural memory of Okinawa as an occupied land.
We further explore this model by using visibility and amplification in public space to extend their protest beyond those directly
involved in the event. Music has epidemic potential and has become
a more permanent and distributable commodity with the advent of
recording technology at the turn of the twentieth century. Our Digital
Thick Map is further extrapolated by creating a website interface,
which allows any individual to freely upload, download and extract
Fig 4-6 (top to bottom)
sound clips into the google earth platform. This contributes to the
development of a network of sound clips that can be shared collectively. In doing so, we emphasize the ubiquity of music as a form of
artistic protest that has the capacity to spread political messages
and ideologies that go beyond the physical space itself (Figure 5
and 6).
Music may include simple lyrics that are immediately comprehensible. In “Okinawa wo Kaese,” the lyrics are straightforward and
presumably able to reach people of diverse backgrounds, levels of
education, and levels of political involvement. The website interface
enables the distribution of music through mass media in order to
reach broad audiences (Figure 7). This allows fitting more contemporary musical tastes and promoting Okinawan identity to unite
different generations around a common political cause that does not
only rely on locality, but at a global scale.
The Video Demo can be found at
http://www.youtube.com/user/urbanhumanities
This is a project for the Urban Humanities Initiative.
The Urban Humanities Initiative at the University of California Los
Angeles is an innovative cross-disciplinary curriculum which brings
together scholars in design, digital humanities, literature, urban
studies, history, architecture, and art in order to better understand
the evolving global metropolis. For the year 2013-14, the theme of
risk and resilience were explored in the focus cities of Los Angeles
and Tokyo.
www.urbanhumanities.ucla.edu