The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 6 | Issue 2 | Article ID 2667 | Feb 01, 2008

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Okinawan Perspectives on Japan's Imperial Institution

Steve Rabson

Okinawan Perspectives on Japan’s ImperialInstitution

Steve Rabson

On September 29, 2007, 110,000 peopledemonstrated in Okinawa to protest textbookrevisions announced by Japan’s EducationMinistry that would delete references to theJapanese military’s coercive role in so-called“group suicides” (shudan jiketsu) of civiliansduring the Battle of Okinawa. Speakers at theprotest included Okinawan survivors of thebattle who had witnessed the military roundingup civilians at “assembly points” (referred to inwar propaganda as “places of shatteringjewels”), and distributing hand grenades tothem with orders to kill themselves to avoidcapture by advancing U.S. forces. YoshikawaYoshikatsu, a battle survivor from KakazuVillage, recalled, “After the mayor of the villageyelled “Long live the Emperor!” (Tenno Heikabanzai), hand grenades exploded all around us.I could hear the screams of the dying.”[1] A fewdays after the protest, author Kamata Satoshiinterviewed a battle survivor at her home onTokashiki Island, another site of what NormaField has more accurately termed “compulsorysuicide.”[2] “Kitamura Tomi rememberedhearing shouts of ‘Long live the Emperor’ asgrenades exploded all around her. When shebecame aware again of her surroundings, hereldest daughter, sitting beside her, and herhusband’s younger sister were both dead.”[3]

Published in 1996, the program guide for theOkinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museumexplains, “These deaths must be viewed in thecontext of years of militaristic education whichexhorted people to serve the nation by ‘dyingfor the for the emperor’ (Tenno no tame nishinu).”[4] Okinawans cite the role of emperor-centered indoctrination of unquestioning self-sacrifice not only in compulsory group suicides,but also in many other deaths among the morethan 120,000 local residents who lost their livesin the only Japanese prefecture subjected toground fighting.[5] They also point to recentlyreleased documents showing that the Battle ofOkinawa could have been avoided if the Showaemperor had not decided in early 1945 toprolong the war, rejecting the advice of formerPrime Minister Konoe Fumimaro to end itimmediately.[6]

Cornerstone of Peace Memorial to Battle ofOkinawa

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Paying respects at Okinawa Memorial

These are some of the reasons why criticism ofand opposition to Japan’s imperial institution,expressed in print and public discourse, is farmore conspicuous and vigorous in Okinawathan in other Japanese prefectures. Suchopinion was less in evidence during the firsttwo postwar decades when limited informationwas available about the Showa emperor’s rolein decisions affecting Okinawa during andshortly after the war, and while Okinawa wasstill under direct U.S. military rule. It gainedconsiderable momentum, however, with theapproach of Okinawa’s 1972 reversion toJapanese administration. Local educators wereconcerned because Japan’s public schoolcurriculum, overseen by the EducationMinistry, presents distorted accounts of Japan’smilitary aggression in Asia and downplays theShowa emperor’s wartime role. Released forpublication in the years since reversion,documents specifically describing both hiswartime and early postwar role in decisionsprofoundly affecting Okinawa sparked outragethere that has fueled continuing criticism.

This criticism is not limited to the past.Okinawans express serious doubts that a clearseparation exists even today, under Japan’spostwar Constitution, between the monarchy’s

actions and government policies affectingOkinawa. Official gatherings hosted bym e m b e r s o f t h e i m p e r i a l f a m i l y t ocommemorate events in Okinawa and suchgestures as bestowing imperial commendationson Okinawan writers and artists or invitingOkinawan musicians to perform beforemembers of the imperial family have beencriticized in Okinawa as government efforts touse the imperial institution as a palliative, todivert attention from--and assuage oppositionto--government policies with a negative impacton Okinawa, such as imposing 75% of the totalU.S. military presence in Japan on a prefecturewith 0.6% of the nation’s land area.[7]

Besides published criticism of the imperialinstitution in Okinawa,[8] regular symposia areheld at local universities on such topics as the“emperor system” and the Showa emperor’swar responsibility. Labor unions, teachers’organizations, and anti-war coalitions have leddemonstrations to protest visits there bymembers of the imperial family and officialobservances of the emperor’s birthday as anational holiday. While these demonstrationshave been consistently peaceful, Okinawansopposed to the imperial institution have beeninvolved in a small number of violent incidents.

Publicly expressed antipathy in Okinawatoward the imperial institution relates mostly,though not entirely, to events closelyassociated with the Showa emperor thatoccurred during his reign (1926-1989). Thefirst two decades of the Showa Period sawmeager allocation of Japanese governmentresources to its poorest prefecture, severehousing and employment discrimination againstOkinawans living on the mainland, and thecostliest battle of the Pacific War that took thelives of more than 120,000 Okinawans,

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including thousands of civilians who died at thehands of mainland Japanese soldiers. WhileImperial Army atrocities during the battle andother events of the Showa Period are central toan understanding of attitudes in Okinawatoward the imperial institution, it is alsoimportant to remember how the Japaneseemperor’s reign came to be extended there inthe first place.

Background

What the Japanese government renamedOkinawa Prefecture in 1879 was most of whathad been the Ryukyu Kingdom, established in1429 with the unification of three regionalkingdoms.[9] During the four and half centuriesof its existence, the Ryukyu Kingdommaintained a formal tributary relationship withChina. Although Ryukyu paid ceremonialhomage and sent emissaries to the Ming court,China did not seek to exercise politicalauthority there, and the tributary missionswere highly lucrative for the Ryukyu court andmerchants. Ryukyu also carried on a flourishingtrade and cultural exchange with China, Japan,Korea, and Southeast Asia.

In 1609 Daimyo Shimazu Iehisa of Japan'ssouthernmost Satsuma-han (fief) sent an armyof samurai to assert his regional dominion overthe Ryukyu Kingdom after King Sho Neirefused to recognize it. Tokugawa Ieyasu haddesignated Shimazu “Lord of the SouthernIslands” as part of the settlement negotiatedwith local daimyo to secure Tokugawaauthority over all of Japan after Ieyasu’sdecisive victory in 1600 at the end of a longperiod of civil wars. For the next 270 years, theShimazu daimyo levied taxes and imposedadministrative controls in Ryukyu, but orderedthat an appearance of Ryukyuan independence

be maintained, particularly when Chinesediplomats and trade missions visited thekingdom. By imposing this contradictory policyin Ryukyu, the Satsuma daimyo could reapbenefits from the kingdom’s international tradewhile simultaneously enhancing their prestigeand influence with the Bakufu as overseers of aforeign kingdom. It was also useful forproviding the Tokugawa Bakufu access toChina, indirectly through Ryukyu ‘s tributarymissions, since there were no diplomaticrelations between China and Japan where theBakufu limited overseas trade to a small andstrictly controlled volume at Nagasaki.[10]

In sharp contrast to the Satsuma daimyos’efforts to maintain the appearance of anindependent--or at least distinct--Ryukyu, theMeiji government from the early 1870s movedto secure control over what it renamedOkinawa Prefecture in 1879. Its purpose was toeliminate vestiges of the kingdom--material andsymbolic--in order to absorb Okinawa into apolitical, ideological, and cultural nationalpolity centered on the Japanese emperor.China, which claimed suzerainty over thekingdom as a tributary state, protested in vainJapanese claims of sovereignty.[11]

The Japanese government offered China thesmaller and less populous southern Ryukyuislands of Miyako and Yaeyama in exchange forrecognition of Japanese control over theOkinawa and Amami islands in the north alongwith trading privileges and concessions inChina. However, China refused to accept thisagreement. Meanwhile, in March of 1879, theMeiji government publicly announced the“Ryukyu disposition” (shobun) to abolish thekingdom completely, having previously reducedit to a han (fief) of Japan in 1872. Sho Tai, thelast king, was forcibly exiled to Tokyo. As

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Japan’s central government appropriated moreand more authority, residents of Okinawabridled at the appointment of officials from themainland who often showed disdain for localpeople and imposed harsh assimilationistpolicies.

Yet, even in the face of such policies andattitudes, opinions among people in OkinawaPrefecture remained divided over its futurepolitical direction. The Japanese governmentimplemented a wide-ranging campaign againstsuch local customs as the consulting ofshamans, the wearing by men of topknots, andthe tattooing by women of their hands tosignify passage into adulthood. Governmentofficials deemed these customs culturally, andtherefore politically, incompatible with theirconception of a unified and “modernized”nation. But assimilation also brought significanteconomic and technological benefits to thesmall but influential Okinawan elite, whichreceived higher education on the mainland.Some started businesses on the mainland, andgrowing numbers of Okinawan youth foundemployment there that helped support theirfamilies back home. The local intelligentsiawere split between what was called the ganko-to (stubborn faction), which opposedassimilation and favored continued tributaryties with China, and what was called the kaika-to (enlightened faction), which favoredincreased assimilation.

Japan's victory in the Sino-Japanese War of1894-95 convinced many Okinawans thatidentification with the victorious nation, risingin wealth and status, promised a better future.The pro-China faction rapidly declined, andnewspaper editorials advocated thoroughgoingassimilation with Japan in areas ranging fromeducation to styles of dress. Among the

population at large, boys now voluntarilyabandoned the traditional topknot and pin forthe crewcut hairstyle popular on the mainland,and girls began wearing mainland-stylekimono. People changed their family names tomainland pronunciations so that, for example,"Kanagusuku" became "Kinjo". In the moreprestigious schools, teachers and students alikeencouraged the use of “standard” (i.e., Tokyo)Japanese while students were punished andhumiliated for use of Ryukyuan language inschool.[12]

In 1887 the central government made Okinawathe first locality where portraits of the MeijiEmperor and Empress, called go-shin’ei, werestored in special structures built on the schoolgrounds. Students were required to bow deeplyto the structure when they arrived at school inthe morning and left in the afternoon.[13]Members of what had been the Ryukyu nobilitywere assigned court ranks within Japan’simperial peerage. Among them was the lastRyukyu king, Sho Tai, who received the title of“marquis” (ko-shaku). The government in Tokyoalso ordered the rearranging of statuary andthe redesigning of architecture in shrines andtemples to show that local deities were nowincorporated into the national Shinto pantheon.The Bureau of Shrines reasserted theemperor's divine descent from the sun goddessAmaterasu-omikami, and directed that Shintoworship take precedence over Buddhist,Christian, and local religious observances. Thetraditional divinities worshipped in Okinawa atlocal field, forest, and oceanside shrines (utaki)were transformed into guardian gods defendingthe Japanese empire.[14]

With the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912 andhis widow in 1914, "worshipping from afar"ceremonies were held throughout Okinawa to

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focus respect on the imperial palace in Tokyo.And every city, town, and village was requiredto celebrate the accession of Emperor Taisho.In the 1920s Tokyo ordered the building of newShinto shrines and the remodeling of old onesto add tor i i ga tes and o ther Sh in toarchitectural symbols.[15] These costlyprojects, paid for by local tax moneys, placed afinancial burden on what was then, andremains today, Japan’s poorest prefecture.When the world collapse of sugar prices in1921 devastated Okinawa’s economy, the resultwas widespread bankruptcy and foodshortages.

To promote the imperial institution, membersof the imperial family frequently visitedOkinawa, and the Imperial Household Ministry(Kunaisho) made token grants of relief fundswhen there were droughts and typhoons. It wasa source of local pride when a warshipcommanded by Captain Kanna Kenwa fromOkinawa brought Crown Prince Hirohito therefor a one-day visit in 1921 on the first stop of acelebrated tour of Europe. This, despite widelyheard rumors that prejudice over Kanna'sOkinawan origins had delayed his promotion tothe top ranks of the Imperial Navy.[16]However, like later imperial visits to Okinawa,this one was not greeted with universaljubilation. According to the Imperial HouseholdMinistry’s own official record of the visit, theresponse of people who were mobilized to linethe procession route “conspicuously lackedenthusiasm.”[17]

The Showa Legacy

After the Manchurian Incident leading to thecreation of the dependent state of Manchukuoin 1932, the government ordered local shrinesto house and support Shinto clergy from the

mainland, yet another financial burden.[18] Thegovernment and press repeatedly exhortedadults and school children for unwaveringloyalty to the emperor and willingness tosacrifice their lives for the Japanese state,particularly after the outbreak of full-scale warin 1937. An editorial in the Kyuyo Shimpo,published in Osaka by leaders of Kansai’sgrowing Okinawan community, marked the firstanniversary of its founding by noting that “ournewspaper’s birth just after the Marco PoloBridge Incident closely links it with the nation’sdestiny. . . .To report the arduous battles of theImperial Army is our patriotic mission.”[19] Thepaper published detailed accounts of sacrificesmade by Okinawans on the battlefront and thehome front. It printed the names and briefbiographies of men departing for and returningfrom the China front, and of Okinawan dead.Headlines extolled “deaths with honor inbattle” and “the silent return of heroes.” A leadarticle in 1939 urged Okinawans to “be readyto serve with honor as Imperial Army soldiersin this time of crisis, and to shoulder your riflesat a moment’s notice if summoned by hisMajesty.”[20]

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Emperor Hirohito as supreme commander

Renowned Okinawan historian Asato Nobuwrote the following year to mark the elaborateofficial celebration in 1940 of the 2,000-yearanniversary of the Japan’s mythical founding bythe first Emperor Jimmu. “Buoyed by the greatspirit of the nation’s founding, our empirepushes forward to establish the Greater EastAsia Co-Prosperity Sphere as the basis of a newworld order, adopting the southern advance asour national policy. The mission of Okinawansat the front lines in the southern strategybecomes increasingly vital. The duty of thepeople of our prefecture, galvanized by thespirits of our august ancestors, is to contributeto this national policy.”[21]

Okinawans recall the exhilaration of the earlyyears of the war. Many welcomed theopportunity to express loyalty as citizens of amodern nation that had already defeated Chinaand Russia and was on the winning side inWorld War I. Fujioka Hiroshige remembersfeeling dissatisfied at the age of eighteen with

his status as a “home front youth” (gunkokushonen) when he heard about the start of warin the Pacific, and decided to volunteer for themilitary.

My blood had been stirred by thestring of victories in the Manchurian,Shanghai, and China Incidents, and Ifirmly believed, as did most Japanese,that Japan, the eternal land of thegods, was sure to win the Pacific War.. . It made me want to be a soldiereven more. . . . I vowed to die inba t t l e , and might even havevolunteered to be a human torpedo ifI’d had the chance. . . . Of course,today when I remember suchproclamations, as “victory is certain,”issued by the “national movement forspiritual mobilization” (kokuminseishin sodoin), they sound likeslogans for some fanatical newreligion or lines from a Kyogencomedy.[22]

Others who write in retrospect on this perioddescribe different responses. Born in 1935,Yamashiro Kenko recalls that his elementaryschool classmates found some unintendedhumor in the daily cacophony of slogans andadmonitions.

We were taught that Japan had asingle line of emperors that wouldcontinue forever and that, as thecountry of the gods, it would neverlose a war. The emperor was an all-knowing, all-powerful living god whocontrolled everything, so we were toldthat, when we died, we had to raiseboth arms and yell “Long live theEmperor.” Jokesters among us would

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“practice dying” on the way to andfrom school, falling down by the sideof the road while yelling, “Long livethe Emperor.” Some students evensaid that the emperor’s shit musttaste sweeter than sugar.[23]

Born in 1925, Takada Hatsu recalls feelingantipathy toward the indoctrination that filledher days at school.

I first learned the meaning of war as asecond-grader when I had to join afuneral procession to the shrine for aman who died at the front in China.After seeing his bereaved family, Ifound the increasingly militaristiccurriculum at school hard to bear.[24]

These diverse accounts all convey theubiquitous intensity of wartime exhortation.Relentless indoctrination starting in elementaryschool in a militaristic, emperor-centeredideology would lead many youth to embrace thewar effort with catastrophic consequences.

In 1979, thirty-four years after the Battle ofOkinawa, an American veteran from RhodeIsland showed me a diary he had found inOkinawa shortly after organized Japaneseresistance ended in late June of 1945. Thewriter was a 16-year-old Okinawan boy whohad joined the local defense forces (boeitai) torepulse the invasion of the American “devils.”His daily entries frequently mentioned hisdesire to show his Japanese spirit, “Yamatodamashii,” and to die, if necessary, for the sakeof the emperor. Published firsthand accounts ofthe Battle, such as the late Jo Nobuko Martin'sautobiographical novel on the HimeyuriStudent Nurses Corps, confirm that suchsentiments of sacrificial loyalty were frequently

expressed and acted upon by Okinawan youth,both women and men, girls and boys.[25]. Mostof the Himeyuri nurses, many in the localdefense forces, and tens of thousands ofOkinawan civilians followed Imperial Armyorders and went to their deaths.[26]

Most deaths were from enemy fire, but manyresulted from the actions of “friendly forces”(yugun). After U.S. artillery and infantrydestroyed their fortified positions in centralOkinawa, Japanese soldiers made a long,chaotic retreat south, frequently turningmurderously on local civilians. They executedOkinawans as “spies” simply for speaking toeach other in the local dialect.[27] Theyordered people sheltering from the battle inunderground caves to move outside into deadlyenemy fire so the soldiers could make room forthemselves. They seized dwindling foodsupplies, causing widespread starvation. And,as noted above, soldiers coerced localresidents, mostly women, children, and theelderly, to commit compulsory group suicide toavoid capture by the enemy. Imperial Armyofficers told civilians that the Americans wouldrape the women, torture captives forinformation, then massacre them. People killedthemselves and relatives around them withhand grenades Japanese forces distributed forthis purpose, or with kitchen knives, razorblades, or other household or farmingimplements turned into instruments of death.In desperation, some beat relatives with rocksor clubs, or used ropes to strangle them andcommit suicide. Okinawans were exhorted todie joyfully for the emperor rather than becomeprisoners-of-war. And they were ordered at allcosts to transport the emperor’s portrait safelyfrom school grounds during evacuations.Allowing it to get wet, lost, or captured couldresult in execution.[28]

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During the early postwar period that beganwith the Allied Occupation of mainland Japan(1945-1952), the emperor and the imperialinstitution were often portrayed in theOccupation-censored press as nonpoliticalproponents of cultural tradition whoseaspirations had been thwarted by themilitary.[29] The Japanese government joinedwith the Americans in promoting Hirohito asthe peace emperor who bravely intervened toend the war. Yet, even before postwarrevelations and the release of documentsrendered this view untenable, both Okinawansand mainland Japanese occasional lycommented on how the characterization ofEmperor Hirohi to a f ter the war wasconspicuously at odds with his widelypubl ic ized wart ime appearances ascommander-in-chief who issued bellicosepronouncements and was photographed inmilitary uniform astride a white horse.

Emperor Hirohito and General MacArther,September, 1945

The Showa emperor’s postwar image as apeacemaker suffered its biggest loss ofcredibility after publication of his own account

of wartime events, as recorded by one of hisclosest advisors. The manuscript wasdiscovered among the posthumous possessionsof Terasaki Hidenari, who served as theemperor’s interpreter and as his liaison toAllied Occupation Headquarters. Terasaki diedin 1951, and his record of the emperor’sdictated account created a sensation when theBungei Shunju magazine first printed it in theDecember, 1990 edition. The next year BungeiShunju Press published it with Terasaki’s diaryas a best-selling book.[30] The monologues(dokuhaku-roku) of March and April, 1946,offered the emperor’s account of the firsttwenty years of his reign as told to severalcourt officials, Terasaki among them. Theemperor confirms that he personal lyinterviewed civilian and military leaders inearly 1945 and rejected the advice of formerPrime Minister Konoe Fumimaro to end the warimmediately, siding instead with the army andnavy for a final “decisive battle” that heassumed would be in Okinawa.

Konoe’s recommendation was based on fearsthat internal dissent in a continuing war couldbe exploited to provoke a Communistrevolution. The emperor rejected it because hehoped, unrealistically, that if Japanese forcescould hold out, the Soviet Union would honorthe Neutrality Treaty it had signed with Japanin 1941 and play an eventual role in negotiatinga settlement.[31] Five months later in June of1945, when Japan’s top policymakersacknowledged that the war was lost, debatesamong them over acceptable surrender termsfocused on the the imperial house. TsuyoshiHasegawa writes that, after receiving a copy ofthe Potsdam declaration on July 27, “Hirohito’sfirst and foremost preoccupation was thepreservation of the imperial house.”[32]Accounts of this period by Okinawans

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emphasize the sacrifice of Okinawa to serve theinterests of the emperor. Senaga Kamejirowrites that “The emperor could have made thedecision to end the war, but he prolonged it outof concern for his own personal safety (jibunjishin no mi no anzen). . . and to preserve theemperor system.”[33]

Military historian Edward J. Drea writes thatHirohito tried to intervene in tactical decisionsin the Battle of Okinawa:

On 3 April [1945], two days after the Americanlandings on the island, Hirohito told:

[Army Ch ie f o f S ta f f ] Umezu[Yoshijiro] that defeat would causepeople to lose confidence in the Armyand Navy. Couldn’t the Thirty-secondArmy on Ok inawa a t tack theAmericans somewhere? If they didn’thave enough troops, how aboutstaging a counter- landing?[34]

The enormous sacrifices on both sides in thisbattle, including an approximate total of200,000 dead[35], seem particularlyoutrageous to Okinawans because the Japanesemilitary had decided six months earlier toabandon the prefecture as a “throw-awaystone”(sute-ishi), a piece which is sacrificed,like a pawn, in the game of go. Okinawancivilians, including schoolchildren, weremobilized for a protracted war of attrition thatJapan’s military leaders hoped would inflicthigh American casualties, slowing the Alliedadvance, and buy time to prepare for ananticipated invasion of the mainland. They alsohoped that high American casualties wouldlead the U.S. to accept surrender terms morefavorable to Japan rather than risk an invasionof the Japanese main islands.

Civilian refugees in the Battle of Okinawa

In 1979, a decade before publication ofTerasaki’s papers, the emperor’s image hadalready suffered a damaging blow in Okinawawith the de-c lass i f icat ion of a 1947memorandum by General MacArthur’s politicaladvisor William Sebald. In the memo toMacArthur , Seba ld summar ized h isconversation with Terasaki who, in his capacityas court liaison to Occupation headquarters,had conveyed the emperor’s views onOkinawa’s future status. Made available by theU.S. National Archives in March, the memo wasdiscussed in the Diet in April, and published inthe May, 1979 issue of the magazine Sekai(World). Sebald’s memo, like Terasaki’s recordof the Showa emperor’s 1946 soliloquies,stirred outrage in Okinawa. Known as “theOkinawa message” (Okinawa messeji) on themainland, in Okinawa it is often referred to as“the emperor’s message”(tenno messeji).

According to Sebald’s text, “Mr. Terasakistated that the Emperor hopes that the UnitedStates will continue the military occupation ofOkinawa and other islands of the Ryukyus. Inthe Emperor’s opinion, such occupation wouldbenefit the United States and also provide

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protection for Japan . . . after the Occupation[of mainland Japan] has ended.”[36] The U.S.had earlier indicated its intention to maintaincontrol of strategically located Okinawa, evenafter the Allies concluded a peace treaty withJapan.[37] Okinawans have viewed theemperor’s message as his effort to use Okinawaagain as a “throw-away stone,” in this case tosecure an early and favorable end to the AlliedOccupation of mainland Japan. His offering ofOkinawa to the U.S. has been compared to theMeiji government’s 1880 offering of Yaeyamaand Miyako islands to China in an effort tosettle the dispute that followed Japan’sunilateral declaration of sovereignty over theRyukyus. In Diet deliberations on the memoheld in April of 1979, Okinawan Lower HouseRepresentative and Japan Communist Partymember Senaga Kamejiro charged that thee m p e r o r ’ s m e s s a g e c o n s t i t u t e dunconstitutional interference in the affairs ofstate.[38] The emperor’s statement has alsobeen viewed in Okinawa as an attempt to curryfavor with Allied occupation authorities toprotect himself and the imperial institution.[39]

Protests and Violence

Public criticism of the emperor and theimperial institution was less common inOkinawa during the early postwar years.University of the Ryukyus literary historianOkamoto Keitoku points out that, in the early1950s, local accounts of the battle condemnedatrocities by Japanese soldiers and war ingeneral, but did not criticize the Japanesestate, the emperor, or the emperor system.[40]At this time, a return to Japanese sovereigntywas thought by a large majority of Okinawansto be their best hope for ending the denial ofpolitical, civil, legal, and property rights, alongwith the dangers, disruptions, and indignities

imposed by U.S. military colonization.[41]

As a U.S. Army draftee stationed in Okinawafor eight months during 1967-68, I observedalmost daily protests, including marches,picketings, and sit-ins reminiscent of civilrights demonstrations in the U.S. Protestersopposed war in Vietnam, military occupation(gun-senryo), and rule by an alien people (i-minzoku shihai). They demanded “reversion toJapan” (Nihon fukki), a nation described as ademocracy governed under a “peacecons t i tu t i on” (he iwa kempo) . Th i scharacterization seems oversimplified,considering the presence of U.S. bases on themainland, the Japanese government’s supportof U.S. intervention in the Korean and VietnamWars, and the constitutional issues raised byJapan’s Self-Defense Forces. But it is easy tounderstand why status as a prefecture in acountry where civilians governed and thestandard of living was steadily rising seemedpreferable to military rule and a third-worldmilitary base economy in which the main“industry” was the “service sector” with barhostess, prostitute, and maid as majoroccupations.[42]

Okamoto writes that public debate over the“emperor system” didn't really begin inOkinawa until after reversion had beennegotiated in 1969, around the time KawamitsuShin'ichi published a 1970 essay entitled“Thought in Okinawa on the EmperorSystem.”[43] By this time, with reversion slatedfor 1972, Okinawan intellectuals began toexpress concern about the failure of schooltexts to address Japan's wartime aggressionand the emperor's wartime role.[44] From thispoint on, antipathy toward Hirohito andopposition to the “emperor system” wereregularly expressed, often with passion, by

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Okinawan educators, students, political parties,labor leaders, anti-war activists, authors,journalists, and people with memories of thebattle.

A professor at the University of the Ryukyus inhis mid-fifties, interviewed in 1998, recalledfirst learning about the “emperor system” andShowa history on a visit to Tokyo around 1965.A few years later he discussed the issue of theemperor’s war responsibility with otherstudents at the university he attended inOkinawa, and came to favor abolition of theimperial institution which he viewed as a“totalitarian symbol that could be used by thegovernment to manipulate people in a crisis.”In 1998, the manager of a small apartmentbuilding in her early forties said that she firstheard about the emperor from her father, aBattle of Okinawa survivor, who denounced(warukuchi) the emperor as responsible for thewar, and especially for the battle. She alsobelieves the Showa emperor bears majorresponsibility for the war, and that, becauseOkinawa was the only prefecture in Japansubjected to ground fighting, its relationshipwith the imperial institution is different fromthat of other prefectures.[45]

The conditions for reversion, which left the vastU.S. military presence there largely intact,reminded Okinawans of past discriminationsuffered under imperial rule. The reversionagreement” (henkan kyotei) came to be called“the prejudiced agreement” (henken kyotei) inOkinawa. Okinawan writers and activistsprotested the Japanese government’sacceptance of the 1969 reversion agreementthat perpetuated the U.S. militarization ofOkinawa and the 1970 renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty with provisions thatexpanded the right of the U.S. military to use

bases in Japan for logistical support in Vietnamand o ther areas o f con f l i c t . [46 ] Asdemonstrations against the reversionagreement and renewal of the Security Treatyraged during the final years of widespreadstudent activism in Japan, Okinawans wereinvolved in two violent outbreaks of anti-emperor protest.

In what was called the "Tokyo Tower Incident,"Tomimura Jun’ichi, an itinerant worker fromOkinawa, took an American missionary hostageon the observation platform of Tokyo Tower onJuly 8, 1970. Shortly after his arrest, the pressquoted him as having yelled "America, get outof Okinawa" and "Japanese, shut up aboutOkinawa." The press did not initially report thathe had written on his body a demand for anaccounting of the emperor's war responsibility.It was only during Tomimura's trial in 1971that h i s ac t ion was recogn ized as adenunciation of the emperor.

In an essay written partly in prison entitled"From the Depths of Bitterness" (Onnen nofuchi kara), Tomimura describes himself as alumpen proletarian who had dropped out ofschool as a teen-ager. Arrested in Okinawa forstealing and for illegally entering an Americanbase, he spent time in a local jail where heparticipated in a riot of the inmates. After hisrelease, he traveled to the mainland, workingas a longshoreman and manual laborer inseveral localities where he experiencedprejudice as an Okinawan. These experiences,he said, led to his bitterness against theemperor who personified the Japanese statethat continued to exploit and sacrificeOkinawans.[47]

On September 25, 1971, four young men fromOkinawa attempted to force their way onto the

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grounds of the imperial palace shouting thatthe emperor was a war criminal and demandingcancellation of his impending visit to Europe.Such confrontational anti-emperor actions wererare. However, numerous peaceful protestsoccurred as the debate over the emperor and“emperor system” widened and deepenedamong Okinawans following announcement ofthe terms of the reversion agreement. Threeyears after reversion, protest demonstrationswere organized, largely by local labor unions,to oppose the visit to Okinawa of then-CrownPrince Akihito and Princess Michiko (nowEmperor and Empress) for the July 1975opening ceremonies of Ocean Expo (Kaiyo-hakuran-kai). Demonstrators marched carryingbanners and placards in peaceful protest.

During this visit the prince and princesstraveled to Himeyuri Shrine on July 17 to honorthe teenage school girls drafted as battlefieldnurses who had died during the Battle ofOkinawa. The Japanese government haddispatched 2400 special security forces fromthe mainland to augment the 1400 prefecturalpolice on patrol during the prince andprincess’s visit. Nevertheless, protestors hurleda bottle of burning gasoline at the couple’smotorcade as it passed through Itoman City enroute to Himeyuri Shrine, and another in theirdirection as they stood before it. The secondfirebomb burst into flames three or four yardsfrom the prince, the princess, and a HimeyuriStudent Corps survivor who was explaining thecorps’ history. None of them were hurt, but aguard from the Imperial Household Agency wasinjured when the suspects were arrested. Threeweeks later four men in their twenties, twofrom Okinawa and two from the mainland, wereindicted. This attack was vigorously denouncedin Okinawa by local educators, political parties,and labor unions. Organizers of the peaceful

demonstration against the emperor’s visitcondemned the violence as damaging to theircause and as “terrorism that distorts the truevoice of the Okinawan people.”[48]

Protests were also held when Okinawa wasdesignated as site for the 1987 NationalAthletic Meet (Kokumin tai-iku taikai), anannual event customarily attended by theemperor. Again, labor leaders organizeddemonstrations, denouncing the emperor’sproposed visit as “exploitation of the NationalAthletic Meet to promote emperor politics;”and, as ignoring “the history of the emperor’sdiscrimination against Okinawa.”[49] Teachersled public forums for critical discussion of thevisit on April 29, Emperor Hirohito’s birthdayand a national holiday. Negative reaction inOkinawa, compared with the lack ofcontroversy over his attendance at NationalAthletic Meets held previously in otherprefectures, again revealed the high levels ofOkinawan criticism of the emperor and theimperial institution. In the end, the emperor,who had become seriously ill, did not attendthe 1987 meet.

Reaction in Okinawa to the Showaemperor’s death

Okinawa’s two daily newspapers reported theemperor’s death two years later on January 7,1989, in ways that differed significantly fromreporting in other Japanese newspapers. Firstof all, the word “hogyo”, denoting the “death ofan emperor or empress,”[50] which was usedelsewhere in Japan on January 7, did notappear in the main headlines of eitherOkinawan daily. Instead, “go-seikyo,” a “termof respect for the death of another person”[51],was used. Hosaka Hiroshi of the Department ofJournalism at the University of the Ryukyus

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explained the reason for choosing “go-seikyo”in Okinawa on January 7 as “consideration forthe special sensitivities of the people in theprefecture.”[52]

Coverage in background articles in Okinawa onJanuary 7 focused on the Showa emperor’sconnections with Okinawa’s history, especiallyduring and after the war. The Ryukyu Shimpoprinted his postwar public statements aboutOkinawa, highlighting his expressed, butunrealized, desire in the final months of hisreign to visit the prefecture “as soon aspossible when my health recovers. . . . I want tocomfort the spirits (rei o nagusame) of thosewho died in the war, and express myappreciation for the suffering (kuro onegiraitai) of the people in the prefecture.” Inother statements quoted, the emperor said in1962 that he was “encouraged to hear aboutefforts for postwar recovery (sengo fukko) inOkinawa.” At a press conference in 1965, sevenyears before reversion, he was asked aboutpeople in Okinawa who were hoping he mightvisit. He replied that “there are now manydifficult questions regarding the status ofOkinawa; if I went, it would be sometime in thefuture, so I cannot say definitely now whetheror not I will go.” On September 8, 1969, in themidst of reversion negotiations between Japanand the U.S., the emperor was quoted as sayingto a group of reporters that “I have deepsympathy for the people in Okinawa hoping forreversion to the homeland (sokoku fukki). Iwant the people of Okinawa to trust that ourgovernment is making every effort.” On May15, 1972, the day of reversion, he was quotedas saying, “I fervently hope for utmost efforts indevelopment and construction of a peacefuland prosperous Okinawa Prefecture.” On June11, 1984, the emperor presented the ImperialAward (onshi-sho) to University of the Ryukyus

Professor Nakasone Seizen who had been oneof the teachers supervising the HimeyuriStudent Nurse Corps, and had written aboutthis experience. The emperor is quoted assaying, “The Second World War must havebeen a terrible time for you.” (Dai-niji-taisen notoki wa, taihen datta desho.)

All these statements were presented in theRyukyu Shimpo without comment on January 7,the day of the emperor’s death. No mentionwas made in this article of his role in thePacific War, his decision to order a battle thatdevastated Okinawa at a time when Japan’sdefeat was a foregone conclusion, or hissupport for prolonged U.S. military occupationafter the war. Nor was there reference tocriticism in Okinawa of Professor Nakasone foraccepting the Imperial Award. However,shortly before and soon after the Showaemperor’s death, Okinawa’s newspaperscovered public discussion of the Showaemperor’s wartime responsibility and ofdemonstrations opposing the imperialinstitution. Like many journalists, labor leaders,and teachers in Okinawa, the editors at both ofOkinawa’s daily newspapers have been stronglycritical of the imperial institution. AuthorArakawa Akira and the above-cited KawamitsuShin’ichi, who have published critical essays inbooks and journals, have served, respectively,as president and vice-president at the Taimusu.The Shimpo reported on December 22, twoweeks before the emperor’s death, thatYamauchi Tokushin, mayor of Yomitan Villagein central Okinawa, had stated the previousday, in response to a question at a villagecouncil meeting, that he agreed with MayorMotoshima Hitoshi of Nagasaki who had said ata meeting of the Nagasaki City Assembly onDecember 7 tha t the emperor boreresponsibility for the war.[53] Motoshima had

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added to reporters later that, in his opinion, “ifthe emperor, in response to reports from hissenior statesmen, had resolved to end the warearlier, there would have been no Battle ofOkinawa and no nuclear attacks on Hiroshimaor Nagasaki.”[54] Mayor Motoshima, who wasonly stating established historical fact, wassubsequently seriously wounded in anassassination attempt by a mainland Japanese.

Like Motoshima, Yamauchi stated that theemperor was “the person with the greatestresponsibility” (saiko sekinin-sha) forprolonging the war. Both Nagasaki andYomitan have special significance in the warand its aftermath. Nagasaki, of course, wasdevastated by the atomic bombing of August, 9,1945. The U.S. Navy base at Sasebo is nearby.Yomitan Village, the site of a Japanese ImperialArmy airfield, was a target of the initialamphibious assault by U.S. forces landing onOkinawa Main Island April 1, 1945. Much of itis still occupied today by Kadena Air Base, thelargest American air base in Asia and acontinuing source of noise, accidents, andserious crimes committed against Okinawansby U.S. forces stationed there.

In the month following Motoshima’s andYamauchi’s statements and twelve days afterthe Showa emperor’s death, the OkinawaTaimusu printed an article attributed to theKyodo news service under the headline “Largecrowds attend rallies against the emperorsystem.” It reported that, during the weekfollowing the emperor’s death, overflowgatherings for protest demonstrations ofcitizens groups in Tokyo, Kyoto, and othercities had surprised everyone, including theorganizers, with their numbers and intensity.Participants were quoted as especially criticalof media coverage following the emperor’s

death, which, they said, projected a “mood ofemperor-glorification” (tenno sambi nomudo)[55]. These protests might suggest thatthe potential for organized opposition to theimperial institution on the mainland has beenunderestimated. Many such demonstrationshad, of course, been taking place in Okinawasince reversion.

Recent Imperial visits

Four years after the Showa emperor’s death,the visit of Emperor Akihito and EmpressMichiko to Okinawa in April of 1993 on theoccasion of the annual Arbor Day Festival(shokuju-sai) provoked criticism in the pressand among local educators. Both localnewspapers emphasized that this was the firstvisit ever of a reigning emperor in the historyof Japan's monarchy. They pointed out thatAkihito's father had traveled to Okinawa ascrown prince in 1921, and had visited everyother Japanese prefecture after becomingemperor. While Governor Nishime Junji of theruling conservative “Liberal Democratic Party”(L.D.P.) had welcomed the 1987 visit to “bringan end to the postwar period,”[56] a Taimusueditorial criticized it eight years later as anattempt by the L.D.P. to “beautify” theemperor's image (tenno bika) in Okinawa.[57]A Shimpo editorial printed during the 1993 visitquoted the words of consolation EmperorAkihito offered to the survivors of the Battle ofOkinawa. While noting that his statementreflected a deeply felt hope for peace, theeditorial explained that the suffering of theOkinawan people during and long after thebattle, which took more than 200,000 lives, wasdirectly related to Japan's “emperor system.”Many Okinawans, as well as mainland soldiers,perished in the name of the emperor. Itconcluded that at least some Okinawans were

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displeased that Emperor Akihito's words weredevoid of any reflection on this fact.[58] In itsApril 23 evening edition, the Taimusu publishedstatements protesting the visit issued at aconference of the Okinawa Teachers Union’syouth and women’s committees that wasattended by about 100 members on April 22.The teachers wrote that “This way of observingArbor Day diverges far from its intendedpurpose of spreading the philosophy ofafforestation; it has become a ceremonycentering on the emperor and promoting hisbeautification.” They also protested the“oppressive assault” and “overreaction” ofheavy-handed security measures that includedvisits to people’s homes.[59] On April 27, theTaimusu quoted an interview with GovernorOta Masahide, elected in 1990 with supportfrom a coalition of opposition parties. Whilecalling the visit a success, he emphasized thatit “in no way marks an end to the postwar erain Okinawa where many problems remain.”[60]

In June of 1995 Emperor Akihito and EmpressMichiko visited Okinawa to attend ceremoniesobserving the fiftieth anniversary of the Battleof Okinawa. June 23, officially identified as theday the battle ended, is observed in Okinawa as“Memorial Day” (irei no hi), an annualprefecture-wide holiday. Their visit stirred lesscontroversy than the couple’s previous visits ascrown prince and princess in 1975, and asemperor and empress in 1993. On thisoccasion, they were two of many dignitarieswho attended, including Prime MinisterMurayama Tomiichi and ambassadors from theUnited States and South Korea. Americanveterans of the battle also participated at theinvitation of the Okinawa PrefecturalGovernment. In 1985, while still a professor atthe University of the Ryukyus, Ota Masahidehad criticized plans for the proposed visit of the

Showa emperor to attend the 1987 NationalAthletic Meet.[61] Ten years later as governorhe issued a brief statement welcoming theemperor “to come and offer condolences as asymbol of state,” emphasizing his postwarconstitutional role, and hosted a reception forthe imperial couple at the prefecturalgovernment offices.

As for published commentary on the 1995 visit,a Taimusu article on June 25 mentioned thatthe emperor and empress also planned to visitHiroshima and Nagasaki for fiftieth anniversaryobservances, but “with the many victims inOkinawa of civilian massacres by the ImperialArmy (kogun) during the Battle, feelings ofpeople in the prefecture about the emperor’svisit are complicated (fukuzatsu).” The articlealso noted that the emperor’s traditional visitsto the local venues of such annual events as theNational Athletic Meet and Arbor Day are madeat the invitation of local organizers. In contrast,this visit was “quite exceptional” (kiwametereigai) because it had been “planned actively”(sekkyoku-teki ni keikaku suru) at the requestof the emperor and empress. Finally, it quoteda 71-year-old woman from Naha interviewed atthe ceremony in Itoman unveil ing theCornerstone of Peace (heiwa no ishiji)memorial to the dead in the Battle of Okinawa,completed shortly before the f i ft iethanniversary observances. Its sweeping rows ofstone panel monuments, a design reminiscentof Washington’s Vietnam Memorial, is engravedwith the names of persons, grouped bynationality, known to have died in the battle. “Iwish Emperor Showa had come here just once,”the woman said. “I wanted him to apologize tothe people of Okinawa.”[62]

Responses to the imperial family'sgestures at reconciliation

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In recent years, members of the imperial familyhave made conspicuous efforts to convey whathas been widely referred to as a “specialfeeling” or, in author Takahashi Hiroshi’swords, a “deep understanding” for Okinawa. Asthe Okinawa Taimusu noted, the emperor andempress took the highly unusual step ofinitiating a request to visit when they attendedthe 1995 Memorial Day ceremonies instead ofresponding to a local invitation.[63] That sameyear Prince Akishino chose the yuna (lion's cup)as the floral emblem (o-shirushi) for his seconddaughter, born in 1995. Often associated withOkinawa in painting and literature, thesubtropical yuna grows there and in SoutheastAsia. Okinawa’s press covered the officialannouncement as a minor news story. Thechoice of yuna was interpreted as a gift fromthe imperial family in recognition of Okinawa'swartime ordeal on the 50th anniversary year ofthe conflict's end. Two Okinawan universityprofessors I interviewed in 1999 were moreskeptical, however, calling it yet another effortto improve the image (“imeji uppu”) of theimperial institution in Okinawa.

Commenting on what he called EmperorAkihito’s “deep understanding” of Okinawa,Takahashi Hiroshi wrote in the February, 1999issue of the semi-official English languagemagazine Japan Echo on the emperor’s studiesof “the Okinawa problem:”[64]

What’s not well known is that [EmperorAkihito] was already at the time [he was crownprince] engaged in serious research into theOkinawa problem. . . . During a gathering inthe memorial hall [in Okinawa] dedicated to theremembrance of the Okinawan war victims,there were so many war bereaved packed intothe room that the air conditioners did little tohelp; it was like a sauna in there. But even

though sweat was streaming off the prince andprincess, they remained respectfullymotionless, not once using their handkerchiefs.Over time, the crown prince paid numerousvisits like this, and at last people came torecognize that he had a deep understanding ofOkinawa and its people. A sign of thisunderstanding remains today on the nearbyisland of Ie in the form of a stone tabletinscribed with a poem composed by the princeduring a tour of Ie, the site of a particularlyferocious battle during World War II.[65]

Many Okinawans object to the term “Okinawaproblem,” used here by Takahashi, because itimplies that Okinawans, and not the Americanand Japanese governments, are somehow toblame for the prolonged postwar occupationand continuing U.S. military presence.Okinawans might also object to Takashashi’smention in passing of Okinawa’s “war victims”and “war bereaved” as a prelude to hiselaborate praise for the sweating imperialcouple’s stoicism in refraining from using theirhandkerchiefs. Okinawa’s summer heat “like asauna.” The crown prince and princess’s visitsare remembered there at least as much for theenormous police presence and the 1975firebombings as for their attendance atmemorial ceremonies. Since Takahashi’sarticle, Emperor Akihito has spoken publicly ofhis interest in Okinawa. Interviewed at theImperial Palace on November 12, 1999, for thetenth year commemoration of his reign, he wasasked to comment on the legacy of World WarII. In his response he spoke mostly aboutOkinawa, mentioning the battle and explainingthat he had begun his studies of Okinawa’shistory and culture while he was still crownprince.

A truly tragic battle unfolded in Okinawa

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which, besides soldiers, involved many peopleof the prefecture. Countless lives were lost.Moreover, Okinawa went through 27 yearsunder U.S. administration before finally beingreturned to Japan. I believe all Japanese mustnever forget the hard road seeking reversion toJapan. I turned my attentions to the history andculture of Okinawa because it was my duty,with the reversion, to understand Okinawa’shistory and culture as I jo ined in thewelcoming. [66]

Using such passive voice expressions as“unfolded” and “countless lives were lost,” theemperor’s statement applies the samerhetorical strategy as pronouncements aboutthe battle by government officials that make itsound as if some natural disaster had occurred,ignoring the responsibility of the Showaemperor, the Japanese military, and theAmerican military for the devastation.

In 1999, the Imperial Household Agency invitedOkinawan celebrities, including the rock band“Speed” and singer Amuro Namie, Japan’s mostfamous pop music superstar at the time, toperform at a concert held in the palaceenvirons to commemorate the tenthanniversary of Emperor Akihito’s reign. Theirappearances at this event were stronglycriticized by Okinawans in the prefecture andon the mainland. A university professor Iinterviewed a year earlier expressed regretthat fewer of his students in recent years tookan interest in issues associated with theimperial institution, and tended to think of theimperial family as media celebrities who wearthe latest fashions and are the subjects ofgossip in mainland magazines. Since becomingemperor, Akihito has also invited suchOkinawan scholars as linguist Hokama Shuzento the palace for lectures on Okinawa’s history

and culture. Reactions to Emperor Akihito’sattempt at composing Ryuka poetry inOkinawa’s traditional 30-syllable (8-8-8-6) verseform were decidedly mixed. His Ryuka drewcompliments from Oshiro Tatsuhiro (b. 1925),Okinawa’s best-known novelist, but Oshiro waschided later by Medoruma Shun (b. 1960), aprolific younger novelist with a growingreputation, for praising “the emperor’s lousy(heta-kuso) poem.”[67] Medoruma also joinedother writers in Okinawa who criticized Oshiro,as in the case of Nakasone Seizen, foraccepting an imperial commendation, in thiscase the “Culture Prize” (Bunka Kunsho),awarded annually by the emperor.

Summing up

Published and publicly expressed criticism ofthe imperial institution is far more conspicuousand vigorous in Okinawa than in otherprefectures, with some there calling, at leastindirectly, for its abolition. Critics point outthat the Showa emperor bears responsibility,confirmed by recently released documents butstil l unacknowledged by the Japanesegovernment, for decisions that broughtcatastrophic devastation on Okinawa as asacrificial pawn in the Battle of 1945, and forfacilitating the prolonged U.S. occupation andcontinuing military presence after the war.[68]They maintain that, even today, when theemperor’s constitutional role is supposed to be“symbolic,” the government in Tokyo exploitsthis symbolism for propaganda purposes insacrificing Okinawa to a disproportionateburden of military bases. Interviewed in 1998,a university professor in his late forties saidthat Emperor Akihito’s “special feelings” forOkinawa, whether sincere or not, were beingused politically to pressure Okinawa on issuesthat affect the prefecture.

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Okinawan critics of the imperial institutionhave also identified it more broadly as the coreof a national mythology, espoused publicly bygovernment leaders, which asserts the centralposition of the emperor, chosen by malesuccession, and extols the “homogeneity” of theJapanese “race.” They argue that suchmythology, supported by high governmentofficials, has the effect of devaluing orexcluding people of diverse ethnicities andnational origins.[69] Interviewed in 1999, thedirector of a culture center in his early fortiesstrongly advocated abolition of the imperialinstitution, explaining that officials’ publicembracing of this mythology has made it easierfor the Japanese government to oppressOkinawans. He pointed to officials’ widelyreported statements in support of it as abettingpolitical, economic, and social discriminationagainst resident minorities and recentimmigrants in Japan. [70]

Finally, in this essay I have discussed thefrequency and intensity of published andpublicly expressed criticism of the imperialinstitution in Okinawa. This does not suggestthat opinion in Okinawa on this, or any otherissue, is monolithic. The two EducationMinistry administrators I interviewed in 1998indicated support for the imperial institution inits postwar form. A senior official at theMinistry in his early fifties said he believedEmperor Akihito felt a special sympathy (omoi-yari) for Okinawa. A junior official in his mid-forties said that the Showa emperor boreresponsibility for the war, but that the emperoris now without political power and helps tomaintain national unity. In his interview, theuniversity professor in his late forties, who wassharply critical of the imperial institution,noted with disappointment that a diminishingnumber of his students seem interested in the

issue.[71] The free-lance journalist in her mid-for t ies , who ind icated that she wasunconcerned about the issue, said that it wasgiven exaggerated importance in Okinawa. Theapartment manager in her early forties wassharply critical of the imperial institution, butsaid she was far more concerned about theactions of the prime minister and the Diet whomake policies that directly affect theprefecture, such as maintaining U.S. basesthere, one of which, the Futenma Marine CorpsAir Station, is close to her home in Ginowan.Other critics cited above argue that thegovernment uses the imperial institution tomanipulate opinion in Okinawa and dampenopposition to such policies.

Protesting bases

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Notes

[1] Kamata Satoshi, “Shattering Jewels:110,000 Okinawans Protest State Censorship ofCompulsory Group Suicides” This is a slightlyabbreviated version of a two-part articletranslated in Shukan Kinyobi, No. 674 and 676,October 12 and 26, 2007. Posted at JapanFocus on January 3, 2008. Also see, in the sameissue of Japan Focus, an article by AniyaMasaaki and editorials in the OkinawaTimesAsahi Shimbun (December 28, 2007)(December 27, 2002) and the on the textbookcontroversy. The Okinawa Taimusu editorialreports that the Education Ministry agreed,after the massive protest in Okinawa and at therequest of textbook publishers, to restore thewords “Japanese military” (Nihon gun), but in acontext that leaves some ambiguity in therelationship between the military and “groupsuicides.”

[2] Norma Field, In the Realm of a DyingEmperor: Japan at Century’s End (New York:Pantheon Books, 1993): 67. Field writes that“Okinawans . . . had been imbued with both thehorror and shame (as Japanese) of falling intoAmerican hands.” (Field, 66)

[3] Kamata, Japan Focus (January 3, 2008): 7.

[4] Tsuha Kiyoshi, et al., ed., Okinawa-kenHeiwa Kinen Shiryo-kan: Sogo Annai (OkinawaPrefectural Peace Memorial Museum:Comprehensive Guidebook: Naha: Okinawa-kenHeiwa Kinen Shiryo-kan, 2001): 72.

[5] Figures in Tsuha, et al., 90. Of the 1,780teenage boys mobilized for the Tekketsu kinno-tai (Emperor’s iron and blood corps), 890 losttheir lives. (See Arashiro Toshiaki, Ryuykyu,Okinawa-shi (History of Ryukyu and Okinawa;Naha, Okinawa, Toyo Kikaku, 1997): 211.) Ota

Masahide, a member of the corps who laterbecame a professor at the University ofRyukyus and governor of Okinawa Prefecture(1990-98), wrote in 1953, “I was one of thoseo b e d i e n t s t u d e n t s w h o b e l i e v e dunquestioningly what our teachers taught usand what we read in our textbooks—that wemust give our lives for the emperor and thenation. We devoted ourselves completely totraining our bodies and our minds inpreparation for that day.” NakadomariYoshikane, another teen-age member of thecorps, wrote a will to his parents that wasfound in a cave after the battle. “My body doesnot belong to me. I am his Majesty’s subject.My life was bestowed by Imperial Japan, and Ido not hesitate to give it for the nation. This isonly natural. I have no regrets about dying, andhave faith in our certain victory.” Quoted inNakahodo Masanori, Okinawa no senki(Accounts of the Battle of Okinawa; Tokyo:Asahi Shinsho, 1982): 81 and 93, respectively.

[6] See Terasaki Hidenari Showa Tenno nodokuhaku-roku--Terasaki Hidenari goyogakarinikki (A Record of the Showa Emperor’sMonologues—Diary of the Emperor’s Aide,Terasaki Hidenari; Tokyo: Bungei Shunju-sha,1991).

[7] Okinawa Taimusu, April 23, 1993.

[8] In addition to such categories as localhistory, economy, literature, language, andperforming arts, bibliographies published inOkinawa listing books about the prefectureoften include a special section titled “tenno-sei”(emperor system). Amami, Okinawa-gakubunken shiryo mokuroku (Bibliography ofPublished Materials on Amami and Okinawa,June, 1991 edition), published by the RomanShobo bookstore chain, lists fourteen recent

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books in this section with such titles asOkinawa kara tenno-sei o utsu (Attacking theemperor system from Okinawa) by ArazatoKinbuku (Shinsensha, 1987) and Tenno o kyohisuru Okinawa (Okinawa’s rejection of theemperor), Shakai Hyoron-sha 1987.

[9] Amami Oshima, the northernmost of themajor Ryukyu Islands, was part of the RyukyuKingdom, but is now administered byKagoshima Prefecture in southern Kyushu.

[10] See Arashiro, 79-98 and Steve Rabson,Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas (Institute ofEast Asian Studies, University of California,Berkeley, 1996): 7-22

[11] Steve Rabson, “Assimilation Policy inOkinawa: Promotion, Resistance, andReconstruction,” Chalmers Johnson, ed.,Okinawa: Cold War Island (Cardiff, CA: JapanPolicy Research Institute): 133-138.

[12] Ibid., 140-142.

[13] Aniya Masaaki, et al., Okinawa to tenno(Naha: Akebono Shuppan, 1987): 82.

[14] George Kerr, Okinawa: The History of anIsland People (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E.Tuttle Company, 1958): 450-51.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid., 453-54.

[17] Quoted in Aniya Masaaki, “Tenno toOkinawa no Showa-shi” (The Emperor andOkinawa in Showa History), Bunka Hyoron 320(November, 1987): 80.

[18] Kawamitsu Shin’ichi, "Okinawa ni okerutenno-sei shiso" (Okinawa and emperor systemideology), Okinawa no shiso (Tokyo: Kikurage-

sha, 1970): 78-82; and Kerr, 451-53.

[19] Kyuyo Shimpo (July 25, 1938).

[20] Ibid.(February 13, 1939).

[21] Aniya et al., 99.

[22] Okinawa Kenjin-kai Hyogo Ken Honbu, ed.,Shima o deta tami no senso

taiken-shu (Collected war experiences ofpeople who left the islands; Amagasaki:Okinawa Kenjin-kai Hyogo Ken Honbu, 1995):178-80..

[23] Ibid., 263-64.

[24] Ibid., 198.

[25] Jo Nobuko Martin, A Princess Lily of theRyukyus (Tokyo: Shin-Nippon Kyoiku Tosho,1984).

[26] Jo Nobuko Martin, The Ryukyuanist 20(Spring, 1993): 4-5.

[27] See Matthew Allen, “Wolves at the BackDoor: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres,”Laura Hein and Mark Selden, ed., OkinawanResponses to Japanese and American Power(Rowman and Littlefield, 2003): 39-64.

[28] See Field, 56-69 and Matthew Allen, “AStory That Won’t Fade Away: Compulsory MassSuicide in the Battle of Okinawa,” Japan Focus,July 12, 2007.

[29] See, for example, Yuri Kaoru, “Heiwa o aisuru kokoro” (A heart that loves peace), Akikono shogai (The life of Yosano Akiko; Tokyo:Saika Shobo, 1948): 23-25.

[30] Terasaki Hidenari (1991). See discussionin Herbert P. Bix, “The Showa Emperor’s

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‘Monologue’ and the Problem of WarResponsibility,” Journal of Japanese Studies 18,2 (Summer, 1992) and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, TheEnd of the Pacific War: Reappraisals (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 2007).

[31] Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making ofModern Japan (New York: HarperCollins,2000): 489.

[32] Hasegawa Tsuyoshi, “The Atomic Bombsand the Soviet Invasion: What Drove Japan’sDecision to Surrender?” Japan Focus (August17, 2007).

[33] Senaga Kamejiro, "Tenno no senso sekinin,sengo sekinin" (The emperor’s responsibilityfor the war and after the war ) Bunka Hyoron320 (November, 1987): 45-53.

[34] Edward J. Drea, In the Service of theEmperor: Essays on the Japanese ImperialArmy (Lincoln, Nebraska: University ofNebraska Press, 1998): 199.

[35] A recorded 122, 228 Okinawans, includingapproximately 94,000 civilians and 28,228 inlocal defense forces or working for the military,65,908 mainland Japanese, and 12,500Americans died during the 82 day battle.Tsuha, et al., 90.

[36] “Memorandum for General MacArthur,” 20September, 1947.

[37] Robert D. Eldridge. “Showa tenno toOkinawa: ‘Tenno messeji’ no saikosatsu.” (TheShowa emperor and Okinawa: the “emperor’smessage” reconsidered) Chuo Koron 114, no.1377 (March, 1999): 152-171.

[38] Government officials claimed to “lacksufficient information,” and declined comment.Asahi Shimbun (February 22, 1989): 13.

[39] Aniya et al., 17-20.

[40] Okamoto Keitoku, “Okinawa ni okerutenno-sei ron,” Okinawa ni totte tenno-sei to wanani ka (Naha, Okinawa: Okinawa Taimusu-sha,1976):5-14.

[41] Tsuha, 104-5. For comparisons byOkinawans in the 1950s and 1960s of politicaland economic conditions in Okinawa and on themainland, see Uezu Hisashi, et al., ed., Koko niYoju Ari: Okinawa Kenjin-kai Hyogo-ken Honbu35 nen-shi (The banyan tree here: Thirty-five-year history of the Hyogo Okinawa PrefecturalAssociation; Kobe: Okinawan Kenjin-kai Hyogo-ken Honbu, 1982): 363-372.

[42] Rabson, Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas,7-22.

[43] Kawamitsu, 78-82.

[44] Okamoto, 5-8.

[45] During the summers of 1995, 1998, and1999, I conducted open-ended interviews ofnine Okinawans, asking their views on theemperor and the imperial institution. I spokewith men and women of various ages. Theywere three university professors, one universityresearch associate, two administrators at theprefectural Education Ministry, a free-lancejournalist, the director of a culture center, andthe manager of an apartment building. I hadnot previously discussed the imperialinstitution with any of them. The interviewswere not intended to be a representativesampling of Okinawan opinion, but wereconducted to elicit fuller expressions ofindividual views than would be possible in, forexample, multiple-choice responses tonewspaper opinion polls.

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[46] Okamoto, 12-14.

[47] Tomimura Jun’ichi, “Onnen no fuchi kara,”Wan ga umari Okinawa (Tokyo: TakushokuShobo, 1972).

[48] Okinawa Taimusu (July 18 and August 7,1975):1.

[49 ]Ibid. (October 18, 1987): 2.

[50] Shinmura Isuzu, et al., ed., Kojien(Iwanami Shoten, 1972): 2012.

[51] Ibid., 1217. Later, some mainland dailiesalso used the word “go-seikyo,” but not untilthe day after the emperor’s death.

[52] Okinawa Taimusu (May 7, 1993): 3.

[53] Ryukyu Shimpo (December 22, 1988: 11.

[54] Translation in Field, 178.

[55] Okinawa Taimusu (January 19, 1989): 1.

[56] Ibid. (October 12, 1985): 3.

[57] Ibid. (April 23, 1993): 13.

[58] Ryukyu Shimpo (April 24, 1993): 3.

[59] Okinawa Taimusu (April 23 and 24): 2-3.

[60] Ibid. (April 27, 1993): 2.

[61] Ibid. (October 12, 1985): 1.

[62] Ibid. (June 25, 1995): 3.

[63] Ibid. (June 25, 1995): 2.

[64] Takahashi Hiroshi and Tokoro Isao,“Uncertain Future for the Imperial Line,” JapanEcho 14, no. 1 (February, 1999): 47-53.

[65] Takahashi, 53.

[66] Okinawa Taimusu (October 12, 1985): 1.

[67] Interviewed in the magazine Keeshi Kaji,no. 13 (November, 1999): 28.

[68] Aniya, et al., Okinawa to Tenno, 13-55.

[69] Okamoto Keitoku, “Kindai Okinawa totenno-sei: sono shoso to mondai-ten.”(ModernOkinawa and the emperor system: its aspectsand problems), Okamoto, 335-338.

[70] Pr ime Min is ter Mor i Yosh iro ’scharacterization in 2,000 of Japan as a “divinecountry centered on the emperor” wascriticized by opposition party leaders asreviving an ideology that fueled militarism andaggression during Japan’s imperial era. ForeignMinister Aso Taro stated in 2005 that “Japan isone nation, one civilization, one language, oneculture, and one race, the like of which there isno other on earth.” In 2000, Tokyo MayorIshihara Shintaro stated that “many of theatrocious crimes” in Tokyo are committed by“third country nationals,” using the derogatoryterm (sangoku-jin), and “foreigners.” Thisclaim, unsupported by police statistics, broughtcalls for his resignation.

[71] According to opinion polls conducted bythe Ryukyu Shimpo, 43.4% of respondentsexpressed ambivalence or indifference towardthe imperial institution in March and April of1987, 24.5% in March of 1995, and 35% in late2001 for a poll published on New Years Day,2002.

Steve Rabson is professor emeritus of EastAsian Studies, Brown University, a Japan Focusassociate, the author of Righteous Cause orTragic Folly: Changing Views of War in Modern

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Japanese Poetry, and a translator of Okinawanliterature.

He wrote this article for Japan Focus. Posted onFebruary 16, 2008.

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