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91 5 Rising Up from a Sea of Discontent The 1970 Koza Uprising in U.S.-Occupied Okinawa Wesley Iwao Ueunten Burn, burn, let the whole world burn! —Overheard by journalists during the Koza Uprising (Takamine, Shirarezaru Okinawa no beihei) I came across an account of a riot that occurred in Okinawa on December 20, 1970, that made its way to the front page of many major American newspapers but then suddenly disappeared from news coverage the next day. In the aftermath of the “Koza Riot,” or what I choose to call the “Koza Uprising” because it was not merely a chaotic and mindless fracas (a point about which I will address later; see Figure 5.1), over seventy cars owned by Americans and a few buildings on the huge Kadena Air Force Base, for which the town of Koza served as an entertainment district, were burned by Okinawans. No such violent protest by Okinawans toward U.S. military occupation can be remembered before or since then. This chapter seeks to examine critically the historical and social context of the Koza Uprising; in doing so, it aims to reveal the nature of a tripartite relationship between Okinawa, the United States, and Japan. That is, the Koza Uprising took place against the backdrop of U.S. imperialism in Asia and its colonial rule over Okinawa. Japan had previously been the colonial ruler of Okinawa after forcibly annexing the former Ryûkyûan Kingdom in 1879. Consequently, the U.S. takeover of Okinawa in 1945 was the transfer of control from one colonial ruler to another. However, Japan has benefited from U.S. colonial rule over Okinawa, as its postwar “economic miracle” was made possible by the U.S. military umbrella concentrated in Okinawa. In the postwar period, then, Japan became a “junior partner” to 92 · WESLEY IWAO UEUNTEN the United States’ hegemonic influence in Asia; Japan’s defeat meant that it was forced to acquiesce to a subordinate status under the United States, but it did not mean giving up dominant status over other Asian countries. Okinawa became the “keystone” in this unholy alliance by allowing Japan to contain the most blatant aspects of U.S. domination in a place far enough away to remain out of the consciousness of the general American and Japanese populations but near enough to offer the benefits of U.S. military presence. Even now, about 20 percent of Okinawa, the main island in the Ryûkyû Archipelago, is occupied by U.S. military bases. About 75 percent of all U.S. military facilities in Japan are located in Okinawa, despite the fact that Okinawa comprises less than 1 percent of the land area of Japan. To put things into perspective, the size of Okinawa is approximately 454 square miles, or almost exactly the size of the city of Los Angeles, and smaller than the island of Kaua’i in the Hawaiian archipelago.1 Interestingly enough, the tripartite relationship bred the conditions for the development of a “Third World” consciousness among Okinawans. Given that Okinawa was and still is a colonized space, it is not surprising that Okinawans developed an affinity to other colonized peoples in the world. A Third World consciousness, with strong ties to U.S. movements, also became concrete and interpersonal with the presence of a large number of soldiers, many of whom came from inner-city and working-class backgrounds. Among these soldiers were African Americans, who were disproportionately represented in the Vietnam War. There were also white political activists from the United States with whom Okinawans were in direct contact. Thus, in the midst of the uprising, Okinawans consciously refrained from harming African American soldiers and their property. However, given that the United States’ entry into Asia was from the start a masculine incursion (starting from at least Commodore Matthew Perry’s landing in Okinawa in 1853) and that the U.S. military has always been led and “manned” predominantly by males, we cannot analyze Okinawa as merely a colonized and racialized space. Okinawa must be seen as part of a larger network of U.S. military installations and U.S.-friendly countries that catered to the sexual needs of American troops. This network resembles and even overlaps the former Japanese military’s arrangement of military installations and brothels (euphemistically referred to as “comfort stations”) and the present Japanese system of economic incursions and sex tourism throughout Asia and the Pacific. In this way, both [3.136.154.103] Project MUSE...

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