The cultural identity of the Japanese and historical memory of WWII

1. Different layers of the story:

The story of Okinawa was a double tale about the myth of the Japanese ethnic homogeneity, as the Okinawans were never allowed to think of themselves really as Japanese; and about the historical memory of WWII, which the Japanese government since the end of WWII has tried to suppress, as the Okinawans felt much grievance about the war and their sacrifices in it, and their continued sacrifice after the war because of the American military bases there.

2. Historical origins

History: Ryukyu was semi-independent of Japan, being a tributary state of China and pledging loyalty to individual daimyo in Japan. After 1873, Japan totally annexed the Ryukyu Islands and regrouped it into a Japanese prefecture. 

Ethnicity: Okinawa (or the Ryukyu Islands, versus “mainland” Japan). The Okinawans have a different history, and slightly different ethnic mixture and have been treated as different people. 

3. Political loyalty and national identity

Politically, the Okinawans have always felt treated as second class citizens in Japan: 

• The Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest, was reputedly Hirohito’s decision to delay American occupation of mainland Japan. 
• After the war, the Japanese government suppressed information about Japanese soldiers' killing Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa.
• Political protest: against using Ryukyu as the main American military base in Japan.

   4. Central story

Protest against the raising of the Japanese flag at the National Athletic Meet held in Yomitan, Okinawa, in 1987.   Reason: there was never a formal declaration that this was the official Japanese flag. Other defeated nations changed their flags after WWII. But this flag was raised in 1946 during the first national athletic meet.  This protest showed the ambivalent national identity of the Okinawans, who both identified with and revolted against a Japanese national identity.

Shoichi, the flag burner, was active in getting the Sports Meet taking place in Okinawa.  Shoichi was one of the organizers of the effort to unearth the history of collective massacre of the Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa.  While organizing the sports meet, he was also active in unearthing the history of collective deaths in Okinawa during the battle of Okinawa in 1945.

For Shoichi, his unearthing of Japanese atrocities to Okinawans made it impossible for him to deal with the war with "amnesia" as many mainland Japanese were accustomed to.

• Unearthing the story of the Chibichirigama cave in Yomitanson during the battle of Okinawa (59): mass civilian suicide and Japanese propaganda (63).
• Japanese atrocities to Okinawans (63-64) and Okinawan ambivalence of identities (65).
• History of Japanese control of Okinawa with the Rising Sun flag starting from 1873. (68-69)
• Okinawans' perceived inequality with mainland because of military bases. (81)
• Mayor Yamauchi Tokushin of Yomitanson, Shoichi's mentor and a resourceful bargainer for Okinawan causes. (93-95)
• Other stories of collective suicides. (100-103)

Shoichi's acute awareness of the wartime painful experience of the Okinawans contrasted with the "war experience amnesia" , the denial of any war guilt and attempt to maintain a continuity with the cultural identity of wartime Japan that the Japanese state tried to create. right wing activities included:

• Treatment of the emperor after WWII both in the constitution and by right wingers. (45-46)

• Issue of the Home Ministry enforcing the raising of the "national flag" and singing of National Anthem after 1989. (53; c.f. our Supreme Court's striking down pledge of allegiance in public schools)