Week 7

Week 7: Gender and Struggle

How do you think the trauma that Okinawan women experienced during the Battle of Okinawa impacted their responses to the military base construction that the US military Occupation authorities enacted during the early 1950s that we see in the Isahama struggle?

I believe that the women’s strong response was a result of the trauma that they experienced during The Battle of Okinawa. They did not want to experience the same trauma or the humiliation of being occupied by another foreign power.

These women’s response was justified because during the post-war US Occupation, Okinawans were forced to live in detention camps and some were not even able to return home after being relocated. The US thought that the islands were a “harmonious resolution” and were necessary to stop the spread of communism.

What traumas have to be dissociated from the Battle of Okinawa and understood as new to the time of US military occupation?

“Spy”: Mobilization and Identity in Wartime Okinawa by Ichiro Tomiyama mentions several of these traumas: the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement, Sotetsu Hell, and “lawmaking violence”. To begin with, the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement was when locals were forced to adopt the Japanese language and hygienic practices (“lifestyle reform”).

Sotetsu Hell, on the other hand, was when locals were forced to leave their homes and work elsewhere. The Japanese thought Okinawans were lazy and did not work hard enough. As a result, the purpose of this movement was to prove their industriousness through “labor power”.

Furthermore, Okinawa was neither a part of Japan nor a colony. They were seen as the “other” because they were ethnically and culturally different from the Japanese, but they also thought they were superior to the Taiwanese and Koreans. The Japanese forced Okinawans had to give up their culture to become the perfect Japanese citizen, which did not only not exist but also was an idealized version of the image Japan wanted to portray itself to the rest of the world

Lastly, the term “Lawmaking violence” refers to Japan’s belief that all Okinawans were spies. Its “characteristic function [was] not the promulgation of laws but the assertion of legal claims for any decree” (129). The Japanese killed anyone whose opinion did not fall in line with theirs (i.e. sympathetic towards the enemy or wanted to surrender). They even forced a few entire villages to commit suicide

The Battle of Okinawa (April-June 1945) was one of the last battles before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US won and their goal was to use Okinawa as a military base to invade mainland Japan and end World War II. The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest battles because of the high number of civilian casualties. Neither the US nor Japan drew a line b/w civilian and military populations. Rather they saw Okinawa and Taiwan were seen as battlegrounds and their populations as disposable. In addition, “comfort women” were used and local homes were made into “comfort stations” during the battle.