Chie Mikami's The Targeted Village exposes Okinawan struggle for human rights, cultural & ecological preservation, democracy, & peace

In this 2013 interview (highlighted again this week at Magazine 9's website and Facebook page), film director Chie Mikami discusses The Targeted Village, a documentary she released last year. It follows the struggle of the residents of Takae, an eco-village in northern Okinawa, over the use of their prefecture for hazardous V-22 Osprey training.

Because of a media blackout—although the protests in Takae have continued since 2007 and related protests against Osprey aircraft in Ginowan City in 2012 were unprecedented—the major media did not cover them.  Mikami said one of the few reports was a 2-minute report on Asahi's evening news.

One reason for this is the Japanese government's pattern of discriminatory treatment towards Okinawa. The prefecture was not afforded the relative peace and democracy that the Japanese mainland enjoyed in the postwar period. From end of the Second World War to 1972, Okinawa was under US military rule, which routinely used force to violate human rights, property rights, and democratic process in Okinawa. Even after "reversion" to Japanese rule, when Okinawans expected their closure, the bases remained, and the pattern of violations of rights and democratic process continued.

Between 1954 and 1955, US military forced owners from homes and rice farms

 in the former village of Isahama, to make way for US military training base construction.

(Photo: Okinawan Prefectural Government)

Okinawan women protest US military seizure of their homes and land in Isahama (Ginowan) in July 1955.

(Photo: Okinawa Prefectural Government)

Futenma in Ginowan City was built on land the US military forcibly seized from farming villagers during the Battle of Okinawa, and Camp Schwab in Henoko was built on farms and coastal property forcibly acquired during the 1950's period of military base expansion known in Okinawa as "Bayonets and Bulldozers." These communities are among many throughout Okinawa which experienced the same pattern of violent land acquisition. The ongoing struggles in Takae, Ginowan City, and Henoko are not new "anti-base" protests, but instead part of the latest chapter in a seventy-year struggle for property rights, human rights, ecological and cultural preservation, democracy, and peace in the islands of Okinawa.

In Myth, Protest, and Struggle in Okinawa,  Miyume Tanji writes:

In July 1955, one of the US military's most brutal land seizures happened in Isahama [a rice farming village in the Ginowan district], in central Okinawa...Anticipating the forced acquisition of their hamlet, farmers had formed a landowners' committee, & prepared for resistance...thousand of supporters from all over the Island came to protect the farmers in Isahama from the US forces. Kobuka Kotara...who was supporting the Isahama farmers' struggle, recalls....

"At around 3 am, when most supporters of the resistance had gone home, there were only 200-300 hamlet residents left. Slowly, one after another, bulldozers with their headlights off and military trucks filled with armed soldiers entered the hamlet. Off the coast, I could hear the sound of pipelines being connected to a military vessel to drain in the sand and water taken from the ocean It was just like war. At dawn, all the supporters helplessly watched the paddy fields being destroyed by soldiers across barbed wires. Farmers were still inside the last 32 houses, but were finally dragged out at gunpoint. [All were injured during their removals.] The bulldozers went over and flattened the houses, timbers, and roof tiles of the houses were collected to be discarded in the ocean. Women were screaming at this sight, and I could not help my tears." [quoting Kotaro Kokubo in Moriteru Arasaki, 1995, 63-65]...

Victimization of Okinawan farmers & forceful acquisition of their land was combined with the physical violence inflicted on the locals personally...Violence directed towards the local populace by US military staff, especially rape, revealed the crudest & most brutal aspect of the power relations between the occupiers & the occupied...

US land acquisition in Isahama & Ie-jima & the rape [& murder of 6-year-old Yumiko Nagayama, followed a week later by the rape of another young child by US soldiers] resulted the humiliation of all Okinawans, leading to what Arasaki calls the first wave of the "Okinawa Struggle." ...These rallies became models for mass demonstrations in the community of protest of the future.

Until recently, this history was mostly hidden from non-Okinawans. However widespread popular opposition against US military expansion in Okinawa has increasingly garnered attention beyond the islands of Okinawa, among environmentalists, democracy, peace, faith-based advocates, and military veterans and their family members. In the process, disturbing revelations about past abuses by both the Japanese and US governments have become part of the public discourse on Okinawa. A young Okinawan-American, whose father was an American serviceman, explains her support for the Okinawa movement: "Enough is enough."

Protest Tent in Takae

Takae village is located in one of the most well-preserved tracts in Yanbaru, one of the last surviving subtropical rainforests in Asia.  Environmentalist NGOS worldwide have called for its preservation. The Center for Biological Diversity has highlighted the ongoing threat to the survival of the Okinawa Woodpecker.  The survival of the vlllage of Takae is also at risk. The US military use of Yanbaru for "jungle warfare" training has long been a public nuisance.  During the Vietnam War, villagers in Takae were made to don "Vietcong" dress for war games. Now, deforestation, new helipad construction, and low-level Osprey flight training has brought more concerns about stresses on the sensitive eco-region and the villagers' quiet lifestyle.

Mikami follows the Japanese government use of a SLAPP (Strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuit to attempt to intimidate and silence residents from protesting against this destruction of more of Yanbaru and interference with their lives. Last week, the Supreme Court of Japan, often criticized for its politically motivated decisions, ruled against their appeal.

Long-time peace and democracy activist  Mrs. Etsumi Taira,

was forcibly removed from the September 2012 sit-in site at Futenma. 
Mrs. Taira is the wife of Reverend Osamu Taira, an early leader in the peace movement..

(Photo: Tomoyuki Toyozato)

Mikami also discusses the related 2012 struggle over Osprey aircraft training at Futenma air base Ginowan. The notorious base was built in the 1950's in the middle of a community of rice villages, in the middle of the night on forcibly seized private and community property - farms, houses, stores, and schools.  Traces of the demolished villages attest to this past: half-buried tombs stick out from under barbed wire fencelines.

Locals saw the forced deployment of the aircraft as a replay of "Bulldozers and Bayonets" forced military construction.  Many of those pushed out of their homes in the 1950's—then children, now grandparents—led the 2012 protests before they were forcibly removed from the sit-in site. They knew the dozen or so troop carrier aircraft were not sent to Okinawa for the "defense" for the Okinawan or Japanese people, but to justify expensive military contracts. And now they must defend themselves, ironically, from the accident-prone aircraft and training pilots themselves.

Chie Mikami (Photo: Magazine 9) 

The Target Village will be screened in August at Theater Pole-Pole in Higashi Nakano, Tokyo (http://www.mmjp.or.jp/pole2/).

Magazine 9, founded in 2005 to support Article 9, closely covers the Okinawan Movement and other issues related to the Japanese Peace Constitution.

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June 29 will mark the 7th anniversary of the Takae struggle. 

More Background:

"The Targeted Village - An Interview with Mikami Chie (Director): The Pretense of Justice: Okinawa’s Unneutral Struggle," Yamagata Int. Documentary Film Festival, 2013

WWF "No Helipads in Yanbaru Forest: http://www.wwf.or.jp/activities/lib/pdf/yanbaru0706e.pdf

Voice of Takae: http://nohelipadtakae.org/files/VOT-english2013Oct.pdf

Takae Blog: http://takae.ti-da.net/

"Film details anger of Okinawans against U.S. military bases," Kazuyo Nakamura, The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 1, 2013. 

"Film depicts Okinawans’ fight against Ospreys," Mika Kurokawa, The Japan Times, Sept. 13, 2013. 

Nature Conservation Society of Japan: Giant corals are doing great; plenty of evidence of dugongs at Henoko....

Dugong feeding trails in the Sea of Henoko. (Photo: Nature Conservation Society of Japan)

The Okinawa Times recently reported on a reef check conducted in Henoko Bay by the Nature Conservation Society of Japan. Mariko Abe of the Society confirms that some of the massive corals in the area are doing great.

She stresses that there is plenty of evidence of dugong grazing trails in the seagrass.

Giant corals in Henoko Sea's coral reef habitat 
(Photo: Okinawa Times)

Edenwalkers' Akiko Morita finds her purpose in a Kyoto garden: KyotoBloggers session June 18th

"I have a secret for you. Whatever you want to be, you CAN be...you [just] have to be ready right now. Not tomorrow, not later, but right now."- photographer Akiko Morita (right) 

Edenwakers' Akiko Morita shared her story at the June 18th Kyoto Bloggers event graciously hosted by Impact HUB Kyoto. In her previous life she worked as a sociologist at a British university, but decided to return to Japan after a 12 year absence after developing a pressing need to transmit knowledge of Japanese gardens throughout the world.

When she lived in the UK, she loved visiting English gardens and thought there was nothing better in the world. After a quick trip home, and an off-chance visit to a Japanese garden in Kyoto, her life completely changed.

"I was touched by the beauty of Japanese gardens, even though I really had no expectations about them. I was so moved that I decided I would return to Japan and dedicate myself to sharing their beauty with everyone."

Borrowing her friend's camera, and not really knowing how to operate it properly, she started taking her first photos of Japanese gardens in Kyoto. She explained that it was so obvious she was an amateur that professional photographers would come up to her trying to help her as she fumbled with the different camera settings. She eventually bought her own camera and ONE lens, and started reading up on photography. One book made something click in her mind. The author explained how professional photographers, when asked about photos for sale, would quickly be able to procure a list of their work, while amateurs always say "when I get better." She decided to embrace her passion and her new field, and BE a real photographer.

"I have a secret for you. Whatever you want to be, you CAN be...you [just] have to be ready right now. Not tomorrow, not later, but right now."

She also built her own website, Edenwalkers:

"I chose to use the metaphor for Eden for my site because when people encounter each other in gardens, they share smiles, start talking to each other even though they may have never met. They share love and a great and wonderful feeling- gardens are a place that makes anyone become open and free. Garden walkers are actually Eden walkers."

A year and half later, she proudly calls herself a professional photographer (Flickr photos here) and hopes to inspire people to BE who they want to BE. Next week she will be in Australia for a training workshop and then will be touring 90 spots around Japan taking photos on behalf of a client.

Lisa Allen (left) listens attentively to Akiko Morita's (center) story of personal transformation 

Morita was joined by other Kyoto-based bloggers at the event who spoke about their own blogs and projects. Global Communications Coordinator Lisa Yamashita Allen (photography log) introduced the Kyoto Impact Hub emphasising how community has kept the creative energy of the space alive.

Hugo Kempeneer of Kyoto and Nara Dream Trips (http://www.kyotodreamtrips.com/ ) spoke of his yearning to discover and detail locations very much off the beaten path.

Michael Lambe and Ted Taylor elaborated on their newest publication, Deep Kyoto: Walks, and the process of developing the compilation of meditative walks (occasionally hikes, occasionally pub crawls) around Kyoto. The e-book, perfect for carrying around on your smart phone while taking an introspective walk, is available here. Ted gave a reading from "Across Purple Fields," one of the introspective walks in the book. To read the segment yourself, check out the Deep Kyoto page, or watch a video of the reading itself!

And finally- big props to the caterer, Wakako, from Obento Waka for the delicious and healthy vegetarian dinner!

- Written by Jen Teeter

1,760,000 supporters of the Japanese Peace Constitution ask PM not to change Article 9

June 12, 2014 meeting in support of the Japanese Peace Constitution. (Photo and Story: NHK) 

The Peace Clause of the Japanese Constitution, Article 9, renounces “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes." This has been understood by the courts and all past governments of Japan to prohibit collective self-defense, or engagement in force, except for direct defense of Japan.

On June 12, Japanese Peace Constitution supporters gathered in Tokyo to proclaim their support of Article 9 and opposition to "collective self defense."  Organizers, which included Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, presented the signatures of 1,760,000 people to the prime minister and after the meeting, they marched to his official residence, and called on him not to change  the Constitution.

Just two days before, the Article 9 Association commemorated its tenth anniversary on June 10th, in Tokyo.  Since its formation, the group has generated more than 7,500 local Article 9 chapters across Japan.

The nine Japanese authors, scholars, and dignitaries who launched the Article 9 Association on June 10, 2004 included author Oe, constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira, philosopher Shunsuke Tsurumi, and writer Hisae Sawachi.  Four of these luminaries of Japan's prosperous postwar period are deceased: critic Shuichi Kato (1919-2008), peace activist and writer Makoto Oda (1932-2007) and Mutsuko Miki (1917-2012), widow of former Prime Minister Takeo Miki.

Kenzaburo Oe lecture at the June 10, 2014 anniversary gathering. 

(Photo: Takashi Togo, via Asahi, which is providing outstanding reportage on Article 9)

The inaugural members formed the association in response to former PM Koizumi's deployment of Japanese SDF troops to Iraq and Kuwait after Washington's request for Japanese "boots on the ground" during its invasion of Iraq. Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has not been responsible for death of a single person in war. The Japanese Self Defense Forces (JSDF) engaged in "non-combat" support in Iraq and Kuwait from 2004 to 2008. On April 17, 2008, Nagoya High Court made a (non-binding) ruling that Koizumi's dispatch of troops to Iraq was unconstitutional.

(Photo of Article 9 Association lecture at Ariake Coliseum, Tokyo, 2005, via APJ)

In addition, Koizumi initiated an attempted revision of Article 9, the Peace Clause of the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits Japan from possessing military power other than than what is necessary to defend the nation from attack.  The former PM wanted to change the JSDF from a solely defensive force into a regular army which would be dispatched to support foreign wars, under the auspices of "collective defense," without constraint.

However, his efforts failed, and now PM Abe has picked up this baton.  In 2013, his administration attempted to amend Article 96 (that stipulates procedures for constitutional revisions) and proceed to revise Article 9 under accepted constitutional procedure.  Article 96 requires approval of two-thirds of the Diet; the Abe administration proposed revising it to lower the required votes to a simple majority in both houses to secure the call for a constitutional referendum. This effort failed.

At present the LDP and its coalition partner, New Komeito, has enough votes in the lower house but only 55 percent of the upper house, not enough to call a referendum under Article 96 which requires approval of two-thirds of the Diet.  Even if the administration did, the consensus of analysts is that a referendum would fail.

Therefore the administration is trying to push through a "reinterpretation" of Article 9 by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, which conventionally provides oversight on bills, orders and treaties and provides legal opinions to the PM.  In the past, LDP governments, advised by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, have asserted that "collective self defense" exceeds the "no-war" limits of Article 9, therefore, Japan cannot engage in collective self defense.  Not only does the current administration's "reinterpretation" fall outside of the range of possible reasonable interpretations of Article 9, to the point of violating both the spirit and the letter of the no-war cause, such a move would set a precedent for the executive branch to bypass the deliberative participatory process of amending the constitution that requires approval by Japanese citizens in a special referendum under Article 96.

For many advocates of democratic process and rule of law, the central issue is not the (albeit critical) debate over whether Article 9 should be amended to allow "collective defense," but instead the attempt by Japan's executive branch to bypass these constitutionally mandated procedures to change the constitution unilaterally.

The two political parties in control of the government, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and New Komeito (which is affiliated with Soka Gakkai, a mass Buddhist organization),  do not represent a majority of the Japanese citizenry.  According to Shingetsu News (yesterday), 27.2 percent of the country support the LDP and 3.3 percent back New Komeito. That's a total of only 30.5 percent of the population.

An Asahi poll found that only 29 percent (around the percentage of voters that support the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Abe's political party) approve of Japan's taking up collective self defense. But even less, only 18 percent, support the administration's improvised method of constitutional change.  The poll also found that 67 percent of Japanese voters consider the move for reinterpretation as "improper."

Moreover, as with internal dissent in 2004 over sending JSDF to Iraq, the LDP in 2014 does not unanimously back PM Abe's call for constitutional reinterpretation. Former LDP Secretary-General Koga Makoto, who lost his father to the Pacific War, has publicly criticized this plan. Similarly to several Nobel Peace laureates, Koga considers Article 9 a "world heritage."

Concerned about their nation, high profile Japanese figures are increasingly speaking out on behalf of Article 9, the peace clause. On the eve of his birthday in December of last year, Emperor Akihito (tutored by an American Quaker during his youth) defended Article 9. Then, on the eve of his birthday in February of this year, Crown Prince Naruhito attributed Japan's peace and prosperity to the pacifist Constitution.

A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki are now demanding that explicit support for Article 9 to be included in this year's Peace Declaration, according to the Asahi this morning.

Those familiar with Japanese history know that this latest chapter of a cultural and political conflict between Japanese militarists and pacifists has numerous antecedents going back to the prewar and the early postwar period. Kijuro Shidehara, an advocate of pacifism in Japan before and after the war, helped prepare the Kellogg-Briand Pact (General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy) of 1928, of which Japan was a signatory (prewar and wartime militarists ignored the treaty). And, as Japan's second postwar prime minister, Shidehara conferred with the US Occupation, especially General MacArthur, as the postwar constitution was drafted.  (MacArthur attributed Article 9 to Shidehara, although some scholars dispute this.)

Since its promulgation in 1946, Article 9 has been frequently undermined, but the Japanese people have repeatedly rebuffed attempts at constitutional revision. For this, the Peace Clause has ensured that they have not been "visited with the horror of war through the action of government" for seventy years. The late scholar John M. Maki asserted that pacifism, popular sovereignty, and the guarantee of fundamental human rights are foundation of the Japanese constitutional system, and that the "people of Japan made the Constitution their own, and thus carried to completion one of the most successful and significant political transformations of the twentieth century."

At this point, Japanese civil society groups and elected officials who honor accountability to their constituents must consider and initiate countervailing actions that will challenge the executive branch's unprecedented unconstitutional overreach.

(This post is an expanded version of a tribute to the Article 9 Association posted June 10.)

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More Info:

Article 9 Association 

Global Article 9 Campaign

"LDP’s Gifu chapter blasts Abe’s rush to reinterpret Constitution," Asahi, June 16, 2014.

Komori Yoichi, "Japan’s Article 9 and Economic Justice: The Work of Shinagawa Masaji" by , (Intro by Norma Field), published this week at The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus:  

On June 10, 2014, the Article 9 Association marks its tenth anniversary, more than ever embattled and determined. As illustrated by Alexis Dudden’s recent article on this site, “The Nomination of Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution for a Nobel Peace Prize,” business people figure in the broad swath of “Japanese people who conserve Article 9” recognized as worthy of consideration for the Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Shinagawa Masaji, the subject of this memorial tribute by prominent modern literature scholar and executive secretary of the Article 9 Association Komori Yoichi, was surely the dean of progressive financial leaders of the postwar era...

"A Nobel Peace Prize nomination (with Henoko connection) for the Japanese and Okinawan people who support Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause, " TTT, April 24, 2014.

Shunsuke Hirose, "Shinzo Abe’s Biggest Enemy: the LDP: Internal party discord shows the narrative of Japan’s rightward shift under Abe is not as simple as it might appear," The Diplomat, April 14, 2014.

Mizuho Fukushima (SDP) and Taro Yamamoto (Independent): "Opposition lawmakers state their case against the administration's plan (Exercise of Collective Self Defense)," Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan YouTube Channel, March 27, 2014.

Colin P.A. Jones, "Japan’s Constitution: never amended but all too often undermined," The Japan Times, March 26, 2014.

"Kenzaburo Oe, Jakucho Setouchi, Masahide Ota found “1000-member committee to prevent Japan from entering wars" (Rally @Hibiya Park, March 20, 2014)," TTT, March 18, 2014.

"Mr. Abe’s constitutional runaround," The Japan Times, August 9, 2013.

"Makoto Koga: Election win not mandate for constitutional revision," The Asahi, July 22, 2013.

Lawrence Repeta, "Japan’s Democracy at Risk – The LDP’s Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 15, 2013.

John Junkerman, "The Global Article 9 Conference: Toward the Abolition of War," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, May 25,  2008.

Yoshikazu Sakamoto, "The Postwar and the Japanese Constitution: Beyond Constitutional Dilemmas," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, November 10, 2005.

John M. Maki, The Constitution of Japan: Pacifism, Popular Sovereignty, and Fundamental Human Rights," Law and Contemporary Problems: Vol. 43: No. 1 (1990).

Jordan Sand: "Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects" - Author's Lecture at Sophia Univ, June 9, 2014

Today at 6: 30 p.m.. cultural historian Jordan Sand will give a public talk at Sophia University (Bldg. 10, Room 301) on his new book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects.

A must-read for anyone who lives in or is interested in Tokyo, Temple University historian Jeff Kingston's review at the LA Review of Books is a great synopsis/commentary:

TOKYO IS HOT these days, and not only because it has cutting-edge design, fashion, and more Michelin stars than anywhere else on the planet...Alas, it is also about 160 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant where there were three meltdowns in March 2011. There are still 100,000 nuclear refugees who have fled the adjacent hot zones, and it appears that many will never be able to return to their ancestral homes.

In his excellent new book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects, Jordan Sand, a Georgetown University professor of Japanese history and culture, draws our attention away from the headline hype to reveal what Tokyo and some of its denizens are really up to and what they care about. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Sand slips us under the skin of this megalopolis and helps us understand how it has been evolving, focusing on the battles and passions that have animated neighborhoods, activists, and artists...

Controversy has clouded the euphoria that followed the winning bid for the 2020 games, as about 90 percent of Japanese don’t believe Abe’s reassurances to the International Olympic Committee that the problems at Fukushima are under control...

Tokyo’s Olympic slogan is “Discover Tomorrow,” a motto meant to convey an upbeat message about recovery from the 3/11 disasters and signaling that the story of Japan’s decline has been exaggerated, given bright prospects for its cutting-edge technologies and industries. But when Tokyo got the nod, NHK television showed images of what the snazzy Olympic athlete’s village will look like, then jumped to an interview with some displaced Fukushima residents forced to live in shabby temporary housing due to the reactor meltdowns. Unsurprisingly, they expressed envy and resentment while raising concerns about the diversion of resources and construction crews to Tokyo...

The extensive 1964 Olympic demolition and rebuilding was the third ravaging of the city during the 20th century, following the 1923 earthquake and the March 1945 firebombing that leveled vast swathes of eastern Tokyo. A fourth maelstrom hit with fin de siècle urban renewal, as the erection of shiny high-rises and tony shopping complexes transformed large areas of the formerly distinctive cityscape, making parts of Tokyo look like any city anywhere. The demolished low-rise, low-density neighborhoods of single-family homes and mom-and-pop shops might have been a bit dilapidated, but they exuded a coziness and sense of community that has been erased. Sand helps us understand what has been lost, as intimate exchanges of neighbors have given way to impersonal market exchanges...

Since so many people lost friends and family in the 1945 firebombing by the United States, it is one of the most retold stories in oral histories, with accounts of spectacular flames and the apocalyptic aftermath of a city reduced to ashes and panoramic vistas over smoldering ruins. But outside of Japan this is one of the forgotten horrors of WWII...

The battles over public spaces continue into the 21st century, especially in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster...

Although much of this narrative dwells on loss and retreat, Sand closes on a rousing note:

Yet time plows forward, burying histories and throwing up new ruins in its wake. New groups of people will gather around surviving places and things, making them tell new stories of loss and redemption, and creating new societies of friends.

“Banzai!” The Compulsory Mass Suicide of Kerama Islanders in the Battle of Okinawa: Kinjo Shigeaki interviewed by Michael Bradley

Reverend Kinjo Shigeaki ("Level Five,"1997)

Chris Marker fans will recognize the name of Reverend Kinjo Shigeaki, who was featured in the late French filmmaker's Level Five, about the horrors of the Battle of Okinawa. As in the 1997 film, the Baptist minister describes how the Japanese government forced Okinawans to commit suicide and kill family members in this new APJ interview,"'Banzai!' The Compulsory Mass Suicide of Kerama Islanders in the Battle of Okinawa," by Michael Bradley:

We were to call out Banzai (Long Life!) to the emperor three times. We knew that this was what Japanese soldiers did when they were going to die on the battlefield. The village head didn’t exactly tell us to commit suicide, but by telling us to shout Banzai, we knew what was meant.

Soldiers distributed grenades among us...There weren’t enough grenades to go around because there were so many of us. Actually, my family didn’t get one. Anyway, once the grenades were given out, that was taken as a sign and the killing began immediately. The grenades were detonated, but there were few of them, so most people survived the blasts. Then people began to use clubs or scythes on each other – various things were used.

It was the father’s role to kill his own family, but my father had already died. I was only 16 years and one month old, high school age. (Although, I wasn’t in high school.) My older brother and I didn’t discuss how we would do it, but we both knew we had been ordered to kill ourselves and our family...

It’s a mystery to me why I was kept alive during the war. At that time, life was treated as something insignificant. People killed each other so easily. Part of the reason we had been prepared to kill our own families was because of the nationalistic education we’d received. We were taught that Americans were not human, that they were our enemy and had to be killed.

The Japanese government should now face up to their history – their previous emphasis in education was on killing and suicide and they have never properly acknowledged that. They should admit that the Imperial army slaughtered people in China and other Asian countries. Also, they should be making efforts now to get along with China and their other neighbors, and not to cooperate only with the Americans.

 Reverend Kinjo Shigeaki (2014) 

W. Eugene Smith: "I wanted my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars."

Battle of Okinawa, April-June 1945
US flame throwers used to dislodge Japanese soldiers from bunkers.  
The same flame throwers were used on Okinawan civilians hiding in caves.

Battle of Okinawa, April-June 1945
Wounded Soldier Praying

Battle of Saipan, June-July 1944
Father and Child



Orote Peninsula, Guam, 1944
American soldiers struggling to save the life of a wounded dog

I wanted my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars.

…and each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future – causing them caution and remembrance and realization.

- W. Eugene Smith

W. Eugene Smith, a war photographer for Life Magazine, was injured by mortar fire during the Battle of Okinawa, after photographing the suffering of soldiers, civilians, and animals during battles in Saipan, Guam, and Iwo Jima.

Smith is also renowned for his early 1970's documentary photography of Minamata residents, who were poisoned by mercury discharged from 1932 to 1968 by the Chisso Corporation into Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea in Kyushu. (Writer Sam Stephenson describes a return to Smith's Minamata at the Paris Review: "Letter from Japan.")

Smith's widow, Eileen Mioko Smith, is director of Green Action, a Kyoto-based nuclear-free advocacy organization.

Birthrate plummets as 19.7 million Japanese people live in poverty • Shiho Fukada's "Japan's Disposable Workers"

 Photojournalist Shiho Fukada's investigation of Japan's working poor:

"Japan's Poor, Homeless, Outcasted and Forgotten Workers"

(See Fukada's completed 3-part documentary at Media Storm:

"Overworked to Suicide," "Net Cafe Refugees," and "Dumping Ground."

A fourth video report, "Paid to Flirt," is up at the Pulitzer Center.  

While Japanese policymakers wring their hands over the nation's plummeting birthrate, most overlook the obvious cause: many women in Japan can no longer afford to have children...

Japan is no longer a middle-class society. (Was it ever?) Now it ranks tenth among nations in income inequality:

Japan has a saying “ichioku-sohchu-ryu” which translates to “a nation of middle-class people.” However, in the past few decades, they’ve seen the middle-class shrinking at twice the average rate of other OECD countries. Since 1980, incomes have dropped for the lower classes while they’ve risen for those in the higher classes.

And this problem is exacerbated by the lack of employment security. During Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s term (2001-2006), the number of people working regular jobs dropped by 1.9 million while numbers of those in temporary positions rose by 3.3 million. Since the middle-class started disappearing, there’s been a reported increase in depression, domestic violence and suicide – which indicates the toll the economy has taken on the people.

Moreover, while PM Abe's massive ("Godzilla-sized") quantitative easing has given a short-term boost to the Nikkei, thereby enriching stock market players, this government largesse has not benefitted the rest of the nation: Japan has the highest poverty rate among the world's developed nations.

Currently, Japanese people in and under the poverty line – those defined as having temporary, part-time and non-regular jobs — comprised 38 percent of the current population, a huge 19.7 million souls. And while Abe has promised to help revive economy, it doesn’t necessarily translate to removing poverty altogether.

According to Takashi Oshio, professor at Hitosubashi University who specializes in social security, “The Abe administration’s stance is more about fixing things, including poverty, with a trickle-down effect from overall economic growth.” He added, “There’s little political capital spent on issues like alleviating child poverty. It doesn’t garner votes.” But apart from that, the real problem lies in the fact that as Abe’s economic recovery relies on heavy consumer spending and with more people affected by poverty, lesser would be able to practice purchasing power...

As such, many economists suggest that the only way to address poverty is to fix wealth distribution in terms of benefits and taxes.

This young Japanese worker lives in an internet cafe because he cannot afford rent. 

(Photo: Shiho Fukada: "Japan's Disposable Workers" (Pulitzer Center), 

Yesterday Bloomberg reported on Japan's growing caste of socioeconomically marginalized Japanese people (especially women) who are unable to buy homes and have children because of deepening structural impoverishment:

...here the lines are drawn between those with full-time jobs and a ballooning underclass of 20 million temporary workers. The latter, according to the government, now make up almost 40 percent of the workforce and get paid 38 percent less.

“It’s Japan’s biggest problem,” said Yoshio Higuchi, a professor of economics at Tokyo’s Keio University and head of a government panel on labor market reform.

A dearth of regular jobs is the source of so many of Japan’s troubles, he said, ticking them off on his fingers: deflation, higher poverty rates, lower economic productivity, even depressed birthrates...

“Abe’s proposals basically say, ‘We’re going to enable workers to work at shitty jobs with shitty pay for as long as they want,’” said Jeff Kingston, head of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.

There are 1.1 million fewer full-timers today than when the prime minister took over in December 2012, according to Japan’s official statistics bureau. Temps and part-timers -- who often work 40 hours a week -- account for all the jobs growth in the past five years. Sixty percent of employment offers in March were for temporary positions.

The rise of these jobs -- to a record 38.2 percent of workers in February -- is why Japan is the only developed country where average pay has consistently fallen, dropping 15 percent since 1997. And in Japan, where the labor market is less fluid than in the U.S., temp work isn’t usually a stepping a stone to something better. It’s a lifelong condition.

Starting in 1939,  the Japanese government asked people to restrict themselves 

with the "Land of the Rising Sun lunchbox" to conserve food supplies.
By the end of 1943 the declining ration was causing serious malnutrition among the population, 
and  plain rice bentos were considered luxuries.
Today this symbol of wartime and postwar hardship is a typical  lunch for the working poor. 

(Photo: Squidoo.com)

Save the Dugong Campaign Center's photos of "rain-forest"-like sea grasses, clown fish, & blue coral at Oura Bay, Okinawa

Save the Dugong Campaign Center's beautiful photos of Oura Bay (also called Sea of Henoko)  reflect findings a few years ago by Tokyo marine science researchers of a "rain-forest"-like variety of 182 different species of sea grasses and marine plants, clown fish, and exquisite blue coral.

See more photos here: http://www.sdcc.jp/nobase/no-base.html. Included: great photos of the mangrove wetlands and the amazing elder tent city (grandmothers and grandfathers who survived the Battle of Okinawa as children) who became eco-activists to save the natural environment of Henoko for their grandchildren.

SDCC says all are welcome to share these photos, to help spread the word on the precious biodiversity of Oura Bay.

Nago Mayor Says US Bases “A Legacy of Misery” in Okinawa

(Photo: Japan Culture-NYC.com)

Thanks to Susan Miyagi Hamaker at Japan Culture-NYC for her great article, "Nago Mayor Says US Bases “A Legacy of Misery” in Okinawa." Sensitive reportage with depth and integrity; excerpt:

Mayor Inamine was re-elected to his second term in January of this year, running on a platform against the construction of the [US air training and military port] base in Henoko, Oura Bay, a pristine ecosystem of mangrove forests and rivers in eastern Nago...

The mayor appeared in New York to help people understand US-Japan relations as it pertains to the military situation in Okinawa. Saying his subject matter was “a challenging theme,” Mayor Inamine began by giving a brief history lesson of US-Japan relations after World War II ended in 1945, when “Japan became a US colony and did General McArthur’s bidding, whatever he wanted,” says Mayor Inamine. In 1952 Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty and regained its independence, but at the expense of Okinawa...

The main island of Okinawa comprises 0.6% of Japan’s land area and is smaller than Long Island, yet it hosts 74% of the US military bases in Japan...

Talks of returning the land which Futenma currently occupies began in 1996, when then Ambassador Walter Mondale and then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto agreed that Futenma would be returned to Okinawa in seven years. Mayor Inamine maintains that these talks started only because a year earlier, in 1995, three US military personnel raped a 12-year-old girl, sparking outrage among Okinawan citizens, who demanded the removal of the base.

(Map: Okinawa Prefectural Government)

“After they promised to return the land to Okinawa, they decided to change the conditions and say that it would be moved to a different location on Okinawa,” says Mayor Inamine. “We have struggled mightily ever since then, and we believe that in 69 years after the war, we have suffered enough under the presence of the US military bases. We have no more capacity to accept a new base on the island...”

The plans for the relocation include expansion well beyond the dimensions of the current airbase, calling for landfill to accommodate its new dimensions. The building out of the bay to create space for runways and docks will negatively impact the biodiversity of that area, effectively destroying the coral and the natural habitat for the dugong.

“They’re not just moving Futenma, they’re adding a great deal of additional facilities that now Futenma lacks,” says Mayor Inamine. “An armory for storing ammunition, ports for battleships, runways...

“Twice I stood for mayor in the election, and the biggest promise I made was that we would keep the new base out of our city, and both times I won those elections because the citizens, while they were voting ‘Yes’ to me as mayor, they also voted ‘No’ to the new base. I think that these election results speak for themselves, and they are critical for democracy. Denying those election results is denying democracy itself.”

Joining Mayor Inamine in discussion were Mark Selden, Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University and coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, an online journal offering analysis of what’s happening in Asia, and Steve Rabson, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Brown University, an Asia-Pacific Journal Associate, and translator of Okinawan literature...

“We don’t like to use that term ‘colony,’ but Okinawa was an American military colony from 1945 until 1972, and I want to ask whether it remains an American military colony today in a different sense,” says Selden. “It seems to me [the Japanese government officials] are going to have to be ready to lock up and maybe beat up the grandmothers and grandfathers that have been resisting all these years.”

Selden called Mayor Inamine the “soul of the Okinawan resistance” and “an important person to have here in America at a time when the United States is talking about an Asian pivot, expanding our military presence in Asia,” stating that it is his hope that “the voices that Mayor Inamine is so eloquently bringing to the States and the voices of others will be heard and sanity, justice, and democracy can prevail in the case of Okinawa.”