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Thank you to everyone at @ucsc_omi for an incredible program today on the Koza Uprising which took place on Dec 20, 1970. Deeply moving, thought-provoking, and educational. I learned a lot, and gave me a lot to think about.
https://okinawamemories.org/revisiting-the-koza-uprising/
https://okinawamemories.org/revisiting-the-koza-uprising/
In the early morning hours of Dec 20, 1970, an American GI in Koza (now Okinawa City) accidentally hit an Okinawan man in the street with his car. Okinawa had been under US military occupation at this point for 25 years, 18 years longer than mainland Japan.
In that time, Okinawa had seen countless such traffic incidents, not to mention instances of physical and sexual violence which in most cases ended with the Americans involved facing no legal repercussions. Extraterritoriality, or unequal treatment under the law, was standard.
In 1959, an American fighter plane crashed into an Okinawan elementary school killing 11 children and six other people, and injuring hundreds. In 1970, Okinawa was very actively being used as a base from which to fight the Vietnam War.
The US military was also still maintaining stockpiles of VX (venomous agent X) in Okinawa, after Pres Nixon the prev. year renounced the "first use" of lethal chemical weapons. VX was later used by Aum Shinrikyo in 1993, produced by Al-Qaeda, ...
... and used by the NK gov't in the assassination of Kim Jong-il's eldest son Kim Jong-nam in 2017. It is extremely serious stuff. The US military presence on Okinawa has also involved spills of Agent Orange and many other substances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)
Tensions were at a boiling point in Dec 1970, and after that traffic incident, it boiled over. Before the night was over, Okinawans had burned numerous cars with US military license plates, stormed the gates of the nearby base, and clashed with military. No one was killed.
We are told the Okinawans made an explicit point to not attack Black servicemembers, out of a solidarity for the racism and oppression they lived within.
I learned today that in US military segregation at the time, Latino, Asian, and Native American servicemembers were all grouped with the Whites, excluding only the Blacks. A different dynamic from the Whites vs. People of Color categorization we see today.
It was a pleasure to hear today not only from @wright_dustin, Wesley Ueunten, and Alexyss McClellan-Ufugusuku, but also from Kuniyoshi Kazuo, a newspaper photographer whose photos of the uprising are incredible and whose experience has so much to offer, ...
and from Stan Rushworth, an indigenous and peace activist (Apache Nation) who served in the US military occupation of Okinawa in 1963-65. His perspectives and experiences, both as an American GI in the Occupation and as a Native person witnessing the segregation and ...
militarism / imperialism in Okinawa firsthand, were also eye-opening, moving, and thought-provoking. I have now purchased his book "Diaspora's Children" and look forward to getting an opportunity to read it. https://books.google.co.jp/books/about/Diaspora_s_Children.html?id=iUmczQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y
Kuniyoshi-san's photographs have been published in a number of books, including "STAND!" and 写真集 基地沖縄, both of which I have now ordered as well.
https://store.ryukyushimpo.jp/product_list/product/3000300018?d=3000300018-0000 https://store.ryukyushimpo.jp/product_list/product/3000300027?d=3000300027-0000
https://store.ryukyushimpo.jp/product_list/product/3000300018?d=3000300018-0000 https://store.ryukyushimpo.jp/product_list/product/3000300027?d=3000300027-0000
I am embarrassed to admit I still have never visited Koza myself. On my next trip to Okinawa, I will have to be sure to visit the "Histreet" (History+Street) local history museum, and to see firsthand the base town and the space in which this took place.
https://www.histreet.okinawa.jp/
https://www.histreet.okinawa.jp/
I think one big takeaway from today's event is to be reminded of Okinawa's significance as a key example and microcosm of a broader context of US Empire and militarism, and the ways in which imperialism/militarism plays out against indigenous lands and peoples around the world.
And the place of Okinawa, and the Koza Uprising, in a broader history of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, racism & the civil rights movement ... Ueunten places Koza within the peace movement - not just an uprising for Okinawans, but also against racism and against militarism + war.
Understanding Okinawa is so important for informing better understandings of the US, Japan, and the world.
Sorry for the unexpectedly lengthy tweet thread. I'll end with Rushworth's assertion that keeping the imagination open to what is possible - beyond what colonizers tell us is possible - is an act of resistance, and a powerful and important one. Other ways of being are possible.
Thank you again to @ucsc_omi , @aschristy , and everyone else involved today. Thank you for making the recording of the webinar available as a resource for the future. I'll keep my eyes out for it.
https://okinawamemories.org/
https://okinawamemories.org/
