Asia and Pacific Alliance of YMCAs
20th General Assembly
Opening Worship
3rd September 2019
Testimony
by Rev. Aika Taira
The Struggle of the Okinawans for Peace
Are you familiar with OKINAWA?
HAI, SAI, GUUYO, CHUU, UGANABIRA
Hello, Everyone! How are you?
I am Aika TAIRA. This is a name often mistaken as a woman.
I am coming out of my homosexuality and giving a talk about the human rights of women and LGBT sexual minorities. I was often asked to use this name as activity names that cross the gender boundaries as gender-free names. This is the name which my parents gave me.
I was born in 1968 under the control of the US military and have been suffering damage to the base without the pain of the previous war.
Moreover, this time it was Okinawa that had become a part of the Vietnam War. From the experience of the Pacific War, “I don’t want to have this pain again.”
Even as we pledged to be anti-war, and wish peace to everyone, however, we now have become a participant in the US military invasion war. There was a movement to send medicine from Okinawa to Vietnam. However, a Vietnamese person said, “Please stop coming to kill us before you send me medicine.”
Okinawa was called the “devil island” by Vietnamese people. It is very understandable because it was the base of the army where soldiers go to kill them.
People who inevitably work for the US military base for their lives were able to resist only by delaying their work while suffering the burden of the thought that, “this labor is participating in the war.”
It was the era when trucks run on national roads carrying weapons and we couldn’t stop this by throwing ourselves into the roads. Okinawa had suffered from the damage of the military base, but at the same time, we experienced the suffering of being a base of the perpetrator. Currently, in HENOKO, a fishing village in Okinawa, we put our bodies to stop the construction of a new base, not just for the reason “that we do not want to suffer from the base damage; but also because we strongly do not want to be a perpetrator any more.
We realized this during the Vietnam war. “Base suffering and Base perpetrating.”
With a strong wish, we ask: “Where did the promise of peace go?” “God listens to our cry.” My parents got my name from the Old Testament verse in Lamentations which is AIKA in Japanese. But my name AIKA is a different Chinese character from Old Testament AIKA.
Do you know what day June 23rd is? In Okinawa Prefecture, this day is stipulated by the ordinance as “Memorial Day.” Before dawn, June 23rd, 1945 ( there is also a theory that it was late at midnight on22nd) was the day when the organized Okinawa war ended as General Mitsutu Ushijima, who was the commander of the Japanese army during the Battle of Okinawa, committed suicide.
As you know about the Battle of Okinawa during the Second World War, Japan involved Okinawan citizens in ground war during the Pacific War. 200,000 people died and about half of them were ordinary people. Including soldiers from Okinawa, it is said that nearly one-third of the 500,000 inhabitants of Okinawa prefecture died at that time. It is often said that the story of why the Okinawa people were so involved was because the island of Okinawa happened to be a battlefield, rather than the fact that the Japanese government at that time sacrificed Okinawa to abandon it to protect Japan.
Therefore, June is an important month for Okinawa citizens and especially the 23rd is a very special day for Okinawa citizens. It is also the day when we swear that we will never go to war again and will never be sacrificed again. Today I would like to sing a song with my thoughts of Okinawa, “Dear Children” this is Japanese version.
Receive this blessing from heaven
Born and raised with prayers,
I will sing the original version in the second time.
Is the Okinawa war over on June 23rd? No. it is not correct.
Commander Mitsutu Ushijima left a terrible thing when he died. “Fight to the last person and die.” So the battle continued. Even though the top person of the army has disappeared, the war has continued and more people died after 23rd. Unbelievably, even after August 15th, the battle continued in Okinawa and people were dead.
By the way, there are quite a few people killed in the war even after August 15th over the mainland of Japan. Knowing this fact makes me feel uncomfortable, with August 15 being said as the “end of the war in Japan.” August 15 is just only the day when the Emperor declared the defeat; it is not the day when the war ended. It may make sense to make that day a day of hope for peace, but I think it is better to say that it is a “defeat day” rather than an “end of the war.”
In Okinawa, the end of the war was signed on September 7th.
So for the people of Okinawa, the end of the war can’t be described as either June 23 or August 15. When you ask an Okinawa person when the war is over, one person would say, “it is not over yet.” I think the war is going on and the fighting is still going on.
One of the symbols of this fighting is the current struggle against the construction of the new Henoko base. The blocking action continues in front of and around the gate of the US military base Camp, Camp Swab, located in the small village of Henoko, Nago City.
I will go back to my story a little. Ginowan City where I grew up has Funtenma Airfield. 24% of Ginowan City has a base in a flat area in the center of the city.
Surrounding the base are people’s houses, schools, city halls, hospitals, and so on. From the house where I grew up, I can see the faces of people on helicopters taking off and landing, It is a very dangerous airfield. In 1996, the US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who came to visit Okinawa recognized it as “the most dangerous US military base in the world.” Sometimes some people said,” Why do you have a house in such a place? It is dangerous because you live in that place.” It is the reverse!!! The base was established at the center of the community, while the people were held in the concentration camps, place where people lived. The military bulldozed and destroyed the villages and farmlands, expropriated the land, and built the base. Immediately after the war, the residents who were held as Prisoners of War in concentration camps returned to their homes and land, but the base was already built in the midst of the community. People had stayed near their land with the hope that when the expropriated land will be re-appropriated and given back, they could easily re-occupy their land and build their lives.
US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has decided that he will return the land, recognizing that it is “the most dangerous US military base in the world.” It was a great pleasure for us to have the land back. However, there were conditions for that, that the military units within Futenma would be relocated somewhere in northern Okinawa, as an alternative land for the military base. Then, there was this small fishing village called Henoko, in Nago City. It is located by the sea where corals live and dugongs swim. This was identified as the “alternative land” for the base. It was to be reclaimed with landfill for the relocation of the Futenma Airfield or the Marine Corp Air Station.
The Henoko People objected. There is no way the people would allow to use the sea that nurtured the lives of sea creatures and human beings for war. People from all over Okinawa also objected. “I can tolerate that I am used to being miserable for those bases that already exist. However, I can’t stand to make a new base.” This is our true feeling.
Moreover, we have learned many things as we researched. Futenma will be returned because of the pretext that it is dangerous, that it is surrounded by residences and schools, and therefore, the land was unusable. The concrete runway is rough, but it could not be enhanced. The Futenma Airbase is not large enough. Thus, the land is returned not because it can cause harm to the residents.
Moreover, since it has been used since the Vietnam War, it handled chemical weapons and defoliant, and it has been found that the soil is contaminated. The government said that “We move to Futenma because it is not easy to use the former location anymore. The government did not say that the base is relocated because it caused inconvenience to us, the people. In the people’s understanding, the relocation is not just a simple transfer of base but an enhancement of military base. Henoko was chosen because it is very convenient. It is located by the deep sea where the aircraft carrier could have a port to dock. Furthermore, it turns out that the US military wanted to reclaim Henoko and build a base since the Vietnam War. There was just NO money. However, this time the Japanese government plans to continue to invest on this project. It is a great chance for the US military to have their desired airbase.
In 1996 the sit-in action against the construction of the base in Henoko began. But the villagers are getting tired. Some people couldn’t refuse when they got money from the government. Ojii and Obaa are sitting in on the beach (in Japanese Ojii and Obaa sounds a little bit rude towards old people but in Okinawa, we call them such with respect.
They said that if the sea was to be reclaimed, we would stop even if we entered the sea.” They kept sitting in every day for 8 years. Eventually, in April 2004, it was written in the newspaper “the construction will be started soon.” We are sorry to leave this movement only Ojii and Obaa who has been sitting-in on the beach. From now on, we also join with you, and people have gathered from all over Okinawa and Japan to sit in with Ojii and Obaa. Hundreds of people sat in on the road to Henoko’s port and blocked it. They are not commanded by someone but they act with their will.
At that time, only one arrangement was made, that we do it thoroughly and non-violently.
War is the biggest violence. We are sitting-in here to stop the war. So, to stop the war with the use of violence, we will lose ourselves. This was the start of a non-violent battle.
Over 90% of the island was taken as a base immediately after the war, so farmers of Iejima were not able to cultivate the fields and produce food. Among the farmers, Mr. Ahagon Shoukou negotiated with US military non-violently and regained his land. This starts a non-violent movement which we learn the practice from Mr. Ahagon Shoukou.
“Do not speak loudly.” “Do not hold anything in your hand.” “Do not raise your hand above your ear.” “Sit down and talk” “Speaking with our pride, the opponents do without knowing the reality.”
However, the Japanese government has begun outrageously to forcibly build a new base against the non-violent struggle. Sitting-in is done not only on the road but also on the sea.
However, even though we were non-violent, there was a person who was attacked and drowned into the sea and became unconsciousness due to violence. Some people protested and appealed for the cancelation of the base construction by swimming. They have experienced being approached, or attacked by a ship with screw propeller to intimidate them. When some people dived to protest with their oxygen cylinders, their cylinders’ valves were shut down by the divers hired by the base construction project. Some protesters’ boats and canoes have been overturned and capsized by the Japanese Coast Guard. On land, several people were made to roll over on the ground, and assaulted by the riot police who were hitting their heads against the concrete before transporting them to the hospital. It is sad, but it became a daily routine.
I often hear the phrase, “War makes people non-human.” However, in Okinawa, we realize that even the “preparation for war also makes people inhuman.” However, it is also true that peace is maintained by sitting-in. The news reports had it sound like the land reclamation has progressed to a point where it can no longer be turned back, but only shallow water area was landfilled. What the government wants is to have land reclamation in a deep area. But it is impossible to do it even with the current construction technology. The seabed is deeper than it was thought, the ground is soft, and active fault lines have been found. Many experts said that the construction itself is impossible. And even if it was made, the reclamation would eventually sink further. That is what all we know. Even though scholars pointed out the danger of doing so, but the government is trying to force and push the project ahead.
Why does the Government want to push that far? We don’t know why. There will be some people who will perhaps make money by constructing the base. And the Government would want to look good in the eyes of the U.S. I think that the Government manipulates the idea that “the country” is absolute, to flaunt some values and ideas that we need to prepare for a supposedly impending attack from foreign countries. Or, maybe the government wants something more important than humans, and that we need to protect our country with our lives. This is a kind of emotional manipulation project that makes everyone think easily about the base. There should be nothing more important than our lives. We must not choose to destroy the life God has given us. I heard this voice in the battle of Henoko. Constructing the military base is not meant for us. What is more important is for us to stop the construction of the base as it is itself a preparation for war. And it has stopped the war for over 10 years. Perhaps, I can be patient as a victim, but I cannot stand being a perpetrator.
There are no winners in war. Even if one wins or lose, one will still be injured. However, in waging peace and in protecting people’s lives, all of us will win in the battle. Indeed, there are no losers in the fight to protect our lives. Those who could not build the base can also say, “I have chosen to save my life.” In the battle of Henoko, there is only one way to win, and we need to continue doing until we gain victory. Many Christians are involved in the battle of Henoko. There were several pastors among the captains of small boat flotilla that are stationing on the sea. This protest happen not only Henoko. The fight for Peace in Okinawa is also taking place in Takae, Futenma, Miyako-jima, Ishigaki-jima as well.
In each place, some people want to follow Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus did not say, “Happy for those who love peace.” He did not even say, “Happy are those who pray for peace!” Instead, he said,” Happy are those who realize peace, for they shall be called children of God.”
I think that we need to think about the meaning of Jesus’ words and I want us to keep them in our mind. And when it is almost impossible for us to achieve peace, and our hearts failed us, please remember Jesus’ words in the last verse of chapter 16 of John.
I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”
Finally, I will sing again “Dojin dear children! This time I will sing it with the version of the original lyrics. Please listen.
(Original version)