¹ Gavan McCormack and Satoko Norimatsu, “Discordant Visitors: Japanese and Okinawan Messages to the US,” The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 40 No 1, October 3, 2011.

² “Obama hosts Noda, ‘advises action on base’,” Japan Times, 23 September 2011, quoted in McCormack and Norimatsu, 2011.

⁴ Nakaima Hirokazu, ‘Okinawa Governor Nakaima: An Irreparable Rift in Okinawa/Japan/US Relations Would Result From Forceful Construction of Henoko Base 仲井真沖縄知事: 辺野古基地の強行は沖縄・日米関係に修復不能の亀裂を残す, ‘The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 39 No 2, September 26, 2011.

⁵ McCormack and Norimatsu, 2011.

⁶ Nakaima, 2011.

⁷ Seki Hironobu, Koza no ongakuka [Musicians of Koza] (Osaka: Kaifūsha, 1989): 272-273 quoted in Nomura Kōya, Muishiki no shokuminchishugi: Nihonjin no Beigunkichi to Okinawajin [Unconscious Colonialism: The Japanese People's US Military Bases and the Okinawans] (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō, 2005): 19.

⁸ The group's name is an Okinawan colloquial rendering for women coming together (tsudoi), Kamadu being an old Okinawan female name.

⁹ Kunimasa Mie, “Yamato no anata e” [“To You, the Japanese”], Keeshi Kaji No 44 (September, 2004): 55.

¹⁰ Ōta Masahide Okinawa heiwa no ishiji [Okinawa, the Cornerstone of Peace] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996): 41.

¹¹ Nomura, 2005. My translation of Nomura's first chapter entitled “Shokuminchishugi wa owaranai: Nihonjin toiu shokuminsha”“Unconscious Colonialism: A Case Study of the Japanese Colonizer”] of Unconscious Colonialism is forthcoming in CR: The New Centennial Review Vol 12 No 1.

¹² Nomura, 2005: 20.

¹³ chinin ushii, “Sutanfōdo shinpo hōkoku: Josei dōshi ga te o tsunagu tameniwa” [“Stanford Symposium: In Order for Women to Join Hands”], Okinawa taimusu, 4 June 2006.

¹⁴ Asato Eiko, “Hihan toshite no taiwa: Nomura Kōya Muishiki no shokuminchishugi ni tsuite” [“Dialogue as Critique: Nomura Kōya's Unconscious Colonialism”], Keeshi Kaji No 48 (September, 2005): 64-69.

¹⁵ Nomura, 2005: 19.

¹⁶ Here is one example of Hatoyama's formulation: “How can I ask all of my governors to help with Okinawa's excessive burden? Is it possible to move part of the Futenma [military] exercises to another prefecture? I would be thankful if everyone would address the security of Japan as a significant problem concerning the people of the nation (kokumin) and say, ‘It's possible to receive it here!‘” (Hatoyama, Yukio, “Futenma mondai zenkoku chijikai: Shushō to shusseki chiji no omona yaritori” [“The Futenma Issue and the National Governor's Conference: Main Correspondence between the Prime Minister and Attending Governors”], Asahi Shimbun, 27 May 2010.

¹⁷ “Kichi futan dōjō to keika to” [“Assuming the Burden of Bases: Empathy and Alarm”], Asahi Shimbun. 12 February, 2010.

¹⁸ “‘Kichi wa kuni no mondai’ ga taisei: Kinki no chiji” [“For the Majority, ‘Bases are the Country's Problem’: Governors in the Kinki Region”], Sankei Shimbun, 28 May, 2010.

¹⁹ “Ihashi, kensei dakkan e ketsui: Shutsuba o seisiki hyōmei” [“Mr. Iha, A Resolution to Recapture the Prefectural Government: The Official Announcement of His Candidacy”], Okinawa Taimusu 3, October, 2010. (Accessed October 25, 2011).

²⁰ Satoko Norimatsu, “On the day after the Okinawa election 沖縄知事選の後に,” Peace Philosophy Center, 29 November 2010. (Accessed October 17, 2011).

²¹ McCormack and Norimatsu, 2011.

²² Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: The Last Speeches, ed. Bruce Perry (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1989): 40.

²³ See Nomura Kōya's discussion of democratic colonialism as it pertains to Okinawa in Nomura, 2005: 25-30. Nomura correctly points out that “Neither has the Japanese government nor have the Japanese people ever officially termed Okinawa a colony,” unlike Taiwan or Korea during the colonial period. “Hence,” he continues, “it is commonly thought that if Okinawa is not officially a colony, colonialism does not exist.” In this way, the Meiji government justified the annexation of the Ryūkyū Kingdom as an “ethnic unification” (minzoku tōitsu) and deliberately avoided the term colonialism. In the postwar era, it became more important than ever to avoid the term colony given the crumbling empires of Europe and Japan and the non-aggrandizement clauses of the 1941 Atlantic Charter and 1943 Cairo Declaration. For this reason, the US found it difficult to occupy Okinawa indefinitely as a country purportedly spreading democracy throughout the world in the Cold War era. However, as the core meaning of postcolonial studies suggests, this does not entail the end of colonialism, but merely its reconfiguration. By the end of the Vietnam War, it became clear to the US that Japan was a solid ally and could continue to concentrate US military bases in Okinawa even under Japanese democracy. In this way, the continued colonial domination of Okinawa shifted from a discourse of “ethnic unification” to a discourse of democratic unity within the Japanese state. However, Nomura argues, “Democracy is not in a conflictual relationship with colonialism.” For him, “the militarization of Okinawa was not only essential collateral for the disarmament of Japan, but also for the bestowal of a “Peace Constitution “and democracy onto the Japanese people.”

²⁴ For example, see Steve Rabson, “Okinawan Perspectives on Japan's Imperial Institution,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, February 16, 2008 and Gavan McCormack, “Ampo's Troubled 50^th: Hatoyama's Abortive Rebellion, Okinawa's Mounting Resistance and the US-Japan Relationship (Part 1),” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 22-3-10, May 31, 2010.

²⁵ “M'Arthur expects peace pact within a year and 18 months; Says Okinawa must Go to US,” Nippon Times, 29 June 1947: 1-2.

²⁶ Gabe Masaaki, Okinawa henkan to wa nandatta noka: Nichibei sengo kōshō-shi no naka de [What Was the Return of Okinawa All About? Through the History of Postwar US-Japan Negotiations] (Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, 2005): 51. For the text of the “Emperor's Message,” (accessed October 30, 2011).

²⁷ Nomura, 2005: 29.

²⁸ I use the word “reason” here in the Kantian sense. For Kant, the exercise of reason through the practice of critique was integral to the Enlightenment project. I have argued elsewhere that kengai isetsu is a practice of critique that opens up possibilities for the maturity of Japanese democracy that are not predicated on the colonization of Okinawa. In other words, one important reason why political reason in Japan has not been able to reach maturity is because the consequences of the US-Japan Security Treaty are shifted to Okinawa, thereby preventing the emergence of the conditions for an earnest critique of the Treaty that defines postwar Japanese democracy. See my translator's afterword to Nomura Kōya, “Shokuminchishugi wa owaranai: Nihonjin toiu shokuminsha” [“Undying Colonialism: A Case Study of the Japanese Colonizer”] forthcoming in CR: The New Centennial Review Vol 12 No 1.

²⁹ Sekitani Michiō, “NichiBei anpō no ima: Anzen hoshō ni kansuru denwa chōsa kara,” Hōsō Kenkyū to Chōsa, March 2011. (Accessed October 17, 2011). A more recent Associated Press-GfK poll has found that the “Japanese have become more welcoming to the US military presence in their country over the past six years as fears spread that neighborin.” China and North Korea are threats to peace. “AP-GfK Poll: Japanese support for US bases grows,” Huffington Post, 5 September 2011.

³⁰ “AP-GfK Poll: Japanese support for US bases grows,” Huffington Post, 5 September 2011. (Accessed November 1, 2011).

³¹ “US military brings radioactive waste into MCAS Futenma,” Ryukyu Shimpo, 11 August, 2011. (Accessed November 1, 2011).

³² chinin ushii, “Amerika de Zaioki Beigun kichi no Nihon “Hondō “ohikitoriron o kataru” [“Delivering the Argument in America for “Mainland “Japan's Repossession of US Military Bases in Okinawa”], Shokuminsha e: Posutokoroniarizumu to iu chōhatsu [To the Colonizer: A Postcolonial Provocation], ed. Nomura Kōya, (Kyoto: Shōraisha, 2007): 501.

³³ Ibid., 502.

³⁴ Ibid., 495.

³⁵ Ibid., 502.

³⁶ Nomura, 2005: 44.

³⁷ McCormack 2010. Here, McCormack's discussion of Japan as a “client state” of the US is helpful. McCormack departs from John Dower's Embracing Defeat in which, according to McCormack, Dower asserts that, “Japanese actors were seizing the initiative and gradually substituting Japanese for American priorities, and that primary subjectivity of the occupation process was therefore Japanese, rather than American.” Instead, McCormack argues that, “although Japan did indeed ‘embrace defeat, ‘accepting the sacrifice of much of its autonomy in return for US protection and incorporation in the US zone of influence, the US retained significant, perhaps decisive, control over it throughout these 60 years and more.” Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, (New York: Verso, 2007): 5. While I agree that Dower's thesis exaggerates the zeal with which the Japanese “embraced” US occupation at the expense of ignoring the larger power dynamics between the US and Japan, I differ from both in that I hesitate to use concepts such as national “subjectivity,” “autonomy,” or “sovereignty” as assumed starting points of analysis. I recognize the validity of these concepts in a post-Westphalian system of international law, but my contention is that Okinawa's position cannot be adequately articulated by legal discourse. Instead, I have benefitted from Ann Stoler's extension of Foucault's discussion of biopower to postcolonial studies, which shows how national subjectivity is generated through multi-layered relationships between subjects dispersed throughout the circuits of empire such as the mixed-blood, colonial elite, poor whites, and the bourgeoisie. I prefer this theoretical framework because it underscores the integral role Okinawa serves in the three-tiered US-Japan-Okinawa relationship in respect to the constitution of Japanese state sovereignty as discussed below. See Ann Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things, (Durham: Duke, 1995).

³⁸ Foucault specifically refers to the internal colonialism of England that was achieved through the boomerang effect of colonizing the Americas. In other words, in order for England to justify its colonization of the Americas, it was also compelled to justify the legacy of the 11^th century Norman Conquest—a form of internal colonialism—as the historically legitimate line of power. He writes: “It should never be forgotten that while colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents, it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West, and on the apparatuses, institutions, and techniques of power. A whole series of colonial models was brought back to the West, and the result was that the West could practice something resembling colonization, or an internal colonialism, on itself.” Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975-1976, trans. David Macey. (New York: Picador, 2003): 103. First, Foucault underscores how national identity, subjectivity, and sovereignty does not exist a priori to the event of colonial domination, after which it is simply imposed upon an uncivilized people. Likewise Japanese national identity, subjectivity and sovereignty did not magically emerge in a vacuum, but was forged through its colonial relationships with the Ainu, Okinawans, Taiwanese, and Koreans from the very founding of the Meiji state. To start an analysis with the premise that “Japanese sovereignty” has been violated by the US is to elide this historical relationship. Second, Foucault is embraced by postcolonial studies because his analysis shows how a colonial relationship can be left stubbornly intact even though superficial political structures have changed such as through the continued neocolonial exploitation of former colonies even after they achieved independence as a sovereign state. In the sense that Okinawa has long functioned as the underside of Japanese national subjectivity and state sovereignty, it has historically existed in a colonial relationship with Japan irrespective of whether it was ever formally called a “colony” or continues to exist under the umbrella of Japanese state sovereignty.

³⁹ Arasaki Moriteru, Okinawa gendai shi [Modern Okinawan History] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996): 26-27.

⁴⁰ Naoki Sakai has articulated the concept of missionary positionality as follows: “one's sense of mission immediately justifies the demand that the others ought to implement that mission; where the awareness of discontinuity between different social statuses disappears; and where one's sense of mission is supposed to be communicated to and embraced by others in some phantastic communion.” He is referring here to imperial nationalism amongst colonial subjects who actively assume a position of self-sacrifice (i.e., dying for the nation) in order to achieve communion with the nation-state to the point where they become blinded to the Other and collaborate in the Other's annihilation. This of course occurred with the mobilization of colonial subjects of the Japanese Empire into the total war regime to fight in China and later in Southeast Asia. The three-tiered structure of the missionary positionality resonates with the boomerang effect of colonial domination and formation of national subjectivity. See Naoki Sakai “Subject and Substratum: On Japanese Imperial Nationalism” Cultural Studies, 14(3/4) 2000: 516. Here, I use the concept of missionary positionality to clarify Japan's passive stance vis-à-vis the US in which its compromised position becomes the justification for blindness towards the Okinawan Other. John Dower's use of the sexualized metaphor “embracing defeat” seems to unwittingly capture this sentiment. It is no surprise that his study neglects contemplating the effects of this embrace on postcolonial minorities in Japan such as Okinawans and zainichi Koreans.

⁴¹ Leo Ching, Becoming “Japanese”: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001): 30.

⁴² C. Douglas Lummis, “Dialogue with Douglas Lummis on Okinawa Election 沖縄知事選について、ダグラス・ラミスさんとの会話,” Peace Philosophy Center, 3 December 2010.