 Happy Aloha Friday. Welcome to Perspectives on Global Justice Program. I'm your host, Beatrice Cantelmo. Today we have a very special guest, Peter Shimazaki-Dotta, who is a member of the Variance for Peace Rukukinawa Chepta and the Co-Founder of Hawai'i-Ukinawa Alliance. Pete's knowledge and advocacy work will assist our viewers to better understand important global justice issues such as Indigenous peoples' rights, militarisation, decolonisation issues and the human rights struggles for peace that the Indigenous people of Okinawa are faced with. Geopolitically, Okinawa is key to the American Japanese Alliance and the heart of American's military presence in Japan. Who should the Okinawa territory belong to? The answer depends on whom you may ask. Beijing continues to claim that Okinawa territory roots based on history from 1372 by that year the Ryukyu Kingdom was paying tribute to the Chinese court and Japan did not complete its annexation of the island chain until 1872. China also claims that the annexation of Ryukyu's islands constituted an invasion. Japan's defeat in World War II nullified the Treaty of Shimazaki of 1895 by which the Qing court formally renounced its claims to the islands. Every story has many sites to it and history provides us with additional information that undermines China's territorial claim over the Okinawan Islands. In 1609, the Japanese Philo Law that conquered the Ryukyu Islands allowed the Ryukyuans to also pay tribute to the court in China. The other point to be considered in history is the Qing dynasty's identity. Even though the Chinese consider themselves to be the rulers of the Qing dynasty, the Qings did not share the same belief, especially during the early time of their ruling. At that time in history, the Chinese were viewed as foreign invaders. To make matters more complicated, through the battle of Okinawa and the US military control of Okinawa from 1945 to 1972, the US current over-representation of the US military bases in the Okinawan Islands continued to be responsible for Okinawan civilian deaths, injuries and rapes, as well as environmental damages and the oppression of the freedom of assembly and the press for the indigenous people of Okinawa who are fed up with having to have their most human rights violated. The people of Ryukyu Okinawa self-identified as indigenous people. The United Nations Declaration of Indigenous People ensures that indigenous people have the right to self-determination, free, prior and informed consent, the right to protect the environment, including the protection from hazardous materials and the prohibition of military activities in indigenous territories. The people of Okinawa have never willingly provided their own lands to the US to use for military bases and they are not happy with the Japanese government for ignoring their collective will against the construction and the expansion of a new US military base in Okinawa. The collective will and voices of the indigenous people of Okinawa were shown during the Okinawan electoral vote, yet democracy for the indigenous people of Okinawa is not being respected by the Japanese government. As a result, a strong indigenous movement against the US military base expansion is growing in Okinawa. And on that note, I would like to welcome Peter to our program. Thank you so much for making the time to be here with us today. Oh no, thank you sister, for all you're doing and making these kind of programs available to the people. Oh absolutely, this is a joint effort and I would have not been possible without having the people who really are in the trenches of the metas to come and really talk the stories of the people that we are trying to support and share more of the highlights of what's happening. So Peter, before we start, can you give our viewers a little perspective on your background? Where does your family come from and how did you get involved with all of this? Yeah, why should I care about Okinawa, right? Okay, great question. Okay, well first of all, I'm a product of Okinawan history. My father was a Marine in the Battle of Okinawa and as a Marine at 27 years, three wars, he was in Okinawa quite a bit where he met my mother who is also a survivor of the war. So I am one of those byproducts of war. It even deeper though, you know, I still have lots of family in Okinawa. My grandfather was a, he passed away, but he's a, he was a principal and one of the schools he taught at Jetfire crashed into it accidentally killing children and staff. So in addition to friends and family connection, it's also just humanity. Knowing what I do know, having lived in Okinawa, bear witness on both sides of the fence, having a prior military service. It's my humanity seeing not just the compassion for the people, but also how inspiring Okinawan people are as well as other factors. I'm personally a Buddhist which, you know, is about compassion and wisdom and so applied to Okinawa, it calls for action. And then the last and probably most important thing is what Hawaiians call Kuliana or Okinawa Tsukibun, which is a kind of a responsibility I've inherited, you know, being a product of Okinawa part of its legacy. And yeah, I have a responsibility to address these past issues that continue to fester in the present and unfortunately in the future right now. Right, so like it doesn't get more personal than that. The fact that you are second generation of Okinawan and also the fact that you were in the military. So you can see both sides of this story and perhaps have a very bipartisan view both from the perspective what's happening with the people of Okinawa now and historically, but also from a military background. So obviously you do care about Okinawa and so how long have you been involved with Okinawan issues and activism here in the state of Hawaii in Uda? Well, in terms of Hawaii, I've been here about almost 20 years now. So I actually moved here from Okinawa with the intention to just go to grad school and head back and you know, here I am. So I'm almost 20 years later, Hawaii has that effect, but as soon as I learned about Okinawa, actually when I was using my GI Bill on college and volunteering for community events that I came across a delegation from Okinawa, actually was sponsored by Christian group and this was in 93. And at that time I was just learning all those things they don't teach you in high school, including what's really the agenda behind the use of military force. Yeah, so I'd say it was about 93, so almost 25 years. What did you learn then that usually it's concealed from history classes and what has prompted you to say, okay, I'm going to devote a part of my life, a big chunk of it, not only to bring awareness through education, but also through advocacy to have the history and the rights and the voices of people of Okinawa hard. Well, that's a good question. I mean it prompted me to one become a history teacher, you know, quite upset that I didn't really learn in high school. I really should have learned from history. So it entailed going to Okinawa and just, you know, being with family and doing a lot of research because at that time there wasn't much information in English and there's a lot of things I learned, too much for the show, but I would say one of the biggest things that really had a major, a major example would be, okay, so as you know, I'm biracial, bicultural and my father being a marina 27 years would, since I can remember said, son, war is a part of life that's always been, always will be. And I was fed that narrative by mainstream society that war is an inherent part of life that, you know, so two things, you know, one, when I use my G.L.B., I went to the university, I really researched that question, is are humans truly just inherently violent? And very long, very short, my thesis concluded based on evidence we had available that there's too many exceptions to say that all humans are inherently violent and more is an inevitable part of life. And then I moved to Okinawa and where I could see an example of a culture that reflected perhaps the qualities of humans that allow us to evolve and, you know, unfortunately, for better or worse, become masters of this planet as naked apes. You know, what I'm saying is that what I learned in Okinawa, not just historically as well as in the present, is that it is possible for a society to live in peace and in fact it's in its best interest if they want to survive to live in peace with each other and with their neighbors. And that's so, tell us, you know, like I've never been to Okinawa, most of the people, you know, who watch our programs and when they're either. We don't understand, you know, the identity of the Okinawan people. Do they see themselves, you know, like sovereign, you know, different from Japan, culture and country? Do they see themselves as more indigenous identity? And when you're talking about peace, what is their philosophy and belief in how to carry on with their own lives in Okinawa? Okay, well, you're asking me a lot of questions. Yes, and we don't have to answer all of that right now, you know, but that just to kind of frame a little bit of the thought, you know, as we go forward with the program. So, rephrase, because I've heard two questions and so one more time. The questions that you've heard, there you go. I have the tendency sometimes to just go off the tangent, you know, like, oh, I got like one question with like 10 parts to it. Okay, well, you asked about the identity. In terms of regionally, absolutely, we have a strong identity as most island people do. And, you know, nations, if you will. However, it's more complicated having, you know, being a colonized island and colonized by more than one culture, as you mentioned historically, Japan and United States. So, as a consequence of colonization and the control of education system, which it's no different today, Tokyo controls the entire education system and they actually pride themselves that the kid, the third grader in the most northern part of Japan, Hokkaido to the most southern, they're on the same page in the same textbook learning the same Japanese history. And so they don't learn their own history, unfortunately, nor do they get to express it, you know, politically. So, what I might, what I'm getting at is, yes, there are a significant percentage that have a very distinct identity as Okinawans or Uchi Nanchi or whatever island they're from. But on the other hand, and it varies with generation from older to younger, more people have been assimilated into become Japanese. And that has had a significant impact on identity issues. And then the complicated, if I just add one last thing, is the Japanese government actually refuses to acknowledge that Okinawans are indigenous despite all the, you know, historical record and validation by the UN. Whereas well as, and it's probably because they did acknowledge the Ainu as indigenous people of Japan. And that's come with some consequences, you know, for the Japan lawsuits and other suits. So they refuse to recognize them as indigenous people, even though there's no question they are. And so that complicates combined with education that intentionally pits a national identity to essentially ethnically erase the Okinawan people and their identity and to become assimilated as mainstream Japanese. So we're going to take a quick break and we'll write back and then we're going to elaborate a little bit further on that. Okay. Aloha. My name is John Waihei and I used to be a part of all the things that you might be angry at. I served in government here and may have made decisions that affects you. So I want to invite you in. I want to invite you in to talk story with me and some very special guests every other Monday here at Talk Story with John Waihei. Come on in, join us, express your opinion, learn more about your state, and then do something about it. Aloha. Welcome back to Prospectors on Global Justice. This is Beatrice Cantalo, your host. And we are back to our conversation with Beat, daughter. And we were just talking about the identity of the Okinawan people and how difficult it's been, not only for recognition of the Japanese government that the Okinawan people are actually indigenous people, but also to teach history as it should be. So, Beat, moving forward, what is the real problem with Okinawa right now and how do the Okinawan people feel about it? Well, you know, often it's just framed as military bases, but what's missing is like, well, what's the problem with the military bases? And we can go for hours talking about them. We don't have the time, so I can just summarize. It's a human rights problem. Okinawans are subjected to the threat of war every day. In fact, when World War II ended, it never ended in Okinawan. And on the contrary, they expanded the bases and never left. In all, that was 1945, we were in 2017. It's a matter of political rights. Consistently, Okinawans in the local elections, vast majority have supported some form of demilitarization between 70 and 80 percent, depending on, but in the span of the last 30 years, yeah, it's always been about 80, 70 percent, of which doesn't get recognized. Despite what the people elect and why they elect people, the efforts to demilitarize are always stymied by Japan and the US. There's a cultural genocide going on, as we mentioned, the ratio of the identity. For example, language, you know, the U.K. languages are highly endangered as is the culture. Is there like any effort for the revival of Okinawan language and culture from the Okinawan's perspective in real history? Like it happened with Hawaii in the 70s? Not to the flourishing of the Hawaiian language, renaissance, but there is a small effort and it's growing. And actually, identity is actually taking a more center stage with the current governor, Onaga, who part of his campaign, including one of the issues that we're going to talk about is the imposed construction of a naval port in Henukau and rural Okinawa. Part of his campaign was, you know, all Okinawa together. So this is not ideological, it's not left-right. It's back to conservative and, you know, progressive factions that are united on this for different reasons. So, you know, since we're going to be talking about the US militarization expansion in Okinawa, I don't know, could we have the picture of Okinawa and our train islands for our viewers to take a look at it? So we have the US spice in Okinawa. You could see that about 18 percent of the land is occupied by military facilities. That's not counting the air and sea space. What's really significant about this, to show the discrimination that's behind this, is that Okinawa is really smaller than Kauai and Okinawa is the big island, if you will, of the island chain. It's despite being 0.6 percent of all Japan landmass, they host almost two-thirds of the US military in the entirety of Japan. So in other words, it's unwanted in Japan the basis, so they put them in someone else's backyard, namely, you know, indigenous people they conquered. Japan did give up their colonies in Korea and China from their expansion as an empire, but that's one that people have forgotten in history books, is they never restored the UQ Kingdom, you know, the sovereignty of the people. So now there is a big push and it's almost in its final stages to get the expansion of the military base in Okauai. They actually started construction this week, unfortunately. And I am so sorry. And I know that prior to that, there are several peace activists and human rights activists in Okinawa protested. So now can we have some pictures of, you know, these moments so that people can have a... Well, that's funny because that is Henoko and when you think of protests, you don't usually think of people dancing, but that would be Okinawa style. That's New Year's, watching the first sunrise. That is one of many elders being accosted by Japanese riot police. They don't use the local police because they respect. You can see it's a case study and civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance. Those are everyday people putting their bodies on the line to defend the land. This picture I took, actually, this was when Clinton was president. As you can see, very inspiring to see entire villages hold hand in hand and encircle entire military bases. That one right there is Kadena Air Base, the largest air base in Asia. That's a recent rally. As you can see, this is not a fringe group. This is the mainstream of the people who are united for self-determined peace. That's an example of Asian Orange found at Kadena School, one of the many problems that the military either unintentionally or intentionally cover up. In their pictures, more than a thousand walls. When you see so many hundreds, thousands of people holding hands together in peace, asking to just have the right to exist and to be self-sufficient and to have democracy respected in their own land and not having that. And if I may, to have just basic security. That's what's ironic is those that support the bases tend to focus on is for the security and or economic security. So let's elaborate a little bit on that. So for those who are full military base expansion and presence in Okinawa and their arguments, look at its full security of the United States and also Japan and if it's for economic security of Japanese people. Give me a couple of examples. What's the regular rhetoric that's being used? Well, you stated that so when you know they'll say China or North Korea, right? Well, if that's the reason of having military in Okinawa is to prevent missiles flying over Japan or to prevent Chinese moving in the South Sea, apparently it's not working, is it? Right? And so instead of being a deterrence, actually exacerbating tensions, much the way Pueblo, well known as Pearl Harbor was attacked by their Imperial competitor, Japan, and they didn't attack the people. They were focused on military targets. So the issue of securing Okinawa is very grave, especially now with all this tension, because, you know, there's many reasons why. Why are so many Okinawans, you know, opposed to militarism and this military perforation? Well, part of it is having survived so many wars, the Battle of Okinawa was the bloodiest land battle in the Pacific, almost one in three civilians were killed. And so that's what modern warfare shows, is that despite all the focus and worship of the military, of course, you know, which military focus on one nation, that the bulk of casualties in modern warfare are actually civilians, as we saw in Okinawa. So it doesn't bring them physical security. They survived off the land, I mean, historically, and especially after the war. So they really depend on the environment, the Aina, to survive. And so it seems like the Japanese government have considered the environment destruction and impact of having the military base expanded on Okinawa, like on the corals, on the fishing industry, and also the land itself. So that makes it really hard for the people of Okinawa to, you know, exist and carry on with their own traditional, you know, culture and cultivation of fishing. I mean, it's a very big part, a staple of their diet and the difficult to do. Absolutely. You know, there's endangered species like the dugong, but you know, I want to get to another issue of security that people that argue for bases often do, and that's, you know, economic benefits. Just, first of all, the argument that you should have military because it brings jobs, it's up there whether we should have, I don't know, selling, you know, harmful drugs because it brings in income, you know, it's very harmful that another side do it. It's insulting for a culture that's historically been very peaceful. In fact, during the Ryukyu Kingdom you mentioned, when it was unified, they actually disbanded their military because they were surrounded by Japan, China, all these regional empires. And so they realized, oh, we're done if we go to war with these huge nations. So they found that the foreign policy was best done through economic exchange and cultural exchange and just maintain peaceful relations with your neighbors rather than the standing military. And fast forward, now we got the culture that's only, it thinks that the military is the only way to have security. And we see it not spring in the region, but actually the world in great danger, you know, of a potential world war. But I just want to point out very specifically what's interesting about the argument too is that they have found, make it short, that in areas of land that were returned to civilian commercial use, have much increased the commercial output, much increased more jobs than the bases ever have. So the argument, I'm sorry, I'll just say this, like even the conservative, you know, chamber of commerce type folks are also against the military because the, not just the inefficient use of land, and it really holds back the local economy and local planning and so forth, which you can imagine. Very hard. So we are almost at the end of our program and I would like to leave our viewers and you with an opportunity to talk about what can people of Hawaii or around the globe could do to support the people of Okinawa and, you know, since the military expansion is happening and there is a big cry, you know, for indigenous people's rights to be heard and respected and unprotected, what would be that message? Well, I mean the first thing is to be informed. So in terms of being informed, you know, the DQ SHIMPO, there's some Okinawan newspapers, they might have some English sections, but our Hawaii-Okinawa Alliance, we have a Facebook page where articles are posted. That's probably the most one direct way I can guide people to just sign up on there if they can to get information, but aside from just being informed, just caring to do something and I know that's what you're asking about. Definitely we need to hold our government accountable. Those are not Chinese military, it's not Russian, that's US military, so we need to hold our ourselves accountable and address our representatives. And also, you know, we're just trying to pull together, Hoa is pulling together the Okinawan community and allies, so we have some events coming up this Sunday, on the 30th, yeah, at the JIKO and Hongwanji and Like Like and School Street at 430. We have some information there. And then just keep posted, we have some more events coming up next month and some films coming up and so forth. We would like people to get in touch because we are making appointments with representatives, federal reps to address our concerns and so forth, as well as holding the Japanese government also accountable. That's what makes it so complicated, there's two occupiers and they just blame each other so they can get away with what's happening. But I think that the better future is coming for, that's the good of the bad and the ugly of what we're seeing right now in the US history and government, is that more people are becoming aware, more civically engaged. All my darling brother, it was wonderful having you here today and I hope that this may be the first of many visits that you have and that we can talk a little bit more in depth about all the aspects of Okinawa and the beautiful work that you do as an advocate and activist. Well, thank you so much for being here and to stay with us on Global Justice, prospectus on Global Justice, and I hope to see you again next Friday at four o'clock. Until then, who we hope.