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If the ultimate point is the sovereignty of the Okinawans, then isn't the real issue here the Japanese colonization? While the US does exert extreme pressure about strategic concerns as I understand it, as described in the OP, it's not true that the US is ultimately behind keeping Okinawa poor from my understanding. Of course with the bases there and various strategic concerns, I have no doubt the US is using full pressure to keep them open, especially with the loss of Subic and the Philippines basing a decade or so back. Still, the argument always seems to be entirely, 100%, Japanese-people-have-no-agency about the US when, if my brief reading of articles after a Japan goon told me about Okinawa is correct, Japan took over Okinawa sometime during their post-Meiji Imperial phase, colonized it, displaced the peoples and have treated the Okinawans as a vassal nation in a vassal state ever since, keeping them poor through purposeful economic policies and, in concert with the US, ensuring unwanted problems like US basing landed squarely on the Okinawans and never on true Japanese territory. If the Japanese granted them sovereignty and reversed their colonization then it stands to reason the Okinawans could make this sovereign choice. So, if we have the discussion in that context about Native Americans, First Nations peoples and Aboriginals, it seems only fair to give the Japanese the same level of respect they're due as a sovereign state run by Japanese citizens, since the colonization predates the American conquering and administration post-WWII by 3/4 of a century. At the same time, I'm guessing the Japanese aren't any keener to give Okinawa back to the Okinawans than they are to give Ainu homelands back to the Ainu and let them have a sovereign state of their own - or than Americans or Australians or Chinese or Russians or others are to return sovereignty to the indigenous groups they've colonized and either assimilated, exterminated or segregated into impoverished regions. For what it's worth, I don't doubt the US continued manipulation of the Japanese government by any means necessary and I'd be happy to see a number of US bases there close assuming Japan's subtle push toward militarization continues. America's footprint there is a constant thorn for the local people, the Japanese and Americans. Fancy new aircraft carrier they just rolled out in Japan, by the way! I dig how they're slowly sneaking up on a full size supercarrier, heh. I just hate to see people treat other countries as if they don't have any control over their own affairs. I don't live in Japan, but I live in one such country and have spent extensive time in others and have learned first hand that anytime Westerners assume that the West is behind every single bad thing that happens it's because they're being ethnocentric. As with Madea, people around the world can do bad all by themselves. p.s. - Just had Okinawan food last weekend and spam features prominently. USA! USA! USA! Reminds me of modern Pinoy food in that regard.
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Apr 2, 2015 13:26
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Fojar38 posted:Is balkanization the goon solution to every problem? Give every ethnicity and/or geopolitical subdivision self-government? I just think it's condescending to countries to let them off the hook for their own imperial tendencies. There's a longtime goon that grew up abroad who, many years ago when I was immigrating abroad, said, "Don't buy into the noble savage myth." On its face the wording is striking for any open-minded Westerner, like "What?!" But actually it refers to a tendency many here suffer from and he was exactly right. For good or ill, peoples around the world are peoples and operate independently of what any foreigner has to say on any given day. Many of these peoples are from sovereign nations and some of those nations are powerful and have a strong influence in their own affairs, if not total control. To imply that everything they do that one disapproves of is entirely at the behest of foreign powers - which is a constant implication here - is deeply insulting and naive, frankly, and something that would never be said about, for example, a European country. Japan is not 2015 Afghanistan. It is not Puerto Rico, so give it the respect of treating it as what it is, for good and ill. In spite of the military bases in Germany and Italy and so on after defeating and conquering those countries in World War II, no one would say, "Well the US runs the place(s) wholesale and they want all these bad things to happen and that's why they happen." but it's okay to say this about non-majority-white countries because, you know, when your heart is in the right place and you're trying to empathize with perceived oppression then looking down at other races and saying that they're too simple and weak to possibly be capable of exerting power on their behalf is okay. These people over here they may look different but in many cases they largely, if not entirely decide their own affairs and have their own histories of oppression and illegitimate rule. We should hold any foreign power accountable for its undue influence, the US included - and that's a long list for sure - but the D&D narrative that every single thing in the world emanates from America is condescending as gently caress, to be honest. I mean really just "I have never lived in the rest of the world, but I'm going to tell you how it works" condescending.
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Apr 2, 2015 23:48
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