To Live Together with “Okinawa” : A Study of Okamoto Keitoku's On “Okinawa Note”

Okamoto Keitoku is a famous literary researcher in Okinawa. He is also known as one of important thinkers who proposed ideas of “anti-reversion” and “anti-nation” around 1972. This paper considers how to overcome the division between Japan and Okinawa by reading Okamoto’s On “Okinawa Note”, which is a review of Oe Kenzaburo’s Okinawa Note in 1970. Some anti-reversionists, for example Akira Arakawa, criticized a lack of a perspective of anti-nation sentiment in Okinawa Note. Okamoto agreed with this, but, at the same time, he revealed the potential to share pains in Okinawa Note. Though Oe was injured by being a victimizer as-Japanese, he never stopped visiting Okinawa and hearing people in Okinawa. Oe tried to experience Okinawa’s pains vicariously by injuring himself. Okamoto called this attitude “to share pains”. Okamoto emphasized that shared pain must precede all logic to solve problems between Japan and Okinawa. Okamoto reread Okinawa Note in 1994. He added a reference to Oe’s Direct Democracy at bases with nuclear weapons which had been written in 1968. Oe had used “like-Okinawa” in it to indicate people who stand against militarization in Okinawa. This paper argues that the reason why Okamoto paid attention to Oe’s essay in 1968 was to suggest a way to solidarize under the name of “like-Okinawa” no matter where one is from. Oe revealed his suffering from being Japanese in Okinawa Note. But Okamoto pointed out that it strengthens a division between Japan and Okinawa. What is needed is to forge a way to “share pains” into the logic of struggle in Okinawa