after attending the Documentary Showing event “Marines Go Home!”

"A principal reason for the Allied Occupation's success in demilitarizing Japan can be attributed to the continuity of certain prewar practices. " - Bill Gordon, host of the Japanese Dolls (!?)

After the event, I kept asking in my head, what it is that poses to me as a Zainichi Korean a sense of threat when viewing works of the most well-intentioned Japanese activists who work tirelessly for a cause we all share in common. The issue is of course not personal. I figured out that the Zainichi perspective on what the complex sources of systemic oppression that manifests in our experiences are not necessarily shared experiences. As a result, Japanese and I have a fundamentally different analysis of the US military occupation and imperialist influence in Japan. I almost always walk away feeling this way after being exposed to a narrative built upon a Japanese person’s perspective of an issue to do with social justice issues within Japan. I wanted to clarify for myself and others in the audience how this could be. The US of course plays a decisive role in shaping the reality of communities in Okinawa and Hokkaido, but Japan has always been an enabler of that reality as long as I can remember. I then had the desire to share what the Zainichi perspective may be on the roles of the two countries in creating this reality together. Since I’m not writing a book, I got to organizing thoughts of how the US-Japan collusion initially came to be after Japan lost the war in 1945. This is a small but important piece of history that gives ground to develop further analysis and learn more recent history of how the US-Japan collusion continues to play out. So that’s what I’m going to share.

YANG Jong Myon was born around the same year of Japan’s unconditional defeat in the Second World War – and subsequent liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule - in one of the oldest Korean ghettos in Japan, in an old industrial port city of Shimonoseki. When he was 10 years old, his family decided to become Japanese nationals to improve their chances in life. and because Japan’s naturalization policy is rooted in the idea of total ethnic and cultural assimilation, it was (and still is by and large) a rule that a “Japanese-sounding” name be embraced with demonstrated enthusiasm. “Masa-aki Yamamura” from that point onwards became his name as a Japanese citizen.

Masa-aki enrolled in Waseda University in Tokyo, one of the most highly regarded elite institution in all of Japan. The future prospect must have seemed so bright, as his parents had hoped. For this, negation of our Korean ways and being was worth it, they must have thought to themselves proudly and in relief – and yet, in 1970 at age 25, he chose to end his life by self-immolation.

Surely, the ‘event’ of Japanese colonial rule may have ended as of August 1945. However, if an event has passed, does that mean that we no longer experience that event afterwards? Those of us like myself who never directly experienced Japanese colonial rule, born into this world almost three decades after our ‘liberation,’ still witness the long-repealed 1939 Name Change Law in effect, whereby a vast majority of Zainichi Koreans use only their Japanese aliases, and colonial assimilation policy at work, denied their right to learn their own language or culture. We are generously bestowed by magnanimous Japan the precious eligibility to undergo ‘naturalization’ or kika, which entails as a rule a transformation of a whole person and his/her sense of roots and ethnic identity so that s/he may be accepted into the bosom of a powerful protector and feared leader as a loyal subject.

To turn away from this very reality of continued Japanese colonization today is to give way to a thing of “collective amnesia,” which serves as a mirror of non-reality for us. We stand in front of the mirror and gaze. Yet, we see nothing there, not even ourselves. This is the “nothingness” that we’re put into, and this is the “nothingness” that I believe Yang Jong Myung sought to leave behind for good.

In his will, he called for:
1. Cultural Rights of a People
2. Peaceful Reunification of Korea
3. Abolishment of the US-Japan Security Alliance (commonly known as “AMPO”)
4. Solidarity with Hiro Kim (incarcerated for taking arms and holding Japanese civilians hostage in an attempt to gain an apology from a local police officer for publicly uttering at him racist epithets against Koreans on numerous occasions)

A Zainichi Korean is not entitled to the benefits of the gains of the Japanese nation-state for the most part, or for that matter, those of the United States. Then why, as a Korean, “abolish the US-Japan Security Alliance” as one of his last four demands in life? I cannot help but sense that he knew too painfully well what I am only recently starting to uncover for myself today: the US, as well as the US-Japan ‘security alliance’ that preconditioned US approval of Japan’s sovereignty played a direct role in creating what we know as ‘Zainichi’ today: as refugees on their Master’s land, living proof of Japan’s continued colonialism within its borders, and yet abandoned by the present and largely frowned upon by both Korean regimes as well as the Japanese society and government as a rather perturbing anomaly so utterly inappropriate in the post-war era where Koreans are by all means no longer ruled by the Japanese. Clearly, he is a victim of Japan’s colonization made invisible by the end of the war. And he will not be the only one, unless those of us still alive and occupying that eerie place of “nothingness,” work to replace the mirror with one that reflect reality for what it is.

Having said that, what does the film got to do with it? My critique is precisely that the film lacks any analysis inclusive of Japan’s responsibility in maintaining the US-Japan alliance that depend on Japan’s continued colonization within its borders. For this reason, the solution arising from it will not serve as ours.

YANG Jong Myon, I’m pretty certain, did not call for an end to the US-Japan Security Alliance for the sake of the Japanese alone. He did not call simply for the US military to “go home” but implicitly named the bilateral alliance – and therefore the two nations’ collusion therein – as a source of the systemic oppression that created the “Zainichi” as we know it today.

The same can be said of not only the Zainichi but other ethnic minority groups suffering under Japan’s apartheid today, such as the Okinawans.

Japan regained its sovereignty, largely overseen by the United States, in 1952 as the San Francisco Peace Treaty went into effect. Two days earlier, Japan passed legislation that unilaterally stripped all former Korean colonials that still remained in Japan of all citizenship rights, so as to ensure that they were not party in the sovereignty deal, and to impose upon us lives under apartheid that in reality was too reminiscent of the colonial days to know we were ever liberated at all. As another package in the deal, Japan sold off Okinawa to the United States. The day Japan was reborn, so was the reoccupied Okinawan Protectorate under the United States, and US military was sent off by the thousands to reoccupy the airstrips and the base facilities that the Japanese military had constructed there, then expanded them, in some cases, driving an entire population of an island off to a refugee camp elsewhere in Okinawa with use of “bulldozers and guns.”

History:

Both Okinawans and Zainichi Koreans are ethnically distinct from the Yamato, or Japanese. “Okinawa Prefecture” is a product of unilateral occupation and subsequent annexation of the Ryukyu kingdom, with its own language, culture, customs and governance. Since the annexation, in order to convert and breed loyal Imperial Japanese subjects throughout its Empire, Japanese colonizers brutally enforced prohibition of practicing our own ceremonies, customs, languages and cultures. The location of the only land battle that took place in the entire Pacific War, 1 out of 3 Okinawan civilians perished, at the gunpoint of Americans on one hand, and the bayonet point of the Japanese soldiers on the other. In the battlefield they had no role in creating in their own homes, Americans surely saw them as the Japanese enemy, while the Japanese accused them to be spies, because the use of the Okinawan language alone in the moment of panic and terror was conceived to be a code communication to evade the interception by the Japanese. It became clear from this incident that not only did Japan use Okinawa as a breakwater to shield the mainland against the approaching Americans, but that Okinawa was made disposable collateral in Japan’s desperate effort to protect the real Japanese farther to the north.

And collateral it was, once again. As Japanese people poured into the streets to wave the flag of the sovereign nation in great fanfare, to the south, the Okinawan survivors helplessly gazed at the sky to witness the landing of their new occupies bearing stars and spangles on their familiar uniforms. And the Zainichi scattered throughout the mainland would stare out the windows of their particle-board walls in the ghetto, feeling liberation in the air like you could also smell and see it right in front of you. But once you reached out for it, it would slip right through your hands. That was the Zainichi experience the day Japanese people became a sovereign nation once again.
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The Tokyo Tribunal was set up as a formal body to adjudicate Japan’s war crimes, led by the victorious Americans shortly after the end of the War. Hideki Tojo is a well-known Class A War Criminal who was tried and executed. Conspicuously missing among the defendants was Hirohito, Japan’s Showa Emperor, and de facto Commander-in-Chief of Imperial Japan. Why is this so? While historians continue to generate conflicting theories, one thing we know the US did do intentinoally was preserve the Emperor system intact as a unifying symbol of the Japanese nation, despite the Emperor being stripped of a formal political position in the new government. The Japanese undoubtedly were quite weary of the new blond and brunette occupiers from the heretofore “enemy country” turned victorious occupiers. But Hirohito as a front for US occupation would drastically improve the Japanese public’s sense of reliability, and to invoke the ingrained loyalty to their royal and holy leader to assist in the execution of what is primarily a US-led agenda for Japan.

Japan became a modern nation-state when it introduced a parliamentary system modeled after the British parliament in 1882, at which point Shinto became the state religion. This is also known as the Meiji Restoration, brought about by pro-Western intellectuals such as Yukichi Fukuzawa, the author of the famous article “Leaving Asia” (a call for Japan to join the ranks of Western nations in their growing political influence around the world, and achive modernization through Westernization).

A key element in this transformation was the adoption of Shinto as Japan’s official state religion. A newly established government Office of State Shinto was one of the highest ranking offices of importance. State Shinto became for the first time in its history a doctrine drawing from native Shinto with animistic attributes, Buddhism and Sino-Centrist worldview, written by the political elites that created modern Japan who were eager to pursue expansionist endeavors for its Empire. Simply put, State Shinto reiterated the belief that the Emperor is the direct descendant of the forefather of the Yamato Race; therefore, he is holy and represents all things sacred and eternal, and is eternally entitled to position of the political as well as spiritual Leader of the Yamato people unified under a single sovereign nationhood for the first time in history. Those born into the Yamato race were inherently superior to their non-Yamato neighbors, and had the moral duty to enlighten its neighbors of the greatness of the Emperor and offer as much opportunity as possible for others to join the club.

Presevation of Hirohito after the war was indeed effective in bringing order in Japan, a number one priority for the GHQ. After all, for decades, Japanese people had been taught that the most virtuous way to demonstrate one’s gratitude was to “offer yourselves to the state” selflessly, recognizing that the value of one’s life in light of the Emperor and His holy State weighed “lighter than goosedown.” Today, when school begins in April, cherry blossoms adorn the otherwise barren campuses throughout the country. It was the Imperial Japan that intentionally planted cherry trees throughout all educational institutions not only in Japan, but soon later in countries they invaded, so as to teach Imperial subjects from an early age that the greater the loss or sacrifice, the greater the admirable virtue. Cherry blossoms are famous for its fleeting beauty – as soon as it blooms, the petals flutter away even the slightest gust of wind, relinquishing such bright prospects of continued – if not growing - blossom without a moment of hesitation. Undoubtedly, such teachings paved the way for the widely-deployed Kamikaze attack strategy during the Pacific War.

Distinction among similiar-looking Asian neighbors as either of the Yamato Race or not was important to overcome a sense of brotherhood that had existed historically among various nations in the past. Though we’re not yet qualified enough, if we were cultivated enough, we DO possess potential to actually become Yamato, inside and out – this premise underscores one of the key differences between US style racism and that of Japan. Assmiliation policy is the name of the game. Elders and survivors from both Zainichi and Okinawan communities speak to severe beatings rendered by Japanese/Yamato officials when caught uttering their local tongue in a conversation amongst themselves. This was not simply lawlessness giving way to rule by force, but an intentional, legally-enforced agenda at play, wherein digression from every effort possible to aspire to become Yamato was deemed a heavy criminal conduct.

When the US preserved Hirohito as a unifying symbol of a ‘new’ Japan, it ended up adopting some attitudes of Japanese against Koreans, interestingly enough. The US played a key role in suppressing the liberation efforts of Koreans on Japanese soil after the war:

Very shortly after Japan’s defeat, Zainichi communities throughout Japan organized their meager resources, and established Korean schools in the ghettos, the abandoned barracks, wherever they could, despite the 70%+ unemployment rate that plagued Zainichi communities at that time. Zainichi-run Korean schools popped up everywhere at an astonishing rate. For the first time in decades, they could transfer their language, culture and traditional practices to their children to grow up as Koreans and be proud, not shamed.

Surprisingly or not, it was the GHQ (US-led occupation authority) who noted this phenomenon, and issued in January 1948 an order to all Prefectures to deny recognition of any Korean schools, unless they agree to be subsumed wholly under the direction of Japan’s Ministry of Education. Furthermore, all entities that identify as or function as “schools” would require the approval by the Ministry of Justice. In other words, all schools, Korean or Japanese, had to meet uniform set of standards established by the Japanese government. Some of the requirements included use of bona fide Japanese teachers and use of text books approved and endorsed by the Japanese government.

Two months later, seeing that Korean schools completely defied the order, a Korean school in Yamaguchi was shut down by force. Schools in Kobe and Osaka were similarly assaulted with an armed police force. Koreans did not take this assault without a fight. In Kobe, as many as 5,000 protesters against the Order surrounded the Governor’s office, and won the Governor’s commitment to recognize the Korean school within the Prefecture, in defiance of the GHQ’s order.

The GHQ took this incident very seriously. MacArthur quickly dispatched his top commander, Eichelberger (who commanded the first occupation forces in Japan) who then dispatched the Occupation Forces to back up the local Japanese police force in quelling the protest. As a result, 1,700 were arrested, of whom 136 were tried in GHQ’s military tribunal. Kim Tae-il, 16 years old student of the school, lost his life to a bullet fired by a Japanese police, under the order and watch of the GHQ.

Around this time, the GHQ had begun to relate to the Japanese sentiment that Koreans actually posed a problem in Japan that GHQ believed needed ‘order’ above anything. General Eichelberger is quoted as saying, “If we had the Queen Elizabeth, we’d load’em up and ship them all off to Korea now!” People power and a sense of cultural rights of a people were beginning to spell dangerous, unruly political momentum that could stir up the order they’d just begun to establish. GHQ repression of the Korean schools in 1948 was a response to a real threat to US power that the liberated Koreans posed.

When the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the bilateral treaty that formalized Japan’s sovereign status as a nation-state, was negotiated, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida justified excluding Zainichi from civil rights protection, by saying that Zainichis are either “Red” or criminals. Such comments by Yoshida are documented in the “Foreign Relations of the United States 1951” in Library of Congress – incidentally, the very minutes of the negotiations containing Yoshida’s remarks are “classified” in Japan.

It is no surprise that Yoshida and Japanese officials fought to exclude the Zainichi from the benefits of a sovereign Japanese nation. Okinawa was handed over to the US as an offering, and Zainichi’s little rights they had had as subjects of the Japanese Empire were effectively stripped when the Treaty went into effect. In other words, when the Japanese people regained their sovereign rights as a collective people, Okinawans and Zainichi were re-built into a position of structural subjugation.

Just looking at this one example of Korean school repression, it is evident that Japan’s system of oppression largely characterized in practice through assmiliationist policies and practices ended up playing a supportive role in the US agenda to reestablish order. As with Okinawa, Japan’s ease with giving it up served the US well. To this day, many Americans refer to Okinawa as the natural ‘reward’ for their victory in the Pacific War.

As with the ideology that justifies Yamato supremacism, what was prior to the war’s end imbedded in State Shinto, a state religious institution with largely unchecked enforcement authorities became imbedded in the post-war apartheid government, executed not through the state’s religious apparatus, but rather, through its legal, political and social systems. Territorial expansion as a whole did not significantly increase Imperial Japan’s possession of valuable natural resources and other key assets, unlike in the case of European colonization. But it did create artificial and inferior “Yamato” subjects in places like Okinawa and Korea – if we only tried, we are capable of becoming Yamato. Our rights, civil, political and basic human rights, the likes of which are typically guaranteed in the Constitution in our case, become within reach the closer we become assimilated. While ‘back in the day,’ criminal code to punish non-Japanese ways ensured the implementation of the imperial assimilationist policies, today, the tools used today are less legal, and more political and social.

Until we put our experiences on the map, making visible the various apparatus of the larger machinery that operates under its “yellow skin” on the radar of the international social justice movement, we will never see the day of our liberation when others are liberated. This is the task at hand for us, to educate ourselves and others, and advocate for community spaces and processes for an active incorporation of the analysis we develop collectively and collaboratively to further articulate the responsibility and complicity of the United States and the Japanese state so as to develop an effective strategy to break the alliance of colonial collusion that continue to keep us down.

Ironically, the number one attribute to the widely acclaimed ‘success’ of the US occupation of post-war Japan was also the preservation of Hirohito in his Imperial stature, was also the number one attribute to the ‘success’ of Japan’s continued colonization. The US-Japan Security Alliance as it stands today relies on this, so that there are parties for whom it makes sense to take on the burden (and no benefits) of the Alliance outside of the political realm of the voting Japanese public in the mainland.

YANG Jong Myon knew this, and increasingly, so do I. To name the US and Japan, as well as their collusion, is to name the responsible parties in creating a reality of systemic oppression so as to make our voices heard. We need to challenge social justice groups in Japan and their allies to look critically at Japan’s continued colonization and reframe the message against violence and war so that their peace can also mean our peace, and their liberation from imperialism can also mean our liberation from imperialism.