hankyoreh

Tokyo correspondent

“Gil Yun-hyung, do you know what the weakest link is in the campaign against the US military base on Okinawa?”

It was the night of Nov. 15, the day before the gubernatorial election in Okinawa, and I was at an izakaya in Naha, the capital of the Japanese island. Sitting across from me was Masahiro Tomiyama, 60, head of Okinawa Popular Solidarity.

The first time I met Tomiyama was probably in 2006. At the time, Hankyoreh 21 a weekly magazine published by the Hankyoreh, was running a year-long series of articles about Daechu Village in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, whose residents were opposed to the proposed expansion of a US military base for relocation of troops from the Seoul and DMZ areas.

At the time, I was in my fifth year working as a reporter. Every week, I would go down to Daechu Village to write another entry in a series titled “The Fields Weep.” In these articles, I recorded the experiences of the helpless locals, worn out from their daily exposure to state-authorized violence.

The once-peaceful village was torn by dissension about whether or not to support the expansion of the base, and the residents who were unwilling to give up their homes and their farmland were determined to fight until the bitter end. As an advocate for the people of Okinawa, who face a similar struggle, Tomiyama had visited Daechu village on two occasions to offer his support.

“What is it?” I asked as I filled his glass with awamori, the traditional alcohol of Okinawa. But I hadn’t expected his answer.

“It’s our solidarity with people from ‘Yamato,’ the Japanese mainland. We have trouble communicating with them. It’s hard for us to trust them. Considering we’re all Japanese, you probably don’t understand. But that’s how it is.”

When I thought it over, I could see what he meant. Everyone on Okinawa was talking about the controversial election that was underway. The big issue in the election was whether US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, the location of the MV-SS Ospreys, should be relocated to Henoko.

But the big Japanese newspapers based in Tokyo could not have cared less about the story. The only coverage was a few articles about the issues in the election by the Asahi Shimbun and the Tokyo Shimbun, the papers that carry the banner of the Japanese progressive movement.

The apathy of the Japanese mainland population has allowed the bizarrely imbalanced system - under which 74% of US Forces Japan are stationed on Okinawa, which only accounts for 0.6% of Japanese territory - to remain in place for more than 60 years.

But is Okinawa the only place that deals with this problem? I was reminded of the faces of the farmers of Daechu Village near Pyeongtaek when they crouched on the ridges between the nearby rice paddies and beat their breasts. If South Korean society at the time had treated the problem of Daechu Village as its own problem and made a serious effort to find a solution, South Korean society would probably not be as unhappy as it is today.

Several issues that have defined South Korean society since liberation was wrapped up in the struggle in Daechu Village. First, is the question of autonomy, how to deal with American demands that do not necessarily coincide with South Korean interests while keeping the US-Korea alliance intact.

Second is the problem of an outdated conflict resolution system that takes for granted that individuals must make sacrifices in the name of the national interest.

Third is the infringement on human rights that results from forcing old people in the countryside to face the brunt of state power simply because they are vulnerable members of society.

But just as Japanese society did in Okinawa, South Korean society chose the easy way out, forcing the small number of old people living in Daechu and Dodu Villages in Pyeongtaek to shoulder the burden.

Did abandoning the people of Pyeongtaek make South Korea a happier place? When I see the stories that have been in the news recently, I get choked up and find it hard to breathe. By indefinitely delaying the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces to the Korean government, which had been scheduled for December 2015, President Park Geun-hye chose the path of subservience to the US, and she is currently trying to adopt THAAD (terminal high altitude area defense) , which would be fatal to South Korea’s national interest.

Left on their own just like the farmers in Pyeongtaek, the families of the Sewol victims accepted the compromise agreement as they beat their breasts. The disgraceful attacks of website Ilbe (Ilgan Best) and the Northwest Youth Association on these families force us to ask fundamental questions about the exact nature of this democracy that we have achieved.

But nevertheless, the people of Okinawa managed to achieve a small victory for the resistance movement by electing a new governor on Nov. 16 who is opposed to the relocation of the military base. Could there be a future for South Korean society, which ignored what happened at Pyeongtaek, Yongsan, Miryang, and on the Sewol?

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]