Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren: Transnational Activism and Gi Movement in Postwar Japan 1965-1974
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PEACE IN VIETNAM! BEHEIREN: TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM AND GI MOVEMENT IN POSTWAR JAPAN 1965-1974 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE AUGUST 2018 By Noriko Shiratori Dissertation Committee: Ehito Kimura, Chairperson James Dator Manfred Steger Maya Soetoro-Ng Patricia Steinhoff Keywords: Beheiren, transnational activism, anti-Vietnam War movement, deserter, GI movement, postwar Japan DEDICATION To my late father, Yasuo Shiratori Born and raised in Nihonbashi, the heart of Tokyo, I have unforgettable scenes that are deeply branded in my heart. In every alley of Ueno station, one of the main train stations in Tokyo, there were always groups of former war prisoners held in Siberia, still wearing their tattered uniforms and playing accordion, chanting, and panhandling. Many of them had lost their limbs and eyes and made a horrifying, yet curious, spectacle. As a little child, I could not help but ask my father “Who are they?” That was the beginning of a long dialogue about war between the two of us. That image has remained deep in my heart up to this day with the sorrowful sound of accordions. My father had just started work at an electrical laboratory at the University of Tokyo when he found he had been drafted into the imperial military and would be sent to China to work on electrical communications. He was 21 years old. His most trusted professor held a secret meeting in the basement of the university with the newest crop of drafted young men and told them, “Japan is engaging in an impossible war that we will never win. This is like a fight between children and adults. Do your best to hide whenever you can and come back home alive. Try to avoid hurting anyone.” My father listened to this advice the entire time he was away, despite being beaten for disobeying orders often. When he returned home immediate after the war, he was greeted with utter ruin. In such a short time, his family had not only lost their house where his ancestors lived for over 300 years but also lost three of his older brothers although one of them, who was detained in Siberia, returned home six years later. All of a sudden, my father found himself as the oldest son instead of the fourth. He was not able to even consider going back to work at the university, as he needed to support his parents and younger siblings, so they could attend college. Despite not having any particular interest in becoming a businessman, he did have talent in drawing blue print, and seeing the burnt ruin surrounding him, he started an architectural design firm along with a printing company. Everybody needed to rebuild their homes and buildings in the immediate postwar, and Tokyo needed to rise from the ashes of war. “There is no such thing as a ‘good’ war,” is what my father used to say. If my father did not engage in genuinely straightforward conversations with his little daughter with many i questions, I might have not started my Ph.D journey later in my life, and this dissertation might never have been written. Since my father sparked my very thoughts on the nature of war and peace, it is only fair that I dedicate this dissertation to my late father, Yasuo Shiratori, a proud Edokko (child of Edo), and the most anti-establishment person I have ever met. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I owe the completion of this dissertation to my dissertation committee. First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to Dr. Patricia Steinhoff. I will never be able to thank her enough. She consistently gave me unwavering support in various ways such as hiring me as her assistant for her projects and providing me a wide array of academic guidance with warm encouragement throughout my Ph.D journey. I am particularly thankful for her thorough reviews of all of my dissertation drafts and providing me with unbelievably detailed comments and good advice. Her immense passion for the studies of social movements kept me motivated for my own studies. This dissertation would have been impossible without Dr. Steinhoff. I am also grateful for my chairperson, Dr. Ehito Kimura, whose practical advice in each phase of writing this dissertation helped me navigate the road to progress. I am especially thankful for his unique ability to keep me sane and focused on completing my writing. Special thanks to Dr. James Dator for his genuine interest in my study and consistent encouragement with many great suggestions. I appreciate Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng’s visionary words that made me think deeper into what I wanted to express. I am thankful to Dr. Manfred Steger’s quick grasp of my study. His insightful comments from the perspective of a globalization scholar certainly made my dissertation a better one. Many thanks to Laurie Onizuka for her vibrantly efficient way of doing her seemingly impossible business, to Dr. Carolyn Stephenson for introducing me to the world of peace studies, and to Dr. David Stannard for showing me broader perspectives of the Vietnam War. Thank you also to those who have supported my academic journey for a decade or more such as Dr. Wei Zhang for always cheering me up, Dr. Joel Fischer for his tenacity toward the antiwar cause, Dr. Violet Horvath for introducing me to the wonderland of research, and Dr. Hosik Min and Dr. Harumi Karel for their advice and encouragement upon starting my Ph.D journey. With sincere gratitude and respect, I thank each former Beheiren activist and those who were involved with Beheiren whom I met for sharing their amazing stories and precious materials with me. I am especially thankful to Eric Seitz in Honolulu, Takahashi Taketomo and Sekiya Shigeru in Japan who connected me with many key actors in the movement and beyond. I am humbly honored to have had the opportunity to meet such remarkable people. Their iii contribution to this dissertation, and to future generations of activists and peace scholars, is unmatched. Special thanks go to Tokiko Bazzell at the Hamilton Library for her vast knowledge of archives and beyond, to Etsuko Chopey for helping me access materials in the Takazawa Collection, as well as Diana Graves for her great help whenever I needed it. Likewise, special thanks to Hirano Izumi at the Research Center for Cooperative Civil Societies at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, along with Azusa Ozawa and Hitomi Arai, who helped me collect archival data. My study was possible because of these dedicated librarians and archivists who preserve valuable materials. Thanks to my colleagues Sreang Heak, Agussalim Burhanuddin, Anjali Nath, and Hye Wong Um for making my journey enjoyable one. Additionally, I am grateful to all the graduate students from the Department of Sociology who called me as an ‘honorary’ student of Sociology. Among my friends, some deserve extra thanks: Michiko Kurosu for always feeding me excellent food and supporting my journey, Kumiko Hachiya for cerebrating each time I made an ounce of progress with lots of encouragement and advice, Meiko Arai for always giving me timely and practical advice, Jiro Arase-Barham for his never-changing civility and support, James, Sachi and Max Fujino for never failing to make me laugh, Hanna Looney for her willingness to help. A special thanks to my Hawai‘i ‘ohana, the Lums. Elaine, Jennifer, and Marissa, thank you for all that you have provided me with all these years. I especially could not have completed my Ph.D journey without generous support from Elaine. This dissertation was supported by generous support of Graduate Fellowship and Minae & Miki Kajiyama scholarship from the Center for Japanese Studies, and other scholarships including Graduate Division Achievement scholarships, Research Assistantships from the Department of Sociology, lectureship and travel fund from the Department of Political Science, travel fund from the Graduate Student Organization, and research and travel award from the Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit. I am thankful to all of them. Lastly, a heartfelt appreciation goes to my daughter, Mari Shiratori Cobb, a young cell biologist, guitarist, and independent woman who always believes in my ability to complete any crazy thing I start and offers unlimited support and encouragement to finish them, including occasionally being my editor. I also extend my appreciation to her dad, John P. Cobb, in this regard. I am the luckiest mom in the whole entire world. iv ABSTRACT Beheiren (Betonamu ni heiwa wo shimin rengō [Citizen’s Committee for Peace in Vietnam]) was launched by a handful of postwar intellectuals in Tokyo when the United States started bombing North Vietnam in February 1965. The widespread presence of US bases throughout Japan allowed American soldiers to be transported and carry out missions from Japan and (then) American occupied-Okinawa to fight Vietnamese people. Japan was a launching pad for America’s war in Southeast Asia. Hundreds of loosely formed Beheiren groups emerged on campuses, in towns and cities across Japan. The emergence of American deserters in the late 1960s transformed Beheiren into a transnational underground operation that sheltered American deserters and moved them out to Sweden and France in cooperation with the former Soviet Union and Resistance groups in Europe. By 1970, while getting the deserters out of Japan became harder because of the increased involvement of US intelligence agents, GI uprisings occurred in every major US base worldwide. American activists started coming to Japan and occupied Okinawa to connect with Beheiren to get GIs out of the military system. Protesting America’s war during the Cold War under the contradiction and dilemma involving Japan’s Peace Constitution and the US-Japan Security Treaty, the central issue of the Beheiren movement was fundamentally transnational.