A lot of rain didn’t stop the annual protest against
the destruction of Henoko Bay, today, at Onoyama Koen, Naha. Nor did the ridiculous
circus of the ultra-nationalists, a evergreen play that never misses this kind
of situation. Many people dressed in blue – the color of the ocean, in danger
to build a larger military base for the American Marines of Camp Schwab –
participated in the park near my home. As usual my fresh haircut must have made
many people think that I was a not-so-well-disguised Marines’ spy… So much that
a young journalist of the Ryūkyū
Shimpō, one of the two main newspapers of Okinawa, interviewed me. Tomorrow
I guess I’ll be on the paper. I hope they’ll publish the photo with Sato-doll,
the alter ego of my wife that today couldn’t come to the event and so gave me
her… fabric-clone to bring along.
The most touching
moment? Just before the rally started, when some people on the stage gave their
sincere ARIGATOU to Takeshi Onaga, the popular governor of Okinawa that passed
away three days ago after over four years in charge. The thankful sign has been
followed by a recorded message of Onaga. Hearing his voice once more, but this
time without him in person, was quite moving. And so the minute of silence to
commemorate him.
As usual, some people wore
dugong-shaped hats, to symbolize the rape of Mother Nature through one of the
most endangered animals of the archipelago. Then everybody showed their NO
signs to photographers and TV video-cameras, to stress once more their clear
opposition to the further militarization of Okinawa (Miyako-jima will be the
next victim, with a huge project for a Japanese military base wanted by the
prime minister Abe). Once more, nature bye-bye for the happine$$ of the weapons
lobbies.
I just finished to tell
my Italian friend Gino at the phone that this year I hadn’t seen the kinky
ultra-nationalists, a group of loud and cheesy guys paid by Tokyo that have
their gang-base in Itoman. Few minutes later they arrived, with six vans and a
bunch of flags of the kamikaze period. War music, terrible
(plumber/electrician) fashion, tattooed fingers, under-elementary school
education and several haircuts to be reviewed by some consultant. I don’t know
why, but every time I see them I immediately remember the epic scene of the ‘Nazi
of Illinois’ in the glorious movie ‘The Blues Brothers’. As usual they made
their karaoke-style show, yelling first-graders-level offences to the pacifists,
with a wonderful yakuza intonation that my friend Gino can imitate as a master.
Their yells, actually, sounded more like guttural sounds as of somebody
puking… I love this kind of anthropological moments and my Nikons always ask me
to bring them to such juicy shows.
As many other times
before, some pacifist got fished by the funky-guys provocations and started an
almost-fight. Always almost, because the game here is every time the same: the
police blocks the plumbers, pushes them back into their kinky vans, then they
can start the circus again. In the end nobody gets hurt and the right of
expression for everybody has been respected (no matters how miserable and ugly that
expression may be). Often, watching this kind of situation, I think of my
country, where stones and bottles would fly like seagulls on the face of
everybody for half square kilometer all around… Here nobody visits hospitals or
police stations afterwards.
Japan, undoubtedly a
interesting country.
