As sometimes happens when a news story that has nothing to do with Japan becomes topical worldwide, the Japanese media tried to find a local angle for the Sept. 18 Scottish referendum. The coverage fell into two categories: greater autonomy for Okinawa, and the use of referendums.
What impressed about the Scottish vote was that it happened at all; that Great Britain would actually allow one of its constituent nations to decide if it should break free. Self-rule referendums are usually carried out by , and one of the founding precepts of the United Nations is that all colonies have a right to seek independence. Like Scotland vis-a-vis Britain, Okinawa was never technically a colony of Japan, but in 1872 the new Meiji government did annex the archipelago, which at the time was its own with a tributary relationship to China.
According to an , Okinawans have been discussing independence ever since the United States returned the islands to Japan in 1972. Kinsei Ishigaki, a founding member of a studying independence for ¡°the Ryukyu people,¡± told the paper that Okinawans thought at the time they could finally enjoy ¡°peace and economic stability¡± when they returned to Japanese rule, but it didn¡¯t happen. Having been ¡°sacrificed¡± to the Imperial cause at the end of World War II and then treated as second-class people by the U.S. military, they found that things didn¡¯t change substantially after 1972. American bases continued to affect their lives and the Japanese government treated the prefecture as a kind of bargaining chip.
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