Okinawans are The Best International Relations Actor I Have Ever Learned, Period. Here’s Why.
Welcome to the biggest ontological problem International Relations Scientists have faced.
Yeah, that title is not academic but that is the fact and attested.
So, here we go, …
Let’s go to the history of Ryukyus. Yes, this kingdom was so thalassocratic, and might be the only Mandala State in the Sinospheric World, if someday the academicians want to conclude their history (yeah, free research field for you), and this is already a hypothesis from me as a descendant of Javanese who lived nearby Trowulan, the capital city of Majapahit Empire. Please, learn more of Sanzan period when three gusuku polities of Okinawa Island were in its own peak era and preparing themselves for ruling over a lot of aji(s) or village leaders across the islands of Ryukyu Arc just like how Maritime Southeast Asians do.
Mandala is defined based on employment to denote traditional Southeast Asian political formations, such as federation of kingdoms or vassalized polity under a center of domination. It was adopted by 20th century European historians from ancient Indian political discourse as a means of avoiding the term “state” in the conventional sense. Not only did Southeast Asian polities except Vietnam not conform to Chinese and European views of a territorially defined state with fixed borders and a bureaucratic apparatus, but they diverged considerably in the opposite direction: the polity was defined by its centre rather than its boundaries, and it could be composed of numerous other tributary polities without undergoing administrative integration (Dellios, 2003).
But, how can? Does Mandala itself come as the concept from Indosphere?
My answer is not. Instead, it is Southeast Asian thing, which makes me more curious especially on the achievements Okinawans have made under this Kingdom of Ryukyus in Southeast Asia, even in the Java Island nearly the centre of Majapahit such as Brantas River.
From this understanding, I feel like Okinawans and other Ryukyuans across the Islands (Yaeyamas and Amami Island), are already natural players of International Relations even beyond its own ages among the people of Sinospheric World, and this is good also for examining Southeast Asia and its future with its today regionalization based on historical approaches. And yeah, they prove it more and more, …
From Nuchi du Takara in 17th Century to “Japan is Our Father, China is Our Mother” on Ryukyu Disposition: How Okinawans See The World Beyond Its Own Age
It is just 400 years since the Okinawan (Ryukyuan) king enunciated the principle of Nuchi du takara or non-resistance, in the face of the Satsuma samurai’s Sengun, initiating the process of forceful incorporation by Japan. Sengun militarism has been the bane of Okinawa ever since — under Satsuma, the modern Japanese state, the US, and now the joint US-Japan regime (McCormack, 2008).
Immanuel Kant was only writing the essay on Perpetual Peace in Year 1795, and Okinawans had already shouted for identical concept 100 years and more before Kant, and still consistent until “the days where they need to choose again.”
A few months earlier, Ryūkyū representatives in Tōkyō sent secret letters to their US, French, and Dutch counterparts to complain of Japan’s treatment and attempt to secure assistance. Some fourteen petitions were also submitted to the Japanese government (pushed by Yamato), requesting a return to the old system of dual allegiance, arguing that “Japan is our father, China is our mother”, but meeting with the response (from Yamato Japanese) that “to serve two emperors is like a wife serving two husbands” (Keene, 2002).
If you study international relations science, you must be understood why Hagström & Gustafsson (2019) conclude those narratives shape international relations in East Asia according to constructivists and post-structuralist perspectives. By this also, we can also believe that Barry Buzan et. al.'s Securitization really decides a lot of security decisions and even, militarization, among Sinospheric World. Regardless how you will see this, Okinawans statement cannot be undermined at all. In the days of globalization like the 21st Century, dual identity and even multiple identity become common across the world (Prasch et. al., 2022; Brewer, 1999). And Okinawans had already do this in the 19th Century?
Seeing is Believing: What is Nation Actually? Does State Matter?
After World War 2, Okinawan politics can be considered one of the strongest we can have seen. And the Mandala Kingdom of Ryukyus isn’t even back anymore as a nation-state. Not only that, Okinawan politics has been counted as so influential not only in Japan post-Reversion of Okinawa in 1971, but also everywhere, from Hawaii, the United States (hypothetically attested by George R. Ariyoshi which was the first Asian American governor as the 3rd Governor of Hawaii for 1974 until 1986), until Brazil (remember, how Lula was also interacted with Luiz Gushiken, and yeah, Brazil is so close to Mainland China when comes to Lula’s administration).
For me, personally, this makes already flipping side-by-side of my understanding on International Relations and even the concept of Nation itself. The nation cannot be already defined of the representation of state with these proven phenomenon, especially when these all are analyzed idiosyncratic against each persons.
“A nation is an imagined political community. A nation imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, 1991).
“The nations are cultural-political communities that have become conscious of their autonomy, unity and particular interests” (Smith, 1991).
