Waging peace on Okinawa

"Waging Peace on Okinawa" examines peace discourses as enacted in tours of battle sites and war (peace) memorials on the main island of Okinawa. Point ing out linkages with and divergences from mainland Japanese peace practice s, the essay focuses on "peace guides" that have emerged as the backbone of educational tours that cater to Okinawan and, especially, mainland Japanes e schoolchildren. Staffed by volunteers in conjunction with private and pub lic organizations, peace guide tours and their supporting materials endeavo r to promote peace by conveying a historical knowledge of the Battle of Oki nawa that is more richly contextualized - "complete" - than that which is t ypically found in official textbooks, commercial tours, and patriotic pilgr images. "Complete" in this context implies open discussion - even highlight ing - of the violence and discrimination Okinawan civilians suffered at the hands of Japanese during the battle, but it also signals discriminatory tr eatment toward Okinawans before and beyond the battle (the most concrete ex ample of the latter being the maintenance of U.S. military bases under the U.S.-Japan security arrangement). Peace guides and their supporters thus fi nd themselves in a battle over historical representation that arguably has more to do with immediate political and economic issues than with setting t he historical record straight.