Opinion Last Bus From Koza By DOUGLAS LUMMIS	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
コザ発の最終バス コザ発の最終バス ある日の夜、筆者が沖縄で那覇行きのバスに乗ると 米兵が日本人の女の子をしつこくナンパしていた。 日米安全保障条約が掲げる平和や安定とはうらはらに 沖縄の住民は米兵からの脅威に耐えている。

Okinawa — I got on the bus at Ginowan City at around 11:30 p.m. It was the last bus from Koza City to Naha. Few people were on the bus, but right in the middle there were four U.S. Marines — teenagers — trying to pick up two Okinawan girls.

They were doing it very loudly. Apparently it meant nothing to them that everyone on the bus had to listen. All the other passengers were silent. Some had pained expressions. The white-haired old man across the aisle from me had his eyes closed and was trying, or pretending, to sleep.

The girls were pretending not to understand English. They did not look at the Marines, but looked straight ahead. Their only reaction was to giggle. If the Marines thought that meant the girls found them amusing, they were very much mistaken.

The giggling was partly an expression of nervous fear, but it was also an effective defense tactic. It made the Marines feel that the girls were responding to them, and kept them from getting angry and hostile. But in fact the "response" had no content, and was no response at all.

At first the Marines used the "language teaching" ploy: "I teach you English, you teach me Japanese, OK? We help each other. I teach, you teach, you understand? Teach, teach."

When this got no response they began trying more direct approaches: "You like American? American? You like Marine?" "You know rock music? You like rock? You like dance? You good dancer?" "You got short skirt. Skirt very short. Nice legs." "You got sexy lips. Sexy mouth. Very sexy. Sexy. You know sexy?" None of that worked either.

The next question showed the Marines' growing frustration: "You go for dollar? You go for yen? Dollar, yen, you know? You go? You go?"

The girls got off the bus before it arrived in downtown Naha. The Marines didn't follow them. The zero-response tactic had been successful. As they paid their fares at the front of the bus, the driver said something to them in a low voice. I couldn't hear what it was - some words of encouragement, I suppose. One of the Marines shouted in a threatening tone, "Hey! That driver talkin' about us?!"

Then as the girls got off the bus, the Marines called after them: "So long. Bye. Bye now. BITCHES!" Not surprisingly, their pretended friendliness turned instantly into hostile contempt.

This is how the dynamics of military violence works. The U.S. Marines is an organization for killing people, and which trains young people, mostly teenage boys, to kill people. Trained by violent methods to do violence, these boys look for objects on which to vent their anger.

Dominated by the fierce discipline of the military system, they look for something to dominate. For half a century the U.S. Marines has taught its troops (not formally, of course, but informally) that one of the things they are permitted to dominate is Okinawan women.

Next time you hear that the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty brings peace and stability to Japan, remember that aside from such abstractions one thing it brought — a very concrete and specific thing — is these four Marines.

Shukan ST: January 19, 2001

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