I was very surprised to see the article you wrote about Okinawa in the Irish Times in 2021. How did you come across Okinawan issues?
I’ve always had a yearning to explore lesser known, more remote places. When I planned to go to Japan, as always I looked off the tourist trail for the more interesting route to take and naturally Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands jumped out: billed as ‘the Hawaii of Japan’, exotic, beautiful, wild, tropical islands – an ancient kingdom. It sounded magical and I was desperate to go there. When I started to research Okinawa before my travels, reading academic articles, journalism, fiction, guidebooks and other non-fiction, I became aware that there was a very dark side to these islands – the last hundred years of suffering at the hands of Japan and then the US military bases. It was not until I went to Okinawa, though, that I realised the full extent of the crisis, nor how much of it is kept secret from the rest of the world, particularly us in the west, hidden inside military exclusion zones and spin.
What made you want to write about Okinawa? Do you feel strongly about depicting and drawing awareness to the crisis in Okinawa, and why?
Yes, I feel very strongly about this. I was angry and frustrated in my research at how little is understood about Okinawa in the west. The fact that Okinawa is distinct from Japan is almost unknown here. The lie of their sameness helps to hide the oppression of Okinawa by Japan and the US, and too much international journalism glosses over the truth. Japanese and American perspectives are dominant, perpetuating myths such as Okinawa loves/depends on the bases, the term ‘Okinawans’ is interchangeable with ‘Japanese’, and that America benevolently protects Japan from North Korea and China.
There is also too little acknowledgement of the enormous damage done to these islands over the last century, and an idea that that such abuses are in the past, rather than something that is not only ruining the present-day life of Okinawans but actually getting worse, with more bases being built in the north, and with the JSDF expanding in Ishigaki.
I wanted to write about Okinawa because it is a rich, complex setting and to attempt to tell the truth with an outsider’s perspective. More than anything I wanted to understand and capture the feelings of it, and how a possible future might look given the past and present situation.
There are a few Okinawan characters in your novel ”Dreamtime”. How did you form these characters?
Well, I tried to write them as I construct all my characters: with empathy, imagination and research. I met several wonderful people on my travels (despite my horrible language skills) and observed life in general. I also read a lot. An Okinawan activist and historian, Rob Kajiwara, kindly read a draft and offered feedback which helped me further shape the characters, particularly Risa – who, like the protagonist Sol, has a missing American father.
What was your impression of Okinawan people? And the place itself?
I found the Okinawan people wonderful – wise, generous, fun and kind with the right ideas about life, plus extraordinary resilience and bravery. I fell in love with the place behind the problems – the inherent wildness of the islands, their unique cultures, the fantastic dishes. I was also shocked by mile upon mile of military barbed wire, row upon row of war machinery, the terrifying noise of fighter jets and Ospreys, and the appalling rate of ‘incidents’. During my first trip in 2017, an Okinawan man, Hidemasa Taira, was run over and killed by a drunk marine and there were two military aircraft crashes involving first a nursery and then a school. Horrifying catastrophes that could have caused an uprising, were it not such a familiar story. If news of the first reached the international community it would have been as the death of a ‘Japanese’ man, and the truth of the issue and Japan’s complicity in it would not have been recognised. Most likely it was swept under the carpet by the SOFA.
Your near-future dystopian fiction novel “Dreamtime” touches on topics like infectious disease, cults, deadly pollution and restrictions on aviation due to rapid climate change - topics that have become more prevalent in contemporary discourse.
What is your message to the readers/world? Is there any message at all? Is there room for hope within this message?
I have tried to explore ideas, feelings and possibilities based on past and current events and to call attention to what is too often denied, paid off or hidden. There’s something gravely wrong with the order of the world, where everything (even the future of life on this planet) is sacrificed for profit, and the novel could be seen as a call to recognise the truth of what’s going on, rather than accept what’s being fed to us by those who have an interest in concealing the truth. I think there’s also an underlying sense that if one corrupt thing is allowed to prevail at the heart of a state it can poison everything around it. The novel is not without hope – hope enters with people waking up to what’s really happening, understanding, spreading the word and taking action.
We talked about systemic discrimination and positionality a lot during the Covid crisis/Black Lives Matter movement.
How do you consider your positionality as a British author within the context of colonialism and anti-colonial writing?
Did your white European identity influence your approach to creating this story, and if so, how?
I was forced to reckon with my own privilege and generational hypocrisy and to educate myself as thoroughly as I was able – about Okinawa and the Ryukyus but also about colonial crimes throughout the Pacific region, such as the horrors of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. In considering the US’s present-day empire I had to look back at its past and at the parallels with my native Britain’s history of empire – and present-day disastrous consequences such as Windrush, Diego Garcia and Palestine. The current genocidal atrocities in Palestine can be traced back to the self-interested division of land of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and subsequent pro-Zionist Balfour declaration. Britain failed to keep its promise of protection for Palestinian Arabs as Jews immigrated in their hundreds of thousands.
I also had to recognise that I am an outsider in the story of Okinawa and therefore not qualified to tell that story. I hoped that the fact I’m also not American or Japanese might allow some distance and be of value. It did affect the way I told the story in that I decided to show the unfolding truth of Okinawa’s history and situation through the eyes of two American protagonists who don’t have a clue about what is done in their name here at what feels to them like ‘the ends of the earth’.
How do you think we as Okinawans can make our voices heard as a suppressed indigenous people under two powerful nations who exploit our land, sea, air? How do you think we can enact change in Okinawa?
I think it’s incredibly hard but that those voices and individual stories are extremely powerful and capable of bringing about real, lasting change. I know that many of the older Okinawans, who keep the true memories of the last brutal century, won’t be on social media but I do think it’s a powerful tool and it would be of great benefit if younger generations could help them disseminate their stories.
There’s strength in numbers and solidarity. The Okinawan diaspora is so diverse and many countries have individual groups of connection and protest. Sometimes these groups can clash in their beliefs and ethos. Overcoming these differences and centralising the societies to create a solid core could enable stronger, unified action. And I also think that westerners might be encouraged to explore these issues and collaborate with Okinawans, to add numbers and geological range to their cause. It may not be a westerner’s story to tell, but that does not mean we, as humans, are not obliged to call out hideous injustice wherever we see it and make as much noise as possible in protest.
What is your role as a westerner in trying to bring about this change?
I want, predominantly, to draw westerners’ attention to the reality of the situation in Okinawa so that more in the west might seek out true Okinawan experience and stories. Ultimately, I hope and believe that it will not be possible for the US and Japan to perpetuate their subjugation of Okinawa when the truth of what’s going on is understood across the world.
You talked about your interest in islands. What is their significance in your writing?
Islands are often cut off from mainstream currents and patterns. This makes them unique and interesting – they have their own ways of doing things – but it also means that the dark secrets of those with power over them can be all too easily concealed. In Dreamtime when commercial flights stop and there are no tourists to see what’s going on, and social media and the news are hijacked by the US virtual reality company that owns them, there is no one to see the truth and no way for voices to be heard. The island becomes sealed in itself.
More generally in my writing, islands are liminal spaces, all borders and questions. They are worlds where dream, haunting and myth collide with reality, and time is altered: the past is tied up in the present, and the future in the past.
What is your next project?
I’m working on a new novel, Elara, about a rockstar who tries to escape her fame by joining a cult. It’s set on an imaginary Pacific island amid rising tensions between western initiates and indigenous people as the island’s mystical forces bring disruption.
Elara continues to explore some of the same issues as Dreamtime, in particular ownership and exploitation of an island’s land and of a local people at the mercy of colonist, capitalist and patriarchal forces.
Meanwhile, there’s been some interest in Dreamtime being made into a film and we have a great screenwriter on board. I very much hope that the novel will be translated into Japanese and also published in America, where it is already on some college syllabuses.