We begin with special tribute to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, and Eleanor Bumpurs dating back to the 1980s, all killed by the police. ABSOLUTELY Black Lives Matter! I hope y’all are taking part in the massive organizing and activism that we are seeing. Special shout-out to my friends Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Carissa Lewis, Charlene Carruthers, Alicia Garza, and all the other Black women leading the struggle on the ground.
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| The International Women's Network against Militarism |
Today’s show is titled “Paradise Militarized.” In my show on Memorial Day, my guests discussed the importance of remembering all the unrecognized and unknown casualties of US wars and militarism. We talked about the lands that the US military is currently occupying and devastation to both human and natural life as a direct result. Today we deepen that discussion by sharing more details about three sets of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Okinawa was first colonized by Japan in the 19th Century and now is home to 75% of US military presence in Japan. Guahan, known by most people outside as Guam, is a current colony of the US, and Hawai’i was colonized by US also in the 19th century and was annexed as the 50th state in 1959.
As you are listening, please ask yourselves these questions: What do Guahan, Hawai'i, and Okinawa have to do with colonization and imperialism, with anti-Blackness and liberation of Black and other people and communities of color in the US? We’ll be asking you to rethink the various aspects of the military apparatus in the US, from the war-based economy and military spending, to environmental impacts of wars and military operations, and the systems, tactics, and cities’ budgets for policing. Most important, we’ll be urging you make the connections between “here” and “there”, the relationships between domestic policy and foreign policy, and ultimately to imagine what real security, all the way from in your lives and communities to the entire country and the world, would look and feel like. Especially for women.
I am in conversation today with long-time feminist activists and professors Lisa Natividad speaking to us from Guahan, and Kim Compoc who is in Honolulu. We will also listen to a recorded interview with professor Kozue Akibayashi in Japan. They are all members of the International Women’s Network against Militarism along with their respective organizations.
Dr. Kozue Akibayashi is a feminist researcher/activist and has worked on issues of gender and peace. She is a professor at Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and a member of
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Dr. Kim Compoc is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, University of Hawaiʻi at West Oahu. Her research focuses on U.S. empire in the Philippines, Hawaiʻi and Oceania; Asian/American Studies /literatures, as well as diasporic Filipinx Studies with an emphasis on Indigenous, Feminist, and Queer critique.
Dr. Lisa Linda Natividad is Professor in the Division of Social Work at the University of Guam. She is also the President of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice. She has delivered interventions to the United Nations on issues of militarization, colonization, and indigenous peoples’ rights.
All three guests are members of the
International Women’s Network against Militarism.
Resources:
Watch as Thousands Protest in Downtown Honolulu in Support of Black Lives Matter
Nihi! KIDS TALK about Self-Determination| KIDS TALK | Nihi! on YouTube
Where will you be? Why Black Lives Matter in the Hawaiian Kingdom by Joy Enomoto
Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min
