Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
One leap forward, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?
Here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist, I want to be on it.
-- Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"
There's an old French proverb that says those who do not do politics will be done in by politics. Economics, too. Both of those disciplines are fundamental to survival for individuals, families, countries and neglected prefectures.
This is why Okinawan politicians talk extensively about the economy. This is probably why business-centric candidates keep getting election. Now, in an interview with Sekai Nippo editor Yoshiaki Konishita, Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima has vowed to "invest [his] total energy in “Okinawa’s Great Leap Forward.”
Nice choice of words. Holy Mao Tse-tung, Batman, has Okinawa's conservative governor turned pink with a rhetorical flourish?
Hardly. It's a steady diet of market solutions. This is backed by some intriguing data. Tourism, as the governor correctly notes, has grown steadily in the last five years. Managed correctly, it's probably Okinawa's best shot at a sustainable industry.
But that's a key caveat. It matters a great deal that the word "environment" appears nowhere in the interview, and has been similarly absent from Nakaima's other public pronouncements. Take certain meanings from this. The governor is interested in following through on campaign promises to his core business constituency. The governor is primarily interested in tourism as a short-term cash cow.
The economic realities on the ground are bleak. Young Okinawans I speak with are almost all concerned about what they'll do for work, how challenging it will be to build a financially independent life.
I'm consistently amazed, though, at how well-informed every Okinawan is about the ecology of their island. When I was growing up in Oregon, I often wondered what I'd do to make ends meet as an adult. I was woefully ignorant of the profound ecological riches around me. The kids here know about the dugong, the yanbaru kuina, the noguchigera, and in many cases the effect of red soil runoff on coral reefs.
This is significant. A job as a kayak guide will last precisely as long as there are wild and wonderful places to lead awestruck visitors.
Okinawa's Great Leap Forward takes place in hiking boots or beach sandals. Without forests and coral, any economic growth here won't last long. Younger people, even those reliant on development, realize this. Does the governor?
