Paper short abstract:

This paper will review arguments presented by both sides in the Naha Confucius Temple lawsuit, resolved by the Japanese Supreme Court in 2021. The paper argues that the case should be read as reflecting a broader political dispute over the nature of contemporary Okinawan and Japanese identity.

Paper long abstract:

In February of 2021, the Japanese Supreme Court handed down their ruling on the Naha Confucius Temple lawsuit. The case concerned a small Confucius temple (shiseibyō) built on public land in Naha, the prefectural capital of Okinawa. The temple was owned and maintained by a general incorporated foundation, Kume Sōseikai, devoted to commemorating the history and culture of Naha’s 14th century Chinese immigrant community, and because of the temple’s function as an educational institution and tourist attraction, the municipal government decided to waver rent. The lawsuit was filed by a local conservative activist, who argued that by doing so, the municipal government violated the principle of secularism as established in Articles 20 and 89 of the 1947 constitution. All three instances of the judiciary sided with the plaintiff, concluding that while the organization was not registered as a religious corporation, the ceremonies carried out at the temple should still be considered religious activity under the constitution.

This paper will use the Naha Confucius Temple case to illustrate contemporary disputes over Okinawan and Ryukyuan identity and heritage. For the plaintiff and her many supporters in Japan’s conservative and nationalist right, Okinawa is understood as a fully integrated part of Japan, and the Confucius temple was presented as a symbol of Chinese encroachment on Japanese territory. In contrast to this, Kume Sōseikai and the municipal government viewed the temple as a historical site representing the former Ryukyu kingdom’s role as an independent trade nation located between China and Japan. By analyzing arguments presented by both sides in and outside court, the paper will show how different understandings of history, culture, and religion continue to cause tensions between Japan’s majority population and people inhabiting one of the country’s last colonial holdings.

Paper short abstract:

The claim that Ireland exhibits a distinctive intellectual micro-climate is advanced. Attention is paid to the Catholic hinterland of the Irish imagination (although its Protestant counterpart is considered). The influence exerted by the image of the island within this stream of thought is surveyed.

Paper long abstract:

Reflecting upon the Irish imagination, one historian, Oliver MacDonagh, concluded that ‘the image of the island, with the surrounding water carving out a territorial identity, has been compelling’. ‘This is unsurprising,’ McDonagh mused; ‘from its Homeric beginnings European literature has been infused with this physical-geographical symbol of separateness, mystery and peculiarity.’ This paper likewise advances (at times implicitly) the thesis that Ireland exhibits a distinctive intellectual micro-climate owing to its island locus and identity. Particular attention is paid to the Roman Catholic hinterland of the Irish mind (although its Protestant counterpart is not overlooked). The conceptual influence exerted by the image of the island within this consequential stream of thought is surveyed. Consideration of the formidable ideological force exerted by visions of the island’s national saint, St. Patrick (a former slave believed to have liberated the island from paganism), and of the pervasive allure of hallowed Patrician shrines upon the island – St. Patrick’s Purgatory, situated upon an island in Lough Derg, Co. Donegal, being a prime example – serves to illustrate how the image of the island is bound-up with the idea of imprisonment within the Irish Catholic imagination. A recurring theme within much Irish thought is consequently illuminated: the conceptual terraforming of the prison-cell into an island and of Ireland into a grim, giant prison, typically of either British or (intriguingly) of Vatican construction. But the Catholic mind has also envisioned the island as a sanctuary; as a refuge from Protestant, liberal modernity. This facilitates an appreciation of how visions of the island are related to the concept of imperialism. One of the paper’s primary aims, in fact, is to illustrate how the spectre of Vatican imperialism has troubled Irish minds, Protestant and Roman Catholic, just as much as the perceived threat of its much-maligned, British variant.

Paper short abstract:

This paper historically and ethnographically traces how the Indigenous Māòhi people of French Polynesia transformed mainline Protestantism, a complicit agent in the islands’ colonisation process, into their contemporary identity marker and a tool for fighting colonial injustices.

Paper long abstract:

This paper highlights the role of local mainline Protestantism in French Polynesia as an effective Indigenous identity marker, and by extension, a political medium to tackle a variety of social challenges caused by the long colonial history. Christianity has been first introduced to the region by the London Missionary Society, drastically transforming the socio-political orders of the traditional chieftainship in the early 19th century. Whether the conversion was willing or imposed at the time, becoming Christians and its accompanying cultural contacts consequentially led to the colonisation of the islands. Whilst the territory of French Polynesia remains practically a French colony, the church became an independent, Indigenous-led congregation in 1963. This allowed the Indigenous people to transform the religion into a space where Indigeneity is celebrated, and colonial ramifications are discussed and challenged.

I analyse what historical, social, and cultural factors contributed to the reconstruction of local Christianity as a distinctively Indigenous marker in French Polynesia. Specifically, I examine the remainder of traditional chieftainship in the church community structure, the marriage between Indigenous cultural renaissance and Protestant theology, and the place of Christian faith in contrast to the increasingly secular France. In doing so, I ask to what extent this case study is transferrable in the South Pacific region, where the islanders underwent similar historical trajectories but now find themselves in different political situations. As the former Imperial nations increasingly secularise, can Christianity be a tool for Pacific Islanders to 1) reconstruct the contemporary Island identities, and 2) build up the resistance against (neo)colonialism?