<Articles>War, State and Sports : Okabe Heita's "Conversion" to Nationalism (Special Issue : WAR)

TAKASHIMA Ko

doi:10.14989/shirin_93_98

For Japanese sportsdom, the Asian Pacific War has been remembered as a severe ordeal. Sports, especially western sports, have been thought of as victims of the war. When seen from the Chinese perspective, however, there appears a completely different image. This paper aims to examine the relation between war, the state and sports by tracing the life of Okabe Heita. Okabe believed in the purity of sports and pursued "sport for sport's sake." For Okabe, sports were sacred and inviolable. He realized his ideal by establishing the Kingdom of Sports in Manchuria. His attitude changed gradually as he deepened his relations with the Chinese. It was nearly impossible to maintain political neutrality in Manchuria over which Japan and China contended fiercely, and sports were not immune from this political reality. Soon after the Manchurian Incident, Okabe started to advocate state-oriented, nationalistic sports. Shortly thereafter, Okabe was appointed to a secret military agency and he tried to use sports to ease anti-Japanese sentiments among the Chinese students in Tianjin. After the Sino-Japanese War broke out, Okabe set up a sports organization in Tianjin, and then moved to Beijing to take up a post at the National Normal University. In the area of North China occupied by Japan, quasi-official sports organizations held various sporting events as part of the occupation policies. Okabe felt that these events were too political and that sports were being exploited by the military authorities. In the end the military paid little attention to cultural projects. Okabe was disappointed at the gap between the ideal and the real, and faded away from sporting circles in Beijing. In Japan, especially after the Japan Olympic Committee relinquished the right to host the 1940 Olympic games, state-oriented, nationalistic sports came to the fore, and many Japanese youths were compelled to join in the struggle on the battlefield. Thus, sports served the war effort both inside and outside of Japan. This was not, however, the result of oppression of the Japanese military, but that of a willing, active response to the war by Japanese sportsdom. Nevertheless, the relation between war and sports was complex because the Japanese military promoted martial arts and gymnastics but rejected other sports. This military's attitude toward sports produced an image of sports as a victim and concealed that of victimizer.

<Articles>War, State and Sports : Okabe Heita's "Conversion" to Nationalism (Special Issue : WAR)

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