Jahana Noboru
Encyclopedia
was an official in the government of Japan's Okinawa Prefecture
Okinawa Prefecture
is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...

, and an Okinawan rights activist, in connection with the .

Life and career

Jahana Noboru was born in 1865 into a farming family in Kochinda
Kochinda, Okinawa
was a town located in Shimajiri District, Okinawa, Japan.On January 1, 2006 Kochinda was merged with the village of Gushikami, also from Shimajiri District, to form the new town of Yaese....

 magiri
Magiri
was a historical type of administrative district in Okinawa, Japan. In concept they were similar to present day Japanese prefectures, but in size they were closer to cities, towns and villages....

on Okinawa. In 1882, he traveled to Tokyo to study, one of five to be the first to be funded by Okinawa Prefecture to do so, attending Gakushūin
Gakushuin
The or Peers School is an educational institution founded in Tokyo in 1877, during the Meiji period, for the education of the children of the Japanese aristocracy, though it eventually also opened its doors to the offspring of extremely wealthy commoners...

 and Tokyo University. The first Okinawan university graduate, he was hired into the prefectural government as an engineer of agriculture and forestry. In this role, he set forth to revise various strict and oppressive agricultural policies, including regulations related to sugar production, and wrote a book on the matter, . He also helped establish the , and was involved in forestry and other related projects. However, he opposed the governor of the prefecture, Narahara Shigeru
Narahara Shigeru
Baron , also known as Narahara Kogorō, was a Japanese politician of the Meiji period who served as the eighth governor of Okinawa Prefecture from 1892 to 1907, and in a number of other posts over the course of his career....

, on various aspects of policies related to the sales of public land and the bringing of new land under cultivation, and resigned from employment at the prefectural office.

Returning to Tokyo, Jahana joined with Tōyama Kyūzō and gathered together other commoners of a like mind, forming the "Okinawa Club" and beginning a suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

movement. He published a treatise on his positions entitled . The movement was opposed by the governor, prefectural government, and various former officials, who strongly pressured the organization, and eventually forced it to break up. This setback drove Jahana mad, and he died at age 44.
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