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Playing With Fire
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by angelica
I have always wondered how the rest of the Asian community feels about US reparation for the Japanese, due to them being in so called "concentration camps" during the war in the US. What is the opinion of the other Asian countries that suffered under the Japanese? Were they ever repaid for the atrocities they endured?
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I did a quick google search & this came up on the first page of the results....it seems no reparations have ever been paid. I also see the last post I made, its a quote by George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". I knew I'd heard that before......somewhere.....
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Japanese Reparations for the Chinese Holocaust by Efrain Morales
My political science professor once told me that: "history is told by those who document their lives in writing". Historians and scholars read analyze and comment on their written accounts. However, it is up to us to never forget the tragedies and successes that shape our world. The people's will to withstand suffrage in The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang, is something you cannot calculate with any manmade equation. There is no bounty for an individual's life. Denial is a feudal attempt to put a price on something that is priceless. Unless you first find a way to bring all the victims of the holocaust back to life and ask them individually how much their life is worth, you cannot put a price on any of them.
One is committing a heinous act to oneself by denying the past, since the past is the path towards enlightenment and discovery. The veil brought down on one's vision will blind perception and all reason, therefore, denying one's own right to claim a part of the their future. Since the beginning of time wars have been framed to design the future of characters and civilizations. If individuals burn the blueprints of society, how can societies expect to rebuild during times of desperation such as the six weeks Chinese people had to endure in the raping of Nanking? Simply because we forget a family member's life does not mean that they never existed.
Strong, innocent people were pushed to the edge of acceptability in Chang's description of The Rape of Nanking. What's worse is that Iris Chang was right when she assumed that we become desensitized to atrocities if only exposed enough to them. She understood the flaws of humanity in assuming that people would not care about massacres unless they personally affect them in some way. People will care less in America, especially if it happened over 70 years ago, in a place they never heard of. That is why it is important to reflect on and tell these stories. One can sense Iris Chang's anger when she could not believe that while Germans have already apologized for the Jewish Holocaust, Japan has not apologized for its military genocidal acts in Nanking (Nanjing) China. To add injury to insult not only have they not apologized, moreover, they actually claimed the accounts of Nanking were exaggerated at best. The problem with this line of thinking is that people who do not research the topic enough will conclude that the murders never took place.
It is morally unacceptable, and it makes you sick to your stomach as you read about the Nanking Holocaust. The victims' yells for existence are being silenced within each denial that their murder ever took place. As George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"(16). Since people are not exposed to such unthinkable atrocities, it is inevitable that someday, somewhere, the same thing is destined to happen again.
Although IRIS CHANG has left our physical world, her spirit flows in between the passages in her book. Thanks to her important work, we are not only exposed to the truth but the people that were so wrongfully murdered now have a voice as loud as prodigious thunder blasts. Their memory will not be dissolved into oblivion as long as Iris's work is read and remembered. Iris Chang's journalism proves passionate and is what our media is missing today. She is seeking truth and defending human rights within each story. It's as if the more she wrote, the more it would provoke her audience into not just reading the book; fortunately, it drives the reader to care and activates one into doing something that can be a stepping stone into changing the world.
Through reflection, one cannot help but wonder what one would have done had one been a Chinese living at the time of the rape. I am mixed with emotions, since I am a peaceful man I try to envision my family having gone through the horrific acts that Chinese people went through. I'd like to say I would have resorted to peace since I am an admirer of Martin Luther King's, Cesar Chavez's and ultimately Ghandi's peaceful approach to situations; however, I can't help but be furious at the thought of a soldier invading my home and desecrating my family. I would have unleashed a rage that is so hidden in the depths of my soul that I have not yet witnessed such a feeling. It is important to note that through reading and exposure to these acts, one is influenced into thinking one way or another. Future leaders of our world need to be exposed to this part of our world's history and make up their minds as to how they would have reacted. It serves to contemplate and ponder on such issues. It is bewildering to know, as Iris Chang points out, "A Princeton-educated lawyer told me sheepishly that she was not even aware that China and Japan had been at war; her knowledge of the Pacific conflict of WWII had been limited to Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. The ignorance extends even to Asian Americans in this country" (200). It is something that should definitely be in our textbooks and textbooks all over the world. If anything to make people consider how they would react if they were in a similar situation. I consider myself an optimist but hate the thought of a similar instance taking place again and people not knowing about it.
Without history, we are lost souls; thus, we have all the contributors to thank for sharing the stories with the rest of the world. This is why one man, even a Nazi surrounded by rape and slaughter can change the face of history forever, just by writing it down. John Rabe's diaries and people like him documenting what they saw are a reason Nanking will now be written into our world's history. We need to learn and understand that as we grow as a society we grow as a world. This planet is big enough for all of us; however, throughout history one thing has emerged in every society, War. It is ugly and nothing good can come from it. People lose families, dreams, and hope. The survivors are indebted with having the enormous task of having to reconfigure their manufactured destiny. Moreover, after a huge blow from a systematic disenfranchisement machine such as an authoritarian government, the task may seem insurmountable and impossible. Nevertheless, history can serve as a guide and help even those who cannot see a path towards a brighter future.
Japan needs to apologize and compensate its brutally victimized neighbors during WWII in order to regain trust and respect from them. However, I do not believe that the survivors of The Rape of Nanking can ever fully trust and respect Japan after all they have been through. Unless Japan can reverse the clock of time and not commit its heinous acts, the victims are doomed to remember their history forever. All the money in the world cannot recuperate the loss that Chinese people endured. Millions of Chinese died at the hand of Japan's imperialistic force, and on the opposite spectrum, that force would have to be quantified to the infinite power in order to begin to resolve, reshape and rearrange lives people lost.
It is extremely important to bring forth awareness of Japanese atrocities committed in Asia during the Pacific War. I will do my part by starting to tell people about this unforgettable act and encourage people to read Iris Chang's book. One thing is for sure; I will never look at the Chinese the same way again. With today's' world being connected via the internet, we can all spread the word of the Nanking massacre in a way that people will not forget the millions of Chinese who were slipping away into the shadows of obscurity forever. Together we can save the stories of the people of Nanking, so that their fate will live on in our children' and grandchildren's' minds for generations to come. Another thing I can do is follow up on the bill Congress was presented with in the 90's that demanded compensation for the Nanking victims. It is only right this generation look out for past generations, and continue that tradition so that future generations will look out for ours.
People in power seem to not learn from man's own inhumanity. One thing they are getting good at is sugarcoating it. The same things still go on today, but they disguise it in a cloak of ignorance and present it to the people. The same killings are going on in Iraq today, we just do not hear about them too often. The US government is using the same propaganda the Japanese skillfully used today. Therefore, the world still has a great deal to learn. The best defense for the aggressors seems to be denial. When presented with case after case, they deny everything and hope the people will forget it ever occurred. Sadly and unfortunately though, they may be right. People seem carefree about much of what's going on around the world today, unlike they seemed to care back in the old documentaries about Vietnam. The most I have seen people do in current war situations is complain, play the blame game, and move on as soon as possible. This might be one of the biggest mistakes in today's society. In the case of the US, we allow as much as we want to go on. We need to bring this tragic chapter of history to a proper closure by being more active. I will write on a more continuous basis to my congress representatives and influence as many people as I can to exercise their right in this country. We do take all the liberties we are offered for granted in this country and it is time to start changing that. We who have that luxury need to take advantage of our situation and relish in the fact that we can affect the outcome of tomorrows history today.
One of the most important lessons we can learn from The Rape of Nanking is how soldiers carried out such horrendous orders. Soldiers who have never had this kind of power begin to abuse it willfully not knowing the consequences or hurt they inflict onto other people. The book does illustrate how most Japanese soldiers were young teenagers. People do not begin to fully assess life with a wise perspective until they are at least in their early twenties. How can we expect teenagers to be able to assess, judge, and react to wartime situations accordingly? We need to delve deeper into the psyche of a teenage soldier to understand what it is that makes him tick. If we ignore this, we are setting ourselves up for another horrendous atrocity in our near future. The best lesson we can cherish is to learn from our mistakes as a human race.
Lending a voice to the voiceless is a gift that can resuscitate spirits and change the outcome of history. If everyone had the resilient spirit that Iris Chang had, one can only bring hope to this world. She is a great reminder of the words Ghandi once spoke, "Be the change you want to see in the world". They tried to destroy the evidence that the massacre ever took place. However, we know what really happened, and we will never forget. Expression of conduct in our society has been the same all over the world. Everyone wants to take over as much land as they can. Every nation has had a desire to conquer and become a superpower. We saw it in Athens, Japan, and today we see it in the US. As great and huge as these military nations may seem at times, the important voices throughout history who have had the courage to stand up to these superpowers at risk of torture, failure, and death, have always overcome. Against all odds, these people find the spirit in themselves to do the extraordinary, and be limitless in all that they do. Throughout history, when there have been no voices, the voice of one individual, rings louder than all the nuclear bombs have ever sounded and they will not be silenced.
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http://www.helium.com/tm/428866/poli...fessor-history
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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...
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