Hiroshima
The bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II at the price of close to 300,000 Japanese lives. But from that destruction, even all these years later, has emerged pleas for peace.
Hiroshima's univeristy is sponsoring an intensive war and peace class, designed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the A-bomb. Every year, residents and visitors to the city send lanterns floating down the river, inscribed with messages of peace. The peace lanterns began floating only two years after the bombing of Hiroshima.
The voices of peace that emerge from the ashes of war are a constant reminder both of the destruction war has wrought upon the world and of the possibilities of peace, even for those most harmed by a conflict. The fact that Hiroshima's response is not retribution or simmering anger towards America, but a call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, is startling when we consider our own responses to destructive force used against civilians. The circumstances of each situation are vastly different, of course. But the lessons of Hiroshima may be that peace is possible, even in the most dire of circumstances.
posted by Sammy @ 9:50 AM
2 Comments:
C.G. is on to something. It wasn't "holding hands" that brought "peace" in East Asia. It was martial conquest. The Japanese voicing serious complaints about America's use of nuclear weapons is akin to Germans complaining about Soviet post-war retributions. Both acts (the dropping of two nuclear bombs and the slaughter /rape of German civilians) were horrific, but, in the grand scheme of things, hardly indefensible. Once again, the Vanilla Ice Cream project, oh, I mean "Peace Project," manages to turn the death of 300,000 into a matter of mutual misunderstanding. It is as if the only thing between the world and "peace" is another celebrity aid concert.
C.G., you make an excellent point. I'd be interested in Katie's point of view on this, since she spent time in Japan and likely knows whether there's been some acknowledgment on the part of the Japanese that their actions were a cause of this horrific result, and how that squares with other WWII atrocities. But I think you're absolutely right. Healing of this come typically does not come without a clear assessment of what exactly happened. If there was no Japanese admission of at least partial fault, it would be much easier to simply blame the U.S. and counter with retribution instead of peace.
Vanilla ice cream wins again.
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