What I will say here is just my own belief and I am not in any way criticizing any of the readers’ stance – rather, this is a very generic statement I have felt throughout my life and this comes from my subjective point of view. So please just hear me out with a grain of salt. 🙂
I made this video not for leisure but so that people would not forget what is happening. What I mean is that even if some people are more sensitive to what is happening now because of the ethnic closeness, I think it is even more important to keep seeing and not to look away – because the more you avoid interacting with it, the more you lose contact with the war as an “actuality”, and the less contact you have, the easier for the memory to fade away [this is what Aristotle said about a relationship – people stop liking each other or people fade out of their relationship primarily when they do not have shared experiences for a longer period of time].
I grew up in Hiroshima in my childhood, and I hated the summer to come because the school made us watch the gruesome (though animated) movie about war victims and what happened in ordinary citizens due to the atomic bomb. Very graphic and my body often cringed. I could not see sometimes and closed my eyes, but we had to write about what we thought as HW and submit it at the end of the summer.
I am learning why they made us watch gruesome animation films about the war where child’s eyes slowly popped out as the atomic bomb hits the centre of Hiroshima and the after effects of “black rain” as well as the skin falling off due to the nuclear influence, etc… I still vividly remember what was shown to us, even after 30 years! Those films were made for educational purposes and approved by the government ethical committee. So it is very hard to find them for sale (since they were made for educational purposes only), but I still remember the titles of the films, and I sometimes check them if they are available online.
Looking back just several years ago, people were so “united” (so it appeared at the time) about #MeToo movement and I foolishly expected that something would finally about to change, but after 3-6 months, nobody (relatively) talked about it and people moved onto different topics because it was depressing, they said. Then came Parkland Shooting, which reminded us of how horrific the conditions of schools in the United States is, making us recall back to Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings. For about 4 months, it was all Americans talked about and if you were not talking about it, you were seen as an accomplice to the increase of gun crimes. But excluding the victims, no one is talking about it anymore, because they say, the news is depressing and makes them stressed and sad. Then came COVID, which most liberals took them as seriously as they could and after its being declared as the pandemic, they were fierce about mocking those who did not wear masks (which they themselves had not believed to begin with, and they used Asians as a laughing stock prior to COVID because Asians always wore masks even though “masks are scientifically proven that they do not work,” they said) and aggressively attacked those right wingers who were anti-stay at home order. Then BLM happened. People started to say “This has been happening for 400 years, and it has to stop NOW” “I will risk my own life to bring justice to black lives” “if you dare ask any questions about what we are doing even amidst Covid, you are by default a racist!” (while they were not condemning Asian hate crimes as much). By October, nobody spoke about it – even those who said “I will risk my own life to save black people and so should you, or you are a racist!” They completely disappeared. And I am sure they did not risk their lives and I know it to be the case that they are enjoying talking about LGBTQ community now. I asked some of them why they stopped talking about the cause they once felt so personal, and their response was “it’s stressful; I can’t deal with it anymore” – I was like, “Really? Is it what you mean when you said ‘I will risk my own life!’?” Just 4 months of protests and ordinary people finally started reading about a few popular books on black history, which they have not even finished reading, because it is “depressing“?
Now, Ukraine. The media are already not reporting as much and people are saying it is depressing and too stressful to watch, so “I won’t (If I don’t see or read about it, it does not exist)“ – I don’t understand the logic of the North Americans – they bash people as much as they would like when it is a topic, but after 4 months, they criticize people who still talk about it because people like me are nothing but nuisance and bring them stress by keeping reminding them of the atrocity.
Again, I understand to a point why people, especially when your or your neighbouring countries are involved, do not want to talk about it – these people, like Russians and Ukrainians, probably have different degrees of understanding of the issue and grieve differently than the others who are from other countries. In fact, I am guilty of that when Crimea was merged with Russia in 2014. I cared nothing about it and I thought it was just “another ”conflict. Also the fact that I was working full time and needed my full attention to my studies did not help. But now I regret not having paid much attention to it.
What I learned from having lived and grown up in Hiroshima was that, even though, I did not experience war by myself, the school tried to imprint on us how wars are evil in themselves and bring nothing but misery. We were taught to learn to hate wars, not the aggressors per se, especially at the time of WWII, Japan did do a lot of bad things as well. However, this “not hating the aggressor” does not apply here now with Ukraine, but still, I did not include any pictures of Putin for instance – my view is reflected upon in the video. My main focus was on the civilians who have to pay for the price they do not deserve. I believe that the harsher the reality is, the more attention we need to pay and keep talking about it and keep the discussions alive. Asians and North Americans in particular, I am disappointed at them now with regard to this atrocity that is happening. The media began to move onto the “next” problems in the society and almost solely focus on it, putting the war on Ukraine aside and paying the minimal attention to it – almost to the point of whether or not it affects “our daily lives” due to the inflation (not willfully realizing the future of Ukraine would affect the entire world and thus “our daily life”). In other words, we see it as an “economic problem” and no longer as a “Humanitarian problem”. In fact, the term “Ukrainian Fatigue” has been heard lately from the media, just as they began saying “COVID Fatigue” after a year or so, or in the case of North America, after 3 months. I personally do not think that helps anything, but rather allowing the Russians to do more harm and giving them “a surveillance free” war crime opportunity by us not constantly talking about it. Looking at the war, face to face, is hard, but if we keep avoiding hard things as soon as we get exhausted, I cannot possibly have a face to show to those who are still fighting. The best we can do is to keep perceiving and reacting in one way or another as “outsiders.”
Just by looking at the last several years, we do not know now where to ask for help or to talk. In this way, I think #MeToo Movement failed to accomplish what it set out to accomplish; Parkland shooting lost its meaning (it only has a nominal value now); Covid is an utter failure and the International community is complicit in it. BLM gained momentum but it was without manifesto or leaders to lead – especially when black people complain about “so called “BLM parties” that were regularly held in larger Los Angeles area (that it was a taboo for media or anyone else to speak about it was clearly obvious) at the end of the week for the fear of spreading the Covid, they were labelled as “poor, ignorant black persons, who does not belong to our movement” and thus a racist or at least pro-racist. In such situations, nothing good can of course come out of it. I fear the future of Ukraine will be the same. The degree to which we pay attention is directly and accurately measuring and translating the course of the future of that specific cause. With regard to war victims, although I do not have the direct experience of it, or perhaps because I do not have the direct experience of it, I know how important it is to keep the discussions alive and not to treat it as trivial or see it as “stressful and depressing” – because it has been imprinted on me that WWII survivors in Japan are still talking about it and they regret not having talked about it earlier because there are less and less people who know what a war is like in Japan and they see the lack of interest in wars and conflicts, signalling that the people who have lived a normal life tend to think too optimistically about anything – for instance, in Japan, we firmly believe the North Korea is not a threat – because if it does something to Japan, the US will protect us (not being aware that once the North Korea does something to us, there probably won’t be “us” for the US to protect). Because it is not a threat, there is no use talking about it – it just gives us a headache and forces us to think about the history and it is simply “depressing.”
As I said in the beginning, this is my generic stance and I do not mean to impose my views on the readers and in fact, this is something I have been thinking about since #MeToo movement stopped being “a thing” – hence, I decided to post this on my blog as it is a generic statement I want people to know that this is where I stand. And especially after BLM, I have been frustrated with the people’s lack of interest in what once had dominated their entire day. What I wrote here is probably generic enough that it can be taken not as a personal attack but just a statement of my faith.
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