After the United States bombed Hiroshima, a man named Norman Cousins promoted this idea of moral adoption where individuals can send money to Japan to help war orphans and children who lost their family members and relatives due to the atomic bomb. Now, it seems like American's are doing an amazing thing to help these orphans. Yet, when I take a step back and look at the whole picture . . . we are the ones who bombed Hiroshima in the first place. We are the ones who played a role in these children becoming orphans. It seems like such a sad reality to me.
The pictures shown in the article show smiling faces of children receiving letters and money from US support, all the while the United States is back home parading around their use of atomic warfare. It seems very sad to me to see the lines blurred in this situation.
We caused the bombing, and we also support those who were bombed. As the article continues though, it mentions that many of those individuals who did not support the bombing chose to morally adopt. In other words, they felt a sense of guilt because of the atomic bomb, and aiding the children through moral adoption was a sense of reprieve.
I believe that every child should have the right to an amazing life with an amazing family. I believe that many people should consider adoption. It is an amazing opportunity to help a child in need. This just stood out to me because these children did have lives, and they did have families. Yet, their families were taken away from them because of the atomic bomb, and exchanged for letters, donations and moral adoption.
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ReplyDeleteInteresting post! This idea of the United States trying to manipulate the repercussions of the Atomic Bomb reminds me of Peter Schwengers piece in the article "American's Hiroshima, Hiroshima's America". He calls this American act "Disneyfication" where we emphasized actions of "rebuilding", "charity", and "compassion" towards the Japanese so there would be no other way to view America (4). The idea of saving these Japanese orphans by adopting them and sending them donations specifically reminds me of the part in the article where Schwenger discusses how we literally flew scarred Hiroshima Maidens to the United States to give them "state-of-the-art" plastic surgery. Even more so, how we showcased this "compassionate" act to the rest of our country to further prove that was the "American way" (4). I agree that adopting these orphaned children and offering surgery for the female victims are good deeds, but they are done out of pure fear of Americans coming to realize how terrible the leaders of our country and military really were to go through with the dropping of the two Atomic bombs. Like you said, if we had never attacked this innocent country then there wouldn't be anything to cover up or glorify.
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