History of Exclusions

In class we often address how the US government has never apologized for their dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagazaki and I recently read a quote that helped shed some light on this subject for me. I read an article Anne Cheng about Melancholia and her position on its relation to America's "history of misremembering those denials ... a history of exclusions, imperialism, and colonization." And she goes on to say that the cultural memory of America is always faced with the issue of "how to remember those transgressions without impeding the ethos of progress? How to bury the remnants f denigration and and disgust created in the name of progress and the formation of an 'American identity'?" I found this quote spoke to the reason as to why no form of US government has reached out an apology because at this point we have come too far in etching out a vision of a just and Democratic America, admitting any guilt will only tarnish it, so we continue to ignore, and teach our children that the things we did in the past was all  in the pursuit of a greater future for all. I'm not saying that all of the US atrocities have been unjustified but they should at least be honest about the ones that were and I think thats what this article is getting at.I hope this shed some light on things for people.

Unit 731

In the beginning of the quarter, Christine briefly mentioned 'Unit 731' which was a "unit" or group of Japanese "doctors" mostly located in China, who did chemical and surgical experimentation on non-Japanese Asians without anesthesia. The Japanese Imperialist Army funded such experimentation. I was somewhat weirdly intrigued by this grotesque part of history because we've been focusing a lot on the injustices on the Japanese people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and on the Lucky Dragon fishing boat in 1954. Many of the people that were experimented on were Russian soldiers and other prisoners of war.

I came across this article titled: "Human bones could reveal truth of Japan's 'Unit 731' experiment" that was published in 2010 saying that constructions workers had come across a mass grave in 1989 that may contain victims from such experiments. Some really disturbing experiments that the author described were "hanging people upside down until they choked, burying them alive, injecting air into their veins and placing them in high-pressure chambers." The torture that these "doctors" put regular people through is disgusting and very difficult to read. My question for ya'll is, do you think this is just a part in history that is disgraceful but does not define the Japanese people, or do you think it does define the Japanese people in World War Two? Does this evidence make you feel like Japan deserved to be bombed? Do you think we should have talked more about this as a class? I know it really doesn't have much to do with the Nuclear Pacific. With that being said, do you think that it was appropriate that I brought this up on our forum? Thanks :)

Hunted like animals; promised safe haven

We’ve seen and discussed the devastation in Japan. In Peter Schwenger’s “America’s Hiroshima” in a television show, the TV host urged the audience to be generous in their giving to the Hiroshima Maidens because it is “the American way” (235). It is as though “[a] kind action to one person can be put in the balance with one hundred thousand dead” (Schwenger 238); one life cannot pay for another life. The kind act of surgically fixing the Hiroshima Maidens does not erase the horrors of the atomic bombs; although some would like to think so.

I brought this up because I want to talk about the power of media. The Americans watching the show would feel superior and good about themselves for helping the Hiroshima Maidens-- they may even feel righteous as part of a nation that’s helping the maidens forgetting the fact that it was the US that bombed Japan. The TV show controls what is transmitted, so what the Americans are seeing are filtered facts.

In Gojira when a news reporter interviewed a resident of the island, the interviewer doubted first hand witness information. Why? Perhaps it is because the islander is uneducated and without authority, whereas when the Professor speaks everyone listens without doubt. This reminded me of the yellow rain which affect the Hmong people in the jungle of Laos.

Yellow rain is believed to cause death and deformation; however, there were not enough information and test results were not sufficient to conclude whether it is a chemical weapon used on the Hmong or not. In “The Fact of the Matter” which focuses on truth, a Harvard professor countered an eyewitness, experienced, Hmong person’s account of what he saw (for more information, I’ve include the link below).

Going back to what America is willing to do as an act of kindness; the Hmong people were recruited by the CIA during the Vietnam war. While the U.S. soldiers were busy engaging in battles with Northern Vietnam, the Hmong were fighting against the “neutral” Laos in what is known as the Secret War. It is called the Secret War because the U.S. government did not divulge the fact that they are engage in battle with Laos to its citizens. U.S. citizens were already unhappy, at the time, about the war in Vietnam, had the war with Laos was made known the U.S. may be faced with even larger scales or riots. The Hmong fought with the U.S. with the promised of a place in the U.S. if they lost. More than thirty years after the war and most of the Hmong are still hiding in the jungle waiting for refuge, waiting for the promise of a home. Each day they live in fear of being found by the Laotian soldiers and they never stay in the same place for more than a week. What have the U.S. done? Those who surrender to the Lao government or was sent to Laos from Thailand were never heard or seen again.

The Hmong race is not known in the U.S. or very few people know about them; they are still a secret. Unlike Japan, the Hmong people have no country and thus no power to back them up. They depend upon surrounding countries. This is a humanitarian situation. (For more information about the Hmong and their journey, I’ve provided links below).

Yellow rain: http://www.citypages.com/2012-11-14/news/behind-laos-s-yellow-rain-and-tears/

Hmong: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/03/27/hmong-searching-for-a-home/

Graphic documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUZ2OrDXt4&ytsession=yE87asaPwjPExzblXjK8SDjqHupnc_srBOL3TQCVHE5rGkWSixmlXSwUG3twMLXgb8Z6Y_IJlFD6F2DWbSK9gvvrX0ga9_3eV9Dsj43L2sh7irt3TbHp5bfkwUoFWhVujBJKuvZNqF8Js3drK9ptYMz2U9O9ip5EMNsoUYo6HCz3o6gHSRSjobXNefvOW0uOzvkzGQFqFiozysmtr8M0Oq0ssvebnSGpT6FMm8owBifmO4gQXRa-wA2lZnssJni4f7BnP-LbefyQ8XjrHdePA3qo6sdOGySYpUr3V-_xUykozYTLaDixrvdMn5R4ZYEk

Exposed to Expose

I want to reflect on a thought brought up in class earlier this week about the role of women, and also Teresia Teaiwa's article, "Bikinis and Other S/pacific N/oceans." Given the proximity of summer, it seems especially appropriate to highlight. Honestly, until I read Teaiwa's article, I never really thought about why the bikini was called a bikini, and I also had no idea that this provocative swimsuit was named so to pay homage to the Allied efforts during World War II. And before taking this class, neither would I have ever linked the word "bikini" to as Teaiwa puts it, "a site for nuclear weapons testing." I think that poses the question "Right this second, who would really stop to think about the other story that a 'bikini' is hiding?" Probably not many.

Teaiwa states, "In the context of war, society has an ideological stake in the reification of female bodies when male bodies are being sacrificed heroically." It always seems like the image of women gets twisted for the benefit of consumption, or the male gaze; and though they are being represented (albeit in a negative way), this representation ironically makes them become invisible. The image of the bikini has become indicative of the female body, and the history of the Bikini Islanders' dislocation and devastation by nuclear technology is lost. I think Teaiwa's idea of finding meaning in bodies and rethinking how militarist and tourist consumption have permeated history reminds us that it is because of juxtapositions like these that it is part of our responsibility to help inform others of nuclear history in order to debunk the ideology that created the atomic bomb and the bikini. Then perhaps the next time a person sees a bikini or the word "bikini" they will think of the injustice dealt to Bikinians, rather than an exposed woman.

Commemoration and ... Manipulation?

The new 9/11 museum opened last week, but many controversial issues still riddle the memorial.
One of the main issues is the museum will charge $24 entry fee to what is basically a graveyard. Thousands of unidentified human remains will be inside the building causing an uproar among victims' families. Some of these issues both recent and ongoing include:

"[1] Whether the exhibit, by displaying the hijackers' photographs and names, glorifies them and insults their victims' memories. The museum compromised by using small head shots marked as FBI evidence.

[2] Whether a brief explanatory film narrated by NBC's Brian Williams about the 9/11 conspiracy unfairly links al-Qaeda terrorism with Islam. An imam who sat on an interfaith clergy museum advisory committee resigned in protest, but the museum stuck by the film.

[3] Whether the presence in the museum of the "Ground Zero Cross,'' a cross section of steel I-beams found in the rubble that inspired many recovery workers, constitutes an endorsement of Christianity by a public institution. An atheist group has appealed a lower court ruling that there was no church-state problem."

I believe these three issues center around the problem faced in the aftermath of World War II, with the U.S. creating it's own narrative about the event and the events that surrounded the dropping of the atomic bombs. Additionally, the act of creating a museum presumes the creation of some type of single narrative; in the case of 9/11 there is usually little mentioned within the general public of the history involving US presence in the middle East pre-dating the tragedy. In regards to the video of concern,  the implications of further propagating the link between a quarter of the world's religion and terrorism could continue to yield devastating effects of racism. 

The three issues raised in the article brought to mind points made in the Hein/Seldon article, Living With the Bomb, where the authors address how the U.S. created a completely new narrative to deal with the before/after of the A-bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The US justified dropping the bomb on Japan and not it's white counterpart, Germany, by using Pearl Harbor as a main premise. In doing so the U.S. created an "official narrative [that] erase[d] all the small and large American acts of revenge that went before" (Hein/Seldon). This mirrors issues surrounding 9/11 as well.

While I have not seen or heard much about the film airing in the museum other than what is stated in the article, many Muslim groups are protesting in lieu of it's content. The danger of this film echoes again in the Hein/Seldon article that states:

"The creation of official stories always involves processes of suppression of some stories and elevation of others. Outright censorship insistence on lies, misrepresentation of others, refusal to listen, and defining a single representative national experience while despairing other experiences as marginal or deviant are all acts of silencing."

I found it very interesting that "visual censorship in both Japan and the United States [had] denied access to the most powerful images of human suffering inflicted by the war, including the bomb" (Hein/Seldon), but now with the roles switched, America was the victim of another nation's aggressions, this memorial is characterized by the face and name of each individual victim from he attack. While, "the B-29 Enola Gay fuselage was displayed nearly alone with virtually no explanation of the event,"  This museum features shoes, jackets, chairs, and myriads of other personalized items within the exhibit as well as recorded audio of voices of victims talking to their families moments before death. This is the most intimate recreation and remembrance one could possibly imaging evoking strong emotional responses and empathy. In contrast to the remembrance of the H/N victims in Japan and the United States (the stadium gathering of the bomb dropping), as well as "when [personal] artifacts and photos were barred from view at the Air and space Museum in 1995" that blocked potential for remembrance centered around "human empathy" and manipulated the narrative of the bomb; "In the United States, this etiquette required depersonalizing the victims (the view from the mushroom cloud rather than from the streets of the cities in flames)."

The Museum Director Alice Greenwald said the museum is "about understanding our shared humanity," while former mayor Michael Bloomberg called it a reminder "that freedom is not free." 

My questions for the class: Are there any hypocrisies laced in the museum and these statements, or can/should we take the museum for what it's basic intentions are/should be: to commemorate innocent victims in a horrific tragedy and honor there legacy? Is there discussion to be had in comparing this to the H/N memorial commemoration in the USA and Japan? How/Is the 9/11 narrative manipulated (history omitted?) now that we were "technically" not the aggressor but the victim of another country's aggression?

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/911-memorial-museum-opening-concerns-interfaith-islam

Bravery

In Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko presents the concept of bravery using Tayo, a patriotic individual willing to fight for his country and, in a sense, looking to prove his masculinity. Tayo mentions that the women around him ignored him until he became a US Marine, wearing a uniform and becoming an image of bravery. But as the story goes on, with Tayo enduring Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and physical illness, he learns about a new element of bravery, one that is based on an emotional awakening. With help from Betonie, Tayo finds within himself the strength necessary to fight his internal demons. He realizes that the peace and courage that one finds associated with bravery gradually comes and is not to be found immediately. Tayo transcends the stereotypical heroic character by adding an emotional and mental element to the concept of bravery.

Key concepts and the half life of language

This is somewhat of a grammar nerd post that is less about the material and more about the development of our knowledge that comes out of that material, in terms of key concepts. A way to approach a literature course is by comparing one's initial understanding of a key concept with one’s understanding at its close. It’s important to define these concepts in our arguments as an exercise because a word can mean to me something different from what it means to you. I’ve started thinking about lexicography (the craft of compiling a dictionary) more critically, and my own reliance of meanings of words given by the Oxford or Merriam Webster. A recent occurrence showed me that any word, particularly any definition of an -ism (such as sexism, racism, classism) can be understood vastly different by those who construct its meaning by some generalized value.. which even if informed by the meaning given by the dictionary, doesn’t carry meaningful depth. The meaning people give to a word appears to me as conversationally-embedded paratext now.

What spurred this was this Ghost Word video, about the instance of error occurring in one word's transcription of meaning, and the considerable time it took to recognize it as an error. The meaning of a word has no stasis, and can become unreliable over time. Since a team of people formulates the meaning of a word and decides that it is appropriate, why not contest its meaning? 

Which leads me to the half-life of language. There’s an episode of 99% Invisible, a podcast about design, about the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s 10,000 year plan for safely allocating nuclear waste. The episode considers the degrading signified behind the signifiers within language -- and that even if a conceivable plan were to develop and hold after 10,000 years, ... how can the knowledge that it is supposed to support be transcribed into a language that is understandable to someone in 10,000 years? That is, under the circumstance that most people who have the ability of transcribing it had been exterminated by nuclear destruction? One of their arguments is that the original Beowulf written only a thousand years ago is barely comprehensible today. So that's something to think about regarding taking care with how we construct and define our language to fortify our arguments and help others either correct our understanding or maybe shed light on their own.