While I’m sitting here procrastinating and contemplating thinking about doing my French homework, I’m staring at the news headlines. A little bummed today. There’s a protest today. A protest in Guangzhou. The last time we had a protest here I was quite young, and it was a little scary for me. It was back when Clinton was in office and NATO/The US bombed the Chinese embassy (can’t find any good sites on this…most are conspiracy theories, so there you go), thinking that it was something else. Not many people remember it, but I do; probably because I lived it and I had to try to figure out why I got pulled out of school on that day.
But, there is a protest today. We were going to sit and watch it. My dad’s office is right across the street from where the protest would have started…down stairs there’s a Japanese restaurant, but looking at the headlines it looks like we would have been egged.
Still I love how the government works here…
Okay here it is. Japan has this textbook coming out…a history textbook to be exact. In it there is, of course, World War II. However, the authors of the textbook took a little detour around some of their countries atrocities, i.e. The Rape of Nanking.
Wrong on Japan’s part.
All right, my point of view is this; Japan needs to own up fully about what they did in the War. Yes, they have apologised and all that, but still, they cannot hide from the demons of the past.
It’s like the atom bomb and the US. Yes it was horrible that we dropped it. Did we know that it was going to do all that? I don’t know…I wasn’t inventing it. Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t. New technology. If we didn’t drop it would the War have ended so soon? We dropped it because there are some people in this world that only understand violence. Japan, at that time, only understood violence. We tried dealing with them diplomatically and trying to sort things out like adults, however, they turn around and bomb the hell out of Pearl Harbour during Peace talks with President Roosevelt. Do you think you can end a war peacefully when you’re dealing with people that go and bomb you while you’re trying to sort things out with them? I don’t think so. Ultimate back stabbing. It’s like Julius Caesar all over again. So, we dropped the bomb on the. As horrible as it was, we did it, and we have stood up and said, “Yeah, we did that”. We’re not proud of it, but sometimes that’s what needs to be done.
However, what Japan did during the War was not right at all; the atrocities in China and the ‘concentration camps’ of the east. It’s disgusting. What they did was as wrong as what the Nazis did, maybe even more so. The fact that the US has owned up to the fact that they dropped the atom bomb on two cities in Japan and has taken full blame and huff from Japan on killing thousands of innocent people, and yet Japan is still hiding from the millions that they killed in China during the War. Not right.
On the other hand, what China is doing is also wrong, in ways. Yes they have every right to be as pissed off as they are about Japan trying to save face and hiding from their terrors, but, what about China? What about Mao and the great leap forward…or backward? What about the students that were killed in Tiananmen Square (Hmm..I like how I have a hard time accessing any websites about the Tiananmen Square massacre.)? Shouldn’t China fess up to that? Apparently not. China is doing everything in its power to try and stop progress from happening. Recently, China has protested Japan due to the fact that Japan is asking to have a seat in the UN. What’s wrong with that? Apparently China thinks that they own Japan like they think that they own Taiwan. God forbid that any sort of democratic (well sort of anyway…my views on the UN later) influence come anywhere near China. Since the iron curtain fell on the Soviet Union and all that collapsed China, and all the rest of the Communist countries, have been trying too hold onto their last little bits of totalitarianism.
Moreover, China’s dealings with Taiwan are going to screw them over big time. What I see right now is a repeat of the Soviet Union before it fell. There was this big flex of muscle; the Soviets took over most of Eastern Europe and then BAM! Reagan gets into office and by the end of his term the wall is falling in Berlin. It’s all happening again. China is saying to Taiwan that they’ll shoot if Taiwan tries to claim democracy. Yes, militarily China could easily take them out. Look at them. Taiwan is a small island compared to China. However, if anything happens to Taiwan the US is going to start pulling out of China and the country’s economy will collapse completely. Sure, the US will suffer, but China will die. Easy as that.
Also, there has been no coverage of the Pope’s death or funeral in China. If the Hong Kong new reports it, it gets censored and we get to see a commercial about some hair product. China was and is afraid of a frail old man and the power that he had over people. The words of peace that this old man spoke scared China. We cannot have our people thinking that there is something better than our government. That peace could exist if we got our country into the 20th century and stopped living without our heads up our Asses.
Personally, I think that it is wrong that the Chinese allows their people to protest other countries and yet blind them to the happenings of their own country.
It’s sad when you’re the only one in class with an opinion on something. It’s sad when you talk about communism and you get blank stares. It’s sad the children are taught to follow the words of others and not think about what they think.
By all means, protest. You have a right to after what happened in the War and how Japan still hides from their past. But, before you go out and protest, think about the happenings in your own country and then ask your self if you really have the right to join in the hypocrisy and protest someone else’s country when you’re not allowed to protest your own.
Those are just my thoughts.
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