‘Til All Are One

I must nominate Hotel Rwanda as my Movie of the Year. I know that it was officially released last year, but it only came to Australia this year. I rank it right up there with two of my other favourite movies, The Killing Fields and Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies).

These movies deal with incredibly disturbing subject matter: the effects of war on a civilian population. Each movie took its own approach to the topic, but they all masterfully captured the despair and suffering that people go through. What I also like about these films is that they have dealt with incidents which were either ignored or forgotten by people in other countries. Hotel Rwanda covers the Rwandan genocide of 1994, The Killing Fields is set in the Khmer Rouge dominated Cambodia of the 1970s, and Grave of the Fireflies is about Japan during World War II.

Hotel Rwanda and The Killing Fields both deal with civil war. Who cares about that? After all, it’s not in my backyard. Most of the countries in Africa are in some sort of war, yet the West currently seems more concerned with Pope John Paul II’s funeral or Prince Charles’s wedding. In the case of Cambodia, Vietnam (with diplomatic support from the USSR) turned out to be the Good Guys (funnily enough), invading the country and deposing the Khmer Rouge with popular support (despite their misgivings about the Vietnamese). The USA, Thailand and China actively worked to support the Khmer Rouge. Did we hear about any of this on television? Is it in any school history books? Nope, it’s as (self) censored as the Japanese occupation of Korea is in Japan.

The Rwandan genocide was yet another shameful event in world history. The United Nations and economically developed countries had the power to intervene and halt the bloodshed, yet they didn’t. The US had been in Somalia only a couple of years prior, but I guess Rwanda wasn’t important since it it didn’t lie on any major shipping lanes. The UN itself, France and other countries also deserve much of the blame.

Grave of the Fireflies is somewhat different, yet the same. Firstly, it is animated. This is no children’s movie, however, even if the two protagonists are children. I don’t think more impact could have been achieved if it were a live action film. Grave of the Fireflies covers yet another ignored event in world history: the effects of World War II on the Japanese population. It is natural to ignore the aggressors (or even applaud their suffering), particularly ones as brutal as the Japanese in WWII, but it is important to remember that they are just as human as everyone else. Many Germans consider the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a war crime, but did you know that the firebombing of Tokyo caused more damage and loss of life than the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which BTW were dropped on non-industrial residential areas)? I won’t get into the debate over whether such attacks were truly necessary (it was a war, after all), but we shouldn’t forget the human suffering which took place as a result, regardless of whom it is.

What do you do when you’re the government of a nation whose economy is not as good as it once was?

1. Spend $$$ on armaments in a Keynesian spending spree.
2. Go to war with a small, easily-defeatable nation.
3. After winning, rebuild the nation so that it will be forever financially indebted to you and heavily dependent on your technology and expertise [alternate link].
4. PROFIT!!!

Do I sense some deja vu? Hitler tried this, as did General Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and countless other governments worldwide, including several US administrations. Is economic growth worth such bloodshed and trauma? That obviously depends on the circumstances at the time, but for this war I am still unconvinced. We’ll see what happens.

I found an interesting article in The Guardian from last year (April 4, 2002). Here’s an excerpt:

The British people have acquired some notable information about the Falklands war in 2002 that they were denied 20 years ago, when the war itself took place behind a blanket of censorship. In the 1982 authorised Thatcherite version of events, Britain set out to recapture the Falkland Islands with strong but tacit American support, in the face of French duplicity, and won a brilliant victory against a demoralised Argentine enemy. Twenty years on, thanks to the memoirs of the then defence secretary, Sir John Nott, and an interview with the task force commander, Admiral Sandy Woodward, we are learning a very different version. Far from being an ally, Ronald Reagan’s US stands revealed by Sir John as persistently unreliable. Meanwhile under François Mitterrand, a willing France turns out to have supplied Britain with priceless technical details about the Exocet missile. Admiral Woodward has now revealed that the fighting in the south Atlantic was "a lot closer run" than we were told at the time. "We were on our last legs," the admiral says. If the Argentines had held out for another week, they would have defeated an exhausted Britain. Think how different our recent political history might have been then.

In other words, the USA stood aside while the territory of its closest ally was invaded by its belligerent neighbour. Maybe the British should boycott everything American? Even funnier was the revelation that the UK was aided by France!

The above-quoted article highlights the impact of censorship during times of war, not only on the part of government but also on the part of the media. Over the past few days on my television I have seen images of "Coalition" POWs held by the Iraqis, often followed by a statement claiming that these images were taken by Iraqis in violation of international law. And indeed they were. Yet nobody complains when the US does it! They did it in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and, yes, even in Iraq! I’ve lost track of how many international laws the US has broken, not only in this war but also in previous wars. These include the use of chemical and biological weapons (I thought Saddam was the one using those?!), cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and the targeting of civilian facilities. What makes me sad is that my own government is an accomplice to this. There are (were?) Australian citizens being illegally and indefinitely detained in Guantanamo Bay like animals, and the Australian government doesn’t care.

Another thing I cannot understand is the ‘logic’ that some people seem to hold that since the USA helped France in World War II, France should help the USA invade Iraq. Why should France help the US when it is the aggressor? Note that I’m not trying to defend France, because I don’t like them much either. However, this doesn’t make any sense to me at all. If I wanted to use such ‘logic’ (which it isn’t), then I could mention that the French government practically bankrupted itself helping the American colonists achieve independence. Louis XVI basically gave his life for the American people, since the French Revolution might not have happened hadn’t he been forced to pay for his war debts through raising taxes. I could also mention that although World War II began in 1939, and France was invaded in June 1940, it wasn’t until December 1941 that the United States entered the war. Even then, it was Germany that declared war, not the USA. Some ‘friends’ they were! Of course, using such arguments would be excessively facile, so I include them only to show their idiocy.

Update: I just came across this hypothetical discussion between a warmonger and a peacenik. I found it quite amusing.

Update [2003-04-06]: Britain’s Channel 4 screened a great comedy/documentary on 5 January called "Between Iraq and a Hard Place". You can watch the whole thing over the Internet (streaming, requires Realplayer) here.