History makes us who we are today,
without it means living without a memory.
What separates humans from animals is that we have a history that is passed on
from generation to generation. We evolve to better people by learning from our triumphs and mistakes. If Japan and the world refuse to acknowledge what happened in WWII, then how can we ever learn from it? How can we prevent it from happening again?
Archbishop Desmond Tutu once
said, "how can you forgive what is not remembered." As time goes
on, even the survivors of the Japanese occupation are dying off.
With more time, no one will be left to forgive this atrocity. Only
with forgiveness can we all move on. Remembrance is the first step
to forgiveness.
Sometimes the meaning of the
Chinese Holocaust is lost in the word-History. It isn't history that
parished but the millions of lives. Their souls will never be put
to rest until everybody recognizes their suffering and pain. Their
spirit haunt us all. But what about the survivors, and their suffering.
Why does the Chinese and Korean Comfort Women still keep silent, held underneath
unnecessary shame? Because Japan refuse to remember, to acknowledge
it ever even happened. This is truly a second rape and a second holocaust.
With out full remembrance, those
that bare the full brunt of history are the survivors and remaining family
members of the dead. Shouldn't they be compensated for their suffering?
A life lost can not be brought back, but give what little can be given.
Hiding history means obliterating
it from the History books. These are not events that were washed
away by thousands of years of sand, no, it happened yesterday.
Amnesia on this issue means robbing future generations of knowledge.
The world is always on the lookout
for Nazi criminals that escaped. What about Japanese War Criminals?
Justice needs to be served to these monsters by first indicting them.
*these may seem like philosophical answers, but without humanity does
anything matter anymore.
Read
Chang's Story
