“Apocalypse Now” is a great movie, with a theme that can accurately sum up my blog.  War derives from nefarious madness.  It is a grown man’s folly.  It is chaos; a violent chaos that turns turns death arbitrary and leaves everything ravished.

In Apocalypse now is set during the Vietnam War.  It is an odyssey of sorts, where the narrator, Captain Williard, is hired to assassinate a high ranking officer (Kurtz) who they say has “gone crazy,” gone native, and has started his own colony-like establishment with natives.  This launches Williard into a journey filled with struggle and an assortment of comrads.  In the end, he descends upon Kurtz’s community, where he has assumed the role of god, ruler, and ultimate

War, as I have wrote in previous blogs, is ridiculous — an absurd phenomenon that takes common men and turns them into killing machines, with little regard for other humans if pegged as the “enemy.”  Our reasons for entering a conflict, as is the case of Vietnam, are illogical and as the fighting increases we find it even harder to cope with the losses, when we are not even sure what we are fighting for.

Throughout the film from the time Williard is assigned the assassination and when he confronts Kurtz, question if his mission to kill him.  He sees the chaos, the intense madness and begins to align with the “extreme,” unsound thoughts of the general. In the end he fulfills his mission to kill Kurtz, but this is not without understanding his insanity.

Many violent conflicts in recent years, including the ones I have exhibited in my blog, are atrocities.  Many are atrocities happening NOW.  It seems we must look in retrospect to realize just how wrong it was to engage, fight, and let the conflicts exist/continue.

All in all, I hold firm to my beliefs that war is unnecessary and from the first hand account through the texts I have read for my English course I have affirmation that violence is, however trite, horrific and incredibly futile.

I still, and always will, believe in the power of one.  One voice can be quite loud, let us not forget this.  One opposition to something horrible can, and does, spark a fire.

I always forget how to replace the url with a nice tag. This looks quite tactless, but at least my comments are there!

One theme I’ve found pertaining to war is that war, in itself, it is ridiculous. In retrospect, past conflicts are, even if explained, wildly unreasonable — fought for, sometimes, arbitrary reasons, spiteful, and just plain illogical. Results of war are not always good. Once the fighting commences, wages, and ceases, what is left? Nearly everyone is affected by violence; but this is not a lucid concept. The world is dark; Vonnegut was pessimistic at best, very convinced we live in a world of continuing atrocities, where ideals fail again and again. Brook tried to mask the violence with stoicism and patriotism. The characters The Ghosts May Laugh sought comfort through stories, because the realism of wars horror were unbearable.  These examples show the true struggle and difficulty violent conflicts manifest. So it goes.

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”  – Frederick Douglass

Many conflicts leave children stripped of their childhood and forcibly more adult-like. Many find nothing a more compelling to stop violence than for the sake of the children. On November 20th, National Children’s Day, marks also the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. “The effect of war on children is devastating. Girls and boys, and even babies, are killed, maimed for life, imprisoned or raped. Exploitation and abuse remain a sad reality for millions of children who suffer the consequences of armed conflict,” said Kristin Barstad, the ICRC’s adviser on children and war. “There is no valid excuse or justification for this. Universal Children’s Day is an appropriate time to reiterate that children have a right to be protected and are entitled to education, food, water and health care, even in times of war. Those who violate the rights of children must be held accountable.” The UN’s Declaration of the Rights of the Child has, unfortunately, suffered a similar fate also shared by many of the Geneva Conventions provisions; ultimate failure. The convention has done little to keep children safe in war zones. Not only do the young find themselves homeless, hungry, parentless (in some cases), some children are forced to become part of the “war effort,” becoming soldiers themselves, forced to do the dirty work, carry out dangerous missions — exploited, used victims. Sadly, not a new concept.

So it goes.

ICRC
2009
Full Article

“Billy is spastic in time, he has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act next” (p. 23).

In Kurt Vonnegut’s, Slaughterhouse-Five, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, travels through a time continuum, making numerous bizarre jumps from his past, to the his present — in the midst of war — and even to a time when he encounters things of the third kind, extraterrestrials. It is unknown if the reason he moves from various moments of his life, and even beyond, was due to the trauma of war, or was perhaps predisposed pre-war.

By no stretch of the imagination is it difficult to fathom that people change once they put on the uniform and begin fighting the battle. With the absence of normalcy and with war situated in its void, a bit of sanity may also become absent.

In thunder6′s blog, he covers a few points that warrant the toll paid of fighting for one’s country. He speaks of his commander, first giving background, painting a picture for the reader, and eventually telling us of his death. He says:

“In the face of such a stunning loss it is natural for your soul to grow weary, and for your mind to scream for what has been so violently ripped away.”

The reconstruction of Iraq with current state of the country can undoubtedly be considered a crisis. American soldiers, who at one time were ravishing the land, are now working in concert with Iraqi citizens to rebuild the nation. This reconstruction does not mean peaceful rebuilding, for the “war” wages on. Violence ensues, and with that minds may waver. Tralfamadorians may not swarm and time may not warp, but the equivalent is perhaps a constant stage of anxiety without the knowledge of what is coming next, if one will live to see another day, and how they are going to have to act the next day, or even next moment.

365 and a Wakeup
2009
Full Article

We are currently reading the book “Since You Went Away,” a compilation of  letters from women to their soldiers overseas written during WWII. It is an interesting read because most of the letters from the homefront are similar in the fashion they are written and in the words which are inscribed. The women write of love, hope, longing, loneliness, and of their devotion to their boyfriend, fiance, or husband in uniform. It is blatantly obvious that they are loyal beyond conceivable thought, for they write often, sometimes as frequently as more than one note a day. I could choose any number of excerpts of affection from any number of women who were missing their loved one, but I choose one from a woman, Flora, because I feel her language leaves nothing to the imagination for how she feels about her “darling:”

“Dearest Darling, I am so unebelievably happy, when I think about how close you are and everything, I just don’t really seem able to take it in – oh darling, darling, I love you, love you” (p. 114).”

Absence makes the heart grow fonder? I would say, absolutely yes.

Fast forward to the present and again, Africa.

Forced disappearances are becoming an issue in many areas, but most certainly in Africa. In Zimbabwe, Jestina Mukoko, who heads Zimbabwe Peace Project, a human rights organization, was abducted last year, around this time, and subjected to torture on the grounds that she was trafficking persons from Botswana, unconstitutionally. The Zimbabwe Supreme Court rules in her favor and she was freed, but she says letters, cards, calls and good wishes “give them [human rights activists] hope for another day.” This may be a bit far-fetched to connect this to WWII letters, but the common ground is found in the hope a tie of communication, like a letter, an e-mail, or a card can hold.

The families of those who are taken by forced disappearance, are forced to keep faith, loyality, and devotion that their loved one will return. They have no letters. They have no connection. This shows just how impacting a letter, or note can, in fact, be.

Amnesty International
2009
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/iar/all-charges-against-zimbabwe-poc-jestina-mukoko-dropped/

Depending on the subject I generally find non-fiction to be a bit bland. A lot of words that do not evoke anything of meaning in me. In contrast, works of fiction are usually great reads, because they are just that – fiction, made-up, scenes that come from someone’s imagination. But, in the pieces we have read for class we get fact in addition to true, vivid scenes that in any alternative world (where these events did not actually take place) seem like pure fiction.
In Primo Levi’s “Survival In Auschwitz,” I sometimes wish it was purely fiction I was reading; fore his account is grave, but also incredibly moving. Levi, unlike various other written accounts of the Holocaust, develops his piece in a way so that we are not just presented with an image of the concentration camps, but are given deeper insight into what it was like to be in, and survive, the camps.

A lot of sorrow exists in the world, from civil conflicts, to oppression, internment, torture, etc — it can only be speculated what kind of literature will come from modern conflict. I have no specific crisis to parallel with our class text in this post, because each case of humanitarian havoc, those I have written about and those I have not, are bound to produce some significant stories. I cannot bring myself to isolate one situation (and its hypothetical literature that has not yet been penned), to compare with the historic literature we have read. I do undoubtedly know powerful pieces will be written eventually, by survivor’s in Angola, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Chad, etc — and the list goes on.

(Germany, 1943)

Dead bodies piled into mounds, thrown into trenches, wreaking of decay and death; emaciated bodies filing into chambers that will soon fill with clouds of gas.  An automatic image is formulated upon hearing these accounts.  We all know what it spoken of.  We all shudder.  The Holocaust, existing during the second world war; the Holocaust, an event that is so horrific it seems fictional.  Condemned to a fate perhaps worse than death, entire families were split apart and shuffled off to work down to their mere bones.  Justifications for these astonishing actions were understood by few, and the deviants were at anomalies.

Never again; the world said never again to the mass internment of a populace.

The population of Sri Lanka is 21,324,791.
21,035,791 citizens live in their respective entities.
289,000 of Sri Lankans live behind barbed wire fences.

Interned men, women, and children are held in camps and detention centers scattered across the northern region of the Asian state, under shotty allegations, and shaky claims.  Conditions for the displaced are as expected, full of grime, lacking proper water, waste facilities, and people living upon people, living upon people.  International humanitarian groups, the UN, International Red Cross, etc are forbade from entering the country and having any sort of access to the camps.  Hm.  Fishy?  Yes, highly suspicious, if these camps merely exist for the reasons the government defends they do.  They cite two reasons why they have imprisoned their own citizens.  First, being newly war-free there are supposed mines that need to be deactivated, and it is unsafe for people to move to certain areas until they are de-mined, however the plucking and relocation became the fate of one neighbor, and not of the other. ??? Hm.  Seems hardly a legitimate reason for disallowing third parties, especially those parties weary and on the search of human rights violations.  Second reason, the Sri Lankan government is conducting screening to determine who is and who is not a Tamil Tiger.  But, no one knows who has already underwent this screening, how the process is conducted, and what is general this screening process encompasses.  These internment camps are not death camps, no, but isn’t the idea the same?  The heart of the issue is that forced relocation and confinement is an inherent human rights abuse.

I reaffirm my previous statement, in my opening post, regarding our world citizen status; these Sri Lankans — the men, their wives, and children — are living, breathing world citizens, does this not count for anything?  In retrospect we are appalled and ashamed Nazi Germany rose to such power and enabled the Holocaust to reach such heights as it did, and we regret the internment of the Japanese during World War II on our own soil.  Even from comfy suburbia, from our college campuses, from our desks, can we not at least push for this violation of international (and Sri Lankan) law to end?  Tigers or not, people are people and no one is fully human when held behind barbs like an animal.

(Sri Lanka, 2009)

International Crisis Group
2009
Full Article

Violent conflict takes various forms; it is true however that in whatever setting it showers negativity upon those of all walks of life.  Causalities of war and violence appear on different faces — the young, the old, the soldier, the vagabond, the mother and the child.

With war comes death, and these deaths mount astonishing numbers regardless of the conflict.  In one fictional, historical account, penned by modern author Stuart D. Lee, The Ghosts May Laugh, we see just how death is dealt with in the trenches and on the front line of, in this case, World War I.  It is common to hear of casualties, those dead or dying, those missing in action; it is a phenomenon, or maybe a staple, of war.  In the play, we become aware of the effects of a casualty, not only through the dialogue of the characters, but through the over-looming sense that those who are deceased hang around even beyond death.  Death manifests in Miller, Saunder’s brother, and each of the officer’s respective story ghosts. Casualties of war become common-place, and seem to be chatted about with an air of detachment.

JENKINS. Hmm, right. (Pause.) You heard about Miller I suppose?
JONES. Yes.
JENKINS. Damned shame that. (Pause.) Still, if you’re going to play silly
arses with a sandbag on the parapet what do you expect? (Pause.) Still,
damned shame. Damned damned shame. (pg. 5).

The context varies, but death haunts the play in its entirety.

And back to Africa we go.
Unrest takes a different form in the states of the continent of Africa.  Across its vast plain a number of countries are struggling under conditions that are less than desirable, with a horrible plague: forced evictions. Citizens of Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe face similar situations forced displacement through the violent force of evictions by their governments. In Chad, one man gives account:

“I bought this place more than 38 years ago. On 29 February, some policemen and the people from the mayor’s office came and covered the walls in paint. They told us that we had six days to leave. When we asked them why, they said we did not have the right to ask questions because it was a state of emergency. We could not get together and talk about it among ourselves, it was forbidden. The residents took their personal belongings and left. Some of them who have money will not have any difficulty in renting another house, those without money will go to their village or to Cameroon.”

These episodes, when executed, leave thousands homeless, and yet there is no accountability for this heinous violation of human rights.

We are use to hearing of casualties of war, violence, disaster, and we are used to hearing of them as deceased.  But, how much of a person is stripped and left when one is forcibly removed from their home, placed in foreign lands, or even worse, left to nothing?  Traditionally, we think casualty, we think death, but perhaps a casualty is anyone who is left a former version of oneself because of unjust actions.  Perhaps through new acts of violence classic terms associated with disaster claim new definitions.

Amnesty International
2009
Full Article

In Vera Brittain’s era, early-mid 20th century, handwritten letters were the primary source of communication between those at home and their sons, boyfriends, husbands, and friends who seemed a world away.  Scenes of war became vivid when correspondence was maintained between domestic parties in England and soldier immersed in the war.  In the case of our heroin, Vera, the reader witnesses the demise of her innocence and naive idealism as she maintains her role as devoted girlfriend of Roland.  They exchange letters often, and although Roland never vocalizes how vital he considers her letters, it can only be imagined what it would be like to be in a foreign land without a connection or communicative abilities to those we know best.  Having Vera has his confidant allows him to speak freely of his thoughts, and deepest woes — undoubtedly miseries that are difficult to live with.  Vera is not void of Roland’s reality and this is evident; fore he writes:

” . . . no longer a dream but a reality, and found in My lady of The Letters a flesh-and-blood Princess. . . . I am feeling very weary and very, very triste — rather like (as I said of Lyndall) ‘a child whom a long day’s play has saddened.’ . . . There is sunshine on the trees in the garden and a bird is singing behind the hedge. I feel as if someone has uprooted my heart to see how it was growing.” (pg.193)

In addition to receiving Roland’s letters, Vera pens thoughts to him, too, of her daily activities, her thoughts, and at times poetry she feels appropriate.  Her, and her letters serve as his the connection to the thing that he wants to come home to.  Her letters are normalcy.  Her letters never stopped being sent, until the very end.

Flash-forward to modern day Cuba.  Remember when former President Bush rounded up so-called enemy combatants . . .  or were they prisoner’s of war? Don’t worry, just logistics, heh.  Geneva Convention, what?  Anyway, these men have been detained in Cuba since 2002.  That is over half a decade away from their homelands and families.  The ICRC (mentioned in the previous post) has inaugurated an initiative allowing detainees to make video-calls home, to immediate family and relatives.  The calls, employing video capabilities, allow the two parties to not only talk, but see one another for the one-hour duration of the call. “Although nothing can replace the face-to-face contact of personal visits, this video link offers detainees and their families a new way of communicating with each other,” said Jens-Martin Mehler, the ICRC delegate in charge of visits to Guantanamo. “Wherever the ICRC visits detainees, it seeks to ensure that they have the possibility of maintaining contact with their families (ICRC, 2009).  The ICRC hopes to eventually launch more branches of this humanitarian initiative to connect 30 different locations in 20 various countries.  Be on the lookout!

Detainees, enemy combatants — whatever the political term — these people are now enjoying a link back to their homelands, a place they hope to one day view again, and not just on a video monitor.  Most recently President Obama has put a one-year closing date for the center.  Until then, the detainees are in limbo.  Crossed fingers that video conferencing will soon end, and face-to-face contact can resume.

ICRC
18 September 2009
Full Article