War and Violence: The Second Sino Japanese War was a religious one

"Barbaric, heartless
or misdirected religious fervor?"








The Japanese people are a very interesting “race” of people. The history of this “closed door” nation is filled with more then her fair share of blood shed and violence with her history punctuated with the likes of the Meiji revolution and the Shogun wars. Originally a caste based society with the God Emperor at the top followed by the court nobles, the famous and ancient warrior/Samurai class and Hatamoto/supervisor class then finally the peasantry, the Sino Japanese war was fought not with the samurai but with officers and his troops serving under the God Emperor.

The emperor was accorded a divine status; also young people were taught that they were aohitogusa – growing human weeds – who were to protect the Emperor by serving as his shield. This was, of course, seen as a great privilege. To die for the Emperor was the highest honor that could be attained.

Permeating though all levels of the hierarchy is the single spinal value of Bushido or The Way of the Sword. Although permeating, Bushido is mainly practiced by the warrior caste of the feudal Japanese society and is normally associated but not limited to the handling of weapons. Three of the seven principle values of Bushido are, Rectitude; when we must die, we must die. Bravery and Loyalty are the other two.

During the 1930s, after many years of isolation, Japan was on the fast track towards becoming a modern country. Her growth was the result of a myriad of reasons; one of it was the adoption and implementation of western technology. However, she lacked the natural resources needed to feed her seventy million mouths and the growing economy. She also lacked an oversea empire that could provide it (Natkiel, R. (2005) Atlas of 20th Century Warfare Capella). Reasons such as these were used to justify attacking China and later on taking over the rest of Asia. Many generations under the Offspring of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu caused them to think of their service to him as a divine duty. Japan’s ministers capitalized on this and used the figurehead emperor’s name to free Asia from the westerners.

During the years preparing the troops, the ideology of survivalism; that is, if they do not reach out and claim some resource from China they will die as a nation; took root. They then indoctrinated into the population the concept of Bushido. Taken from the samurai and shared with the “peasants”, now you did not have to be samurai to practice Bushido; as long as you are Japanese you have to follow the way of the sword.
The Japanese launched the equivalent of a Blitzkrieg on Pearl Harbor and started the war.

As early as then, sacrificing oneself for the empire was evident in every damaged plane crashing itself onto stationary battleships. During the first few battles, the Japanese troops fought with more fervor, more bravery (as they believed that they were fighting for a God and death in His name was a good and honorable death), more courage and they didn’t believe in “run today, fight again another day”; this is consistent with Bushido. More such acts of self-sacrifice were observed as the Japanese started to lose battle after battle. Bushido was most evident during the battle of Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima was thought by the troops to be the last bastion against serious air raids on Japan as allied forces could use the island as an air base to launch raids on their homeland. Troops fought fiercely, even running into enemy fire just to throw a grenade into a platoon where it would cause the greatest damage.

Have these traits also been characteristic of other wars? Remember the Crusades, or the Holy war? Just as the God Emperor was put on equal standing with Christ or Allah, the Japanese soldier shared similarities with a jihadist or a templar. I believe that only belief in a divine presence, a greater entity and a metaphysical realm can convince and drive an individual to go to such lengths at great personal peril, to achieve something he might never see in his lifetime.

Vernon

Crime: Drugs

"Chasing the dragon?"







Drugs, firearms and human trafficking are the top three ways to make obscene amounts of money illegally. And more often than not, they are always looked at as one problem. Human trafficking provides the girls and children for the international sex trade whereas firearms provide the means for a gang or mob to enforce territorial control. Both the sex trade and firearms bestow power on the “middle man”. The arms dealer actively use the very guns they sell to protect themselves or reinforce their rules and businesses, the pimp feels empowered through intimidation and violence and internalizes into his whores that they are not worth anyone else’s love and selling their bodies is the only thing they can do.

What about drugs? K, ice, black beauty, blue devils, speed, brown, chalk, go fast, half elbows and hundreds of similar street names for the very thing that harms everyone who touches it. From the drug lord who takes his “coke” with this afternoon tea to the “bunny” who offers her body for a shot of “Ya ba”, everyone gets hooked. Being enslaved to mind-altering substances doesn’t equate to empowerment in my book.

The average druggie on the street cannot afford to sustain his habit of gradual demise; before long he would have fallen to the depths of society. He would have probably torn his family apart, borrowed as much money as he could have from his friends and wiped his health on the dirty streets.

Who would knowingly choose such a path? Who with full knowledge of the consequences and the price he would ultimately pay take his first sniff? Would anyone with a bright future make a conscious choice to engage in narcotics? Would he? Would you?

The social facts and forces acting on and contextualizing the environment of an average junkie are numerous. The pain of a life of poverty, temptation to jump out of the misery that is existence for even a few hours sometimes prove too hard to ignore. The pressures of his peers in gangs from whom the junkie sought brotherhood away from a family that could not provide it, marginalized from a school system too quick to judge, stereotype and condemn. Born into a difficult family and made myopic of his future by the violence and lack of love from home, the junkie too easily finds solace in entry-level substance abuse like drinking, smoking then glue sniffing. As the body builds resistances against such “easy” drugs, the junkie needs more to stay high, his quest slowly but surely leads him towards more hardcore drugs.

The cravings soon explode in his face and the costs to sustain such a habit follow suit. Having led a life of indulging his body, the junkie knows little of self-discipline and control and instead seeks ways to feed his ever-expanding narcotic needs. His debilitating/destructive lifestyle being the cause of his unemployment, he then faces the choice of turning to crime or become a runner for the drug boss.
In Singapore, those two start points have only one end point: police intervention. Soon faced with jail, rehabilitation or capital punishment, the junkie feels angry, humiliated and ashamed, and bears the burden alone under the iron fist of the law.

When a man jaywalks and is involved in a hit and run, breaks half a dozen bones and gets himself hospitalized, will you charge him in court for jaywalking before he gets treated or withhold charges until he has fully recovered? Treat drug addicts as victims of a system and not as knowing criminals.

Vernon

Women and the family: A bird or a plastic bag?

The typical family in Tan Loc Island in Vietnam would have consisted of an average of 5 children, a mix of boys and girls. The parents would have been farmers, scratched a living by pulling mussels from the muck in the Mekong River or other arduous vocations associated with poverty stricken areas. This configuration persisted even though the country has opened up over the last decade, even though money and significantly big businesses took up residence near places like Tan Loc Island.
The unique mix of social factors like the nature of the businesses (i.e. textile and other labor intensive “female” orientated jobs) originating from “Asian” countries like Taiwan and Korean added onto the exposure of local Vietnam girls to the businessmen from these countries and the relative low education rate of Vietnamese women coupled with the overall domestically submissive nature and her upbringing and instillation of values like “to bring a better life to your parents” was the yoke in the middle of the poverty egg white.
It was under these circumstances when Quyen was born. She was born the 3rd of 6 children. Her father was a rice farmer and had to work rain or shine on the family’s poor crop yielding land. They lived in a small straw hut and ate very humbly as most of the best grains from the fields was sold at the market. By the time Quyen turned of age, there was already a trend that if they are reasonably attractive (some even if they are not so attractive), they would make their way to one of the few matchmaking agents around the area. Of course these agencies need not advertise since the families of the girls successfully married off overseas had upgraded their houses, sported color TVs and fishing ponds was advertisement enough.
At first, her protective father objected. However Quyen said that she didn’t mind and that it would bring her great joy if she was able to help contribute to her family. The mere chance of elevating their parents from poverty was reason enough to take that risk. The pillars risk of personal danger, potential abuse and rape, the almost permanent displacement from her home country or even the very real chance of never seeing their parents again could not stand against the possibility of elevation.

However Quyen’s story did not have a happy ending, her husband from Taiwan was a car washer who has been divorced four times, an alcoholic and often abuses her both physically and sexually. Her family of course was not elevated. There are of course success stories, which I will not mention here.

Did she actually decide on this path herself? Did she, a young, attractive uneducated 20 year old have other choices? She was born into poverty; her social class denied her of education and opportunities. Her socialization led her to believe strongly that it was her responsibility to bring her family out of poverty even if it deviated from the traditional template of marrying a Vietnamese man. Globalization and free trade brought businesses into the country and exposure to local Vietnamese girls. Education and affluence of women in other countries led to the difficulties of their local men finding a wife, this generated a demand, and globalization gave the exposure, entrepreneurs created the means and poverty gave her the push. In then end, social winds blew her around like a plastic bag in the sky of globalization instead of a bird riding those winds.