こんばんは。
いつの間にやら日本に帰国しました。やれやれ。
オーストラリアが恋しいよ！
さて、8月は戦争について考えますね。新聞の報道や教育機関等の努力により、日本国内では8月になると戦争特集の記事や展示が増えます。
最近英語を使っていないので、ちょっと練習がてら戦争について何を考えているか、英語で書きます。
I personally have a trauma of watching videos, seeing pictures and listening to stories about the war. "The war", the definition of this word changes according to the situation in which I encountered these materials telling how disastrous it can be. There have been too many wars, obviously, and every single one of them has been disastrous. More often than others, "the war" can be the World War II and more specifically the two atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's because I was born in Japan.
My trauma was that, hearing the sound of approaching aircraft I felt like evacuating. The image of the atomic bombs being dropped and the stories of daily attacks in each major city from airplanes lingered in my head and I was always scared. I emphasize that THIS IS A NORMAL REACTION of a person who has been exposed, as a child, to such shocking materials showing how things, including human lives, have been cruelly destroyed. Anyone who have been taught about wars using this method wouldn't think of starting another war themselves. ONLY UNEDUCATED IDIOTS would do that.
A person whom I talked with a lot back in Australia, said dropping the two atomic bombs is the worst war crime in history. He criticizes the United States for doing it. My response to that was; "Hmm, I cannot agree to that. I do not want to claim our people were the greatest victims of the war." The reason I said this was that Japan had victimized an uncountable number of people for a selfish purpose (though I recognize the US dropped the bombs because it wanted to take control of Japan before Soviet did, and this can be a "selfish purpose" as well). I do not say the victims of the atomic bombs deserved it, but neither did the victims of Japanese colonization of some parts of the globe. I have heard many stories of people who have suffered from the attacks themselves, radioactive and discrimination by people outside afterwards. But I have heard many stories of people who have been killed, sexually abused/enslaved, and are still suffering from the memories or aftereffects afterwards.
Therefore, I do not stand for making someone responsible for victimizing innocent people. Wars are accidents. EVITABLE ACCIDENTS. Wars can be avoided. If you are educated enough to understand that you shouldn't deprive others from their stuff, you would understand this. HOW DARE YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO DEPRIVE OTHERS OF THEIR LIVES?
That's why I would say people who would try to start a war are uneducated idiots. And I am afraid the representative of our own country is one of those?
というわけですが、色々考えても日常的には仕事とか遊びとかで頭がいっぱいになって、考えるのを忘れちゃう。せっかく新聞社や図書館が戦争経験者に話を聞きに行って、その内容をシェアしてくれているので、そこは積極的に読んだり足を運んだりしようと思います。一方でわたくし、7日から母とトルコ旅行に参ります。長崎に原爆が落とされた8月9日と、終戦の日（一部の国にとっては独立の日）である8月15日には日本にはおりませんが。。。そして、トルコのすぐ南にあるイスラエルとパレスチナでは人が毎日血を流して苦しんでいますが。。。そこは旅行中も思い続けていこうと思います。