Remembrance

Today 75 years ago Japan capitulated and WWII finally ended for the Asia-Pacific part of the world too. 75 years, that’s a long lifetime. I wish we could say it’s been 75 years of peace for the whole world, but it is not. I wish we could say it meant the end of war and mankind’s crimes to mankind, but it is not. So it’s a day not only to remember those who died, those who suffered, those who survived, those who are telling the stories so we won’t forget, but also a day to acknowledge that we’re still so far from making sure we have a world without war, injustice, hunger and discrimination.

For my grandfather who survived the sinking of the S.S. Junyo Maru and the POW camp at Pekanbaru, building a railway through the jungle of Sumatra. For my grandmother who survived the Tjideng POW camp on Java, even when she became a stretcherbearer after her son, my father, was taken from her to go to a men’s POW camp when he reached his 10th birthday. For him, a child in POW camps, first seeing women being humiliated and degraded from his 8th until his 10th, and then from his 10th until his 11th having to fend for himself in a men’s camp. For everyone in those camps, for everyone outside of those camps, for everyone under occupation, for all civilians and soldiers involved. For the victims on all sides. Please let us continue to remember the utter lunacy that is war and end it for once and all.