Interview appearing in The Japan Times, 07 August 2005
The foremost Western authority on the life and times of Emperor Hirohito -- known posthumously as the Emperor Showa -- here talks openly with staff writer ERIC PRIDEAUX about the role of Japan's former "living god" in both wartime and peace; and of his place in history in comparison with the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, and George W. Bush.
In 2000, historian Herbert P. Bix shocked readers with a biography of Emperor Showa (called Emperor Hirohito during his reign) that shattered the image of him as a mere figurehead who was detached from Japan's imperialist warmongering in the first half of the 20th century.
Bix argued in "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan," which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, that Emperor Showa was in fact intimately involved in the decision-making behind his military's ruthless campaigns. Hence, Bix strongly contends, the Emperor bore heavy moral, legal and political responsibility.
TIMEOUT is running an exclusive interview with Bix, in which he explains why Japan will be unable to realize its full democratic potential without re-evaluating Emperor Showa. Bix also asks in this hard-hitting piece what lessons today's world leaders can learn from a study of this enigmatic figure.
At the postwar Tokyo war crimes tribunal, the Allies indicted 28 Japanese war leaders for "crimes against peace," "violations against the laws and customs of war" and "crimes against humanity," including the Nanking atrocities in 1937-38 and the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Seven were hanged.
Bix maintains that Emperor Showa was shielded from trial by Allied commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his staff, who feared communists and wanted to harness the Emperor's domestic popularity to hasten Japan's recovery, and so suppressed damning evidence of his war involvement.
Though "Hirohito" attracted criticism from rightwing academics in Japan, Bix (who is married to a Japanese, Toshie) reserves his most pointed criticism for his own government in Washington. Asked to compare recent events with those of Emperor Showa's reign, Bix condemned the invasion of Iraq as "an act that will live in infamy" -- one that was "far worse than Pearl Harbor."
Interview
How did you come to write "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan?"
I wanted to write a history of modern Japan. I was interested in the Emperor and I wanted to situate the Emperor and the imperial institution in the entire modernization process.
I wanted to show the development of the Emperor's personality, his ways of thinking, his whole involvement in all aspects of national life.
Did you set out to determine whether he was a dictator who should be held accountable for Japan's role in World War II?
I knew from the very outset that he wasn't a dictator, and dictatorship was not in the Japanese historical experience. The Emperor [Hirohito] was sort of a participant in a pluralistic decision-making system. So I always knew that. But I did feel it amazing that nobody questioned his responsibility for the war, given the central position he played in national life.
The Emperor died in January 1989, just when the Cold War order was collapsing and the new era of instability was setting in. That's when some important material started to become available. I got a copy of Kinoshita Michio's diary of the [wartime] imperial entourage published by Bungei Shunju in 1990. And I was also sent a copy of the Showa Emperor's monologue [the justification of his wartime role that he dictated for the Occupation authorities early in 1946] that Bungei Shunju published at the end of 1990.
When I read those, I said, Aha! Here is a human being like the rest of us, and . . . with this new material I could return to the study of the institution, because previously I had only written about the emperor system very schematically and abstractly -- the way most people did.
I think all this new evidence made me want to revise outdated and erroneous views. And I think Japanese people -- and the world -- had been told only about the Emperor's innocence in starting the Pacific War and his heroism in ending it. And I didn't buy that; I was very skeptical about it.
And I thought, too, to describe the Emperor in the postwar period as a powerless symbol, that needed to be investigated. In other words, I started off in search of the real Hirohito because I had all these doubts about the official view. And . . . I found that none of the claims about him could stand careful scrutiny.
Did you feel there was a vacuum in Japanese scholarship regarding Hirohito?
I think Americans actively abetted the re-emergence of the "chrysanthemum taboo" -- the taboo on discussion of the Imperial institution and the role of the Emperor before, during and after the war.
And I think that American psychological warfare propaganda directed against Japan from late 1943 onward also promoted the official Japanese view of the Emperor.
So, for different reasons, Americans and Japanese during the last two years of the war were working hard to shield him from criticism.
How would you contrast Hirohito's militarist responsibility with that of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini? In other words, did Hirohito bear responsibility for the onset of fascism in the same way as those European dictators?
I argued [in the book] that he bore moral, legal and political responsibility of the highest degree for the war -- and that responsibility extended also to war atrocities.
Hirohito stood at the center of a system of power that disciplined the Japanese people to be loyal subjects of the emperor state. And I think that he, more than any other Japanese, epitomized the politics of irresponsibility under the Meiji Constitution.
In no way was he a dictator. In no way was he comparable to a Hitler or a Mussolini, to a Churchill or a Roosevelt or any other Western leader. He stood at the head of a so-called modern state and was considered to be a living deity. What other modern state at that time was headed by a living deity?
Here was a man who lived, himself, under a fabricated image of the ideal monarch. The idealized Emperor Meiji was his model.
In one of the early chapters [of the book], I use the term "cognitive dissonances" in relation to his personality. Remember, he was given an education in idealized Confucian norms and in Bushido. He was taught above all to be a benevolent monarch and he wanted to live up to those ideals.
I think I show that Hirohito was usually very active behind the scenes, and he was sharper than most historians and political observers gave him credit for being.
I say right at the outset that the idea of Hirohito as a mere figurehead is pure myth. Similarly the idea of him as a normal constitutional monarch is outrageous; that was never the case.
Hirohito was Imperial Japan's hereditary head of state; he was the supreme commander of his forces. He was also a religious leader and he was the nation's chief pedagogue. He lived in a world of high politics. So, naturally, he engaged in politics. Officials who exercise power and influence always operate under pressures -- internal and external pressures. Hirohito was no different. He made choices. His choices had consequences.
In Hirohito's case, the domestic pressures on him came from the political parties, the military, his close advisers and from the Japanese people. And also from the international community. They came, too, from the colonies.
Here is a man who bore enormous responsibility for the consequences of his actions in each of his many roles. Yet, this man never assumed responsibility for what happened to the Japanese and Asian peoples whose lives were destroyed or harmed by his rule. He was a head of state and supreme commander who never assumed responsibility for having connived at actions, such as not punishing officers who disobeyed his orders or committed crimes.
Hirohito often gave orders without issuing commands. This isn't unique to Japan. It is the "voiceless order" tech nique that high officials in most countries around the world routinely employ.
In your book, is this what you call his "wishes"?
It's acting by not acting -- and we see this in American history as well.
I gave the examples of the Nanking Massacre [in 1937], which I believe Hirohito had to know about. And I talked about his roles in helping to undermine political parties and the rule of Cabinet government, and in delaying surrender. In every period, he plays a role in politics and military decision-making -- but he comes to military decision-making gradually.
For example, regarding the delayed surrender. At the end, in 1945, the army and the navy and the Supreme War Leadership Council and the Cabinet, they all had reasons to bring the lost war to an end short of Japan's further destruction and unconditional capitulation to the Anglo-Americans. But only the Emperor had the sovereign power to resolve the issue, and he was more concerned about preserving an empowered monarchy -- with himself on the throne -- than he was about saving the lives of his people.
And at the end, during the entire month of June and into July, when the American terror bombing of Japanese civilian targets reached its peak, Hirohito resisted and showed no determination whatsoever to bring the war to an end.
Long after the war, in 1975 I think, at a staged press conference -- because all his press conferences were, of course, staged -- he was asked a general question that had been submitted in advance about his view of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And he gave this answer: "It is very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped, and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima. But it couldn't be helped because that happens in wartime."
He never took responsibility for the war that was carried out in his name. And of course Japanese people, the young men, went to war believing that they were defending their country, showing their loyalty to him. But he never acknowledged loyalty to his subjects. He only acknowledged responsibility to his ancestors.
I made clear what I thought about him. Morally, I thought he was a very weak person. He lacked backbone, and I think his reign was a tragedy for the Japanese people.
But, I wrote my book in an era when all sorts of things were changing in Japan; I wrote it in the 1990s. The war and occupation had become history. And then the long Cold War had come to an end and we were moving toward a new century. Everything was changing when I wrote my book. And it affected me, but I didn't go into detail on the new era that was about to dawn, the new era of ideological extremism, of a new militarism, a new imperialism. I didn't go into that.
In the book, you portray a coterie of officials raising Hirohito to be the hands-on, authoritarian leader that his own father, Emperor Taisho, never was. Should Hirohito's upbringing, in which he appears to have been the product of intense indoctrination, not absolve him to some degree from responsibility for the militarist departure from the "Taisho democracy" movement and for Japan's wartime atrocities?
I never said that he was groomed to be an authoritarian leader. I wrote that he was socialized to be a benevolent monarch.
"Authoritarianism" was assumed in the Japanese political context. But Emperor Meiji was his model, not his father, and he was the product of an intense socialization and indoctrination process. But I don't think this absolves him, to any serious degree, from responsibility for the destruction of Taisho democracy.
Why not? Surely, many liberal thinkers today would argue that someone who grows up in an authoritarian environment, and later becomes authoritarian themselves, cannot be held entirely to blame, due to the experience of their upbringing.
Yes, there were extenuating circumstances, but that didn't absolve him from political, or moral, or legal responsibility. Particularly in the case of his sanctioning wars of aggression.
I imagine that many Japanese rightists reading your book would say, "What right have you to come and tell us we shouldn't have done this, when we were living in an era of violent, global Western imperialism? This was the only way for the Emperor to defend his nation."
Well, it wasn't. My answer is that it wasn't the only way; a different foreign policy could have been pursued in Japan in the late Meiji Era [1868-1912], in the Taisho Era [1912-26] and in the early Showa Era [1926-89] -- a different foreign policy vis-a-vis Korea, China and the Western countries. But Japan's leaders in each period chose not to do so.
In Meiji and most of Taisho, the so-called realist decision-makers of Imperial Japan acted prudently. The problem was that at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the '30s they lost their bearings and made one error after another. But there were always options. Japan always had options; it didn't have to become a rogue state.
Do you see any similarities between the way Hirohito and his key advisers went about their business and the conduct of today's world leaders?
If we look at Japan today -- certainly since the rise of the Koizumi Cabinet -- we see a world shaped by a new militarism that has arisen in the United States, a new imperialism, a government in Washington composed of ideological extremists and demonstrable war criminals who have initiated wars of aggression.
The United States after 9/11 launched a war against Afghanistan and then a few years later against Iraq. It has spread bases now throughout Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and Iraq. It is distrusted; it has lost all ideological legitimacy in the eyes of most people in the world -- especially in the Middle East and across Central Asia and the whole Islamic world. So we have this government, headed by George W. Bush, in 2003 ignoring the Security Council and launching an illegal war against Iraq.
Here, you can bring in Japan -- you might say the Americans' preventive war against Iraq was worse, in many ways far worse, than Japan's attack on an American military base, in an American colony, in December 1941 -- far worse than Pearl Harbor.
Stop and think about it: It [Pearl Harbor] was an act of aggression and it initiated the Pacific War, but here was the world's only hyperpower initiating the same type of infamous act of aggression against a defenseless country, and doing so for reasons that are truly despicable.
Oil and revenge were factors, certainly, in the decision of the Bush administration. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
But in the new 21st century, in the era of the new militarism, the new imperialism and the rise of the ideological extremists in decision-making positions in the United States, we can look back on the Asian-Pacific War. If we do so carefully, we won't be justifying what Japan did and what Japan's war leaders were punished for doing -- all except for Hirohito -- but we can see that in both cases government, individuals in positions of official power, planned and prepared and initiated and waged wars of aggression.
The problem is -- and this really upsets many Japanese regardless of whether they're from the left or right -- Japan's leaders were subjected at the [International Military Tribunal for the Far East] Tokyo trials to charges of crimes against "civilization." They were punished for crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and of course, war crimes. But there was a double standard, because the Americans didn't apply the same standards to themselves. This rankles.
This civilization theme is a myth. But I still think the Tokyo tribunal wasn't wrong. It had shortcomings by contemporary standards and it operated with a view of history that wasn't always correct. But by and large, it did more good than harm. Of course, the right has a different view.
Do you think Hirohito should have been tried and punished, and if so, how?
In the book, I never said he should, and when I went around and spoke I never said that either.
What I said was that the Japanese people should have been allowed to freely discuss his role, and that he should have been allowed to abdicate. Abdication should have been the aim. That's my answer. He should have been encouraged to abdicate, and the Japanese people should have been encouraged to freely debate the Emperor's role and the role of the Imperial institution. But instead, Gen. MacArthur and the Truman administration shielded the Emperor and documents were placed off limits.
I think the joint efforts of Americans and Japanese so-called realists to preserve the Imperial institution, each for different reasons in what I call a de-facto partnership, had horrible consequences.
But I want to come back to the present. When the Bush government launched its illegal war against Iraq, Japan's LDP [Liberal Democratic Party] government, the government of Junichiro Koizumi, dutifully supported the United States, just as other Japanese Cabinets had supported other U.S. interventions since the Korean War.
China and France and Germany and Russia, among others, did not. Koizumi did. Where Japan's military relationship with the United States is concerned, I've said this conservative LDP regime lacks independence of thought and will, and they're likely to continue cooperating with the United States militarily and to view China in terms of the primacy of their ties with the United States.
What I'd like to see is Japanese journalists begin to reopen investigations of how the security treaty with the United States is harming Japan both economically and politically. I'd like to see investigative journalism focus on this as much as Yasukuni Shrine.
And this is important because restorationist impulses are today stirring beneath the surface of conservative politics. After all, it's a new world and the younger generation of Japanese people won't remember the war and they're open to all sorts of manipulation.
What do you mean by the relationship with the United States "harming Japan both economically and politically"?
First of all, let's go back a moment. When I speak of restorationist impulses stirring again, look at the efforts to revise Japan's Basic Education Law of 1947. Look at the efforts to restore an official state connection to Yasukuni Shrine and to promote neo-nationalist views of the lost war.
I think Japanese conservatives may not be happy with this strategic partnership with Washington, but they're not pushing for an independent militarization. What they want to do is revise the peace constitution, particularly [war-renouncing] Article 9, so that Japan can once again wage war. And yet this is the great achievement of the Japanese people: their embrace of the principle of pacifism.
Do you believe a segment of the Japanese conservative leadership actually wants to wage war again?
Well, they want to be able to wage war without restriction. They call it being a "normal" state. Of course this is highly regressive, because Japan remains a leader precisely because it has the non-nuclear principles and it's not a major exporter of arms to other countries.
But the conservatives are frustrated and dissatisfied with Japan's long subordination to the United States. Japan has a sort of satellite, or client, relationship with Washington. A person like the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, he attracts that wing of the party that is quite dissatisfied, and he transfers his frustration to China. I think this only adds to the complication of [diplomacy] in East Asia. Where China is concerned, I don't see [Japan] acting independently of the United States.
You see the conservatives using every opportunity to exploit fear -- fear of North Korea, fear that Japan might be invaded. Japan has a pretty strong armament capability and large military that is perfectly capable of defending itself. It's inconceivable that a foreign country would invade Japan.
But we're seeing politics here. We're seeing an effort on the part of the conservatives, the LDP, to revise the Constitution. . . . I think calls to elevate the status of the Emperor to head of state are less important than efforts to eliminate Article 9. I would like to see the Imperial Family move out of Tokyo and go back to Kyoto. That would be very positive.
Because it would reduce their roles?
Yes, as long as this Imperial institution exists, it's going to be used. There's no question. It exists now to be used. And the pressure is there.
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone recently proposed (as chairman of an LDP constitutional review subcommittee) declaring the Emperor the head of state. How significant is that, in light of your view in "Hirohito" that the prewar elevation of the Emperor dramatically undermined democratic currents of the day?
In the years that Nakasone was prime minister, late 1982-87, he did many things for which he had to apologize, and he made statements that he had to retract. He was constantly putting his foot in his mouth. Visiting Yasukuni Shrine in his official capacity in 1985 was one such stupid thing. And I think that proposing that the Emperor be elevated to the head of state is another.
Nakasone is also a strong backer of writing a new Basic Education Law. The current one is in tune with the ideals of the peace Constitution. But he and others envision a new type of Constitution that will allow the ruling elites to resume waging war.
Does Nakasone's proposal represent a drift away from democracy?
Well, Japan has a type of formal, talk-down democracy, like in the United States. We see more clearly than ever at the start of the 21st century the shortcomings of this low-level, talk-down form of democracy. If Japan is ever to deepen its democracy, it would have to move away from this.
What significance do you see in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's long-held insistence on visiting Yasukuni Shrine?
That question really goes back to how we define the era in which we're living, because, as I said, the Koizumi Cabinet was born at the start of the 21st century. Not only is the Asia-Pacific War "history," but the Occupation is history, and the postwar period is history. The Cold War is over. The political situation is one of searching for a new threat so as to impose discipline and reorder things.
In this new environment, I think Koizumi's behavior isn't so odd. I think it reflects the fact that the Japanese people remain divided on the meaning of their whole trans-war experience. It reflects the fact that memories of the Asia-Pacific War have evolved: A younger generation with no experience of war has come on the scene, and a minority of influential elites -- overrepresented, of course, in the LDP -- have asserted publicly an affirmative view of the war.
I think the actions of the prime minister and likeminded conservatives in his Cabinet have to be set against this lack of national consensus, but also have to be set in terms of the opportunities the new international configuration of powers offers to change Japan.
To change Japan in what ways?
To change Japan so it is a more active participant in the American project, supporting American hegemony, supporting more actively the United States in its wars, which are now increasingly focused on resources -- on poor, weak nations.
So the visit to Yasukuni Shrine, and the Cabinet's approval of history textbooks that whitewash crimes committed in past wars, these things take on a certain meaning in this context, and it is nonsensical when the prime minister and other ministers insist that foreigners shouldn't criticize their actions, because remembrance of the war dead, and what gets taught in Japanese classrooms, are essentially domestic matters.
But Japanese historical consciousness about the lost war isn't a matter solely for Japanese, and I think the majority of Japanese people sense this and they don't approve of his continuing to insist on visiting Yasukuni Shrine.
I think it's demonstrably untrue that the Japanese people have never changed their views of the last, lost war. But Koizumi's actions allow many Chinese and Korean people, and other peoples in Asia, to have that false view. It's wrong. But the political stance of a ruling class has an enormous influence on how the rest of the world views a country.
Nonetheless, Germany seems to have fared better than Japan in grappling with its wartime past. What must Japan do to put World War II behind it once and for all, and normalize relations with Asian neighbors?
I'm often asked that question, and I think the German elites found it in their national interest to gain the trust of their European neighbors, and to quickly reintegrate into western Europe. Over the last quarter century, I'd say they've done a fairly good job in grappling with their legacy of their war criminality and overcoming the past.
But the circumstances for Japan were entirely different -- always have been different.
During the early years of the Occupation, Japanese intellectuals went much further than their German counterparts in grappling with issues of war responsibility. They did a much better job. It's not appreciated.
But the Pacific had become an American lake after World War II, and U.S. power predominated. And once the U.S. decided to pressure Japan to take sides in the Cold War, and to cut off relations -- both diplomatic and trade ones -- with China and turn its back on Asia, the way the Meiji oligarchs did at the end of the 19th century, once that happened, I think we get this regression, and you get influential persons backtracking in confronting issues of war responsibility. That needs to be pointed out.
But at the same time, I would say that there is no collective, unified "Japan" adhering to erroneous views of the past. Every generation of Japanese has revisited World War II, and will continue to do so.
There will always be people who will deny history. Such people are always going to find -- as they did in Japan, starting in the latter half of the 1950s -- a public space to air their views.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Thursday, June 16, 2005
South Africa's Freedom Charter - 50th anniversary 26 June 2005
On 26 June 1955 the Congress of the People adopted the Freedom Charter. Later that year the government of South Africa responded by arresting a total 156 people. This was almost the entire executive of the African National Congress (ANC), Congress of Democrats, South African Indian Congress, Coloured People's Congress, and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (collectively known as the Congress Alliance.) Police arrested 144 people in raids across South Africa, including Chief Albert Luthuli (president of the ANC) and Nelson Mandela. The following week, another 12 people, including Walter Sisulu, were arrested. In total the police arrested 105 Blacks, 21 Indians, 23 Whites and 7 Coloureds. They were charged with "high treason and a countrywide conspiracy to use violence to overthrow the present government and replace it with a communist state." The punishment for high treason was death.
Fifty years later many of the goals of the Charter have been achieved and many still await their realization by the efforts of new generations of South Africans. It is a moment to celebrate! Looking back before going forward.
_________________________________
The Freedom Charter
Adopted at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, on 26 June 1955
We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:
that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;
And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.
The People Shall Govern!
Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;
All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;
The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;
All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government.
All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!
There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;
All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;
All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;
The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime;
All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.
The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!
The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people;
All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.
The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.
All Shall be Equal Before the Law!
No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;
The courts shall be representative of all the people;
Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;
The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;
All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.
All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!
The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children;
The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law;
All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;
Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.
There Shall be Work and Security!
All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;
Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.
The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!
The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;
All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;
Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.
There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!
All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
Unused housing space to be made available to the people;
Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry;
A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;
Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children;
Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres;
The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state;
Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all:
Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.
There Shall be Peace and Friendship!
South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;
South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;
Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;
The people of the protectorates Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;
The right of all peoples of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation.
Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:
THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY
Fifty years later many of the goals of the Charter have been achieved and many still await their realization by the efforts of new generations of South Africans. It is a moment to celebrate! Looking back before going forward.
_________________________________
The Freedom Charter
Adopted at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, on 26 June 1955
We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:
that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;
And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.
The People Shall Govern!
Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;
All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;
The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;
All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government.
All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!
There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;
All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;
All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;
The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime;
All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.
The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!
The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people;
All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.
The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.
All Shall be Equal Before the Law!
No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;
The courts shall be representative of all the people;
Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;
The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;
All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.
All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!
The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children;
The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law;
All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;
Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.
There Shall be Work and Security!
All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;
Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.
The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!
The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;
All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;
Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.
There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!
All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
Unused housing space to be made available to the people;
Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry;
A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;
Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children;
Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres;
The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state;
Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all:
Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.
There Shall be Peace and Friendship!
South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;
South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;
Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;
The people of the protectorates Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;
The right of all peoples of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation.
Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:
THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
For Nodin upon his 13th birthday
by Vivian Todini
As you move into manhood...
May your courage be in your words and deeds.
May you keep yourself and others whom you love safe.
May your trust be grounded in instinct and self-respect.
May your fierceness be toward injustice.
May your power be strengthened by sharing it with others.
May diplomacy and thoughtful action be your sword.
May your bravery be bold yet not misguided.
May you judge neither yourself nor others harshly.
May patience and gentleness have room in your life.
May you nourish your spirit with song, art and laughter.
May you feed your intellect with curiosity and experiment.
May you embrace your fears with compassion and valor.
May the child within you always be heard.
May your passion always have voice.
May your soul receive the gifts of your passion.
May hope and vision lift the heaviness that sometimes calls.
May you love deeply, honestly and with respect.
May you hold a vision of peace for yourself and the world.
As you move into manhood...
May your courage be in your words and deeds.
May you keep yourself and others whom you love safe.
May your trust be grounded in instinct and self-respect.
May your fierceness be toward injustice.
May your power be strengthened by sharing it with others.
May diplomacy and thoughtful action be your sword.
May your bravery be bold yet not misguided.
May you judge neither yourself nor others harshly.
May patience and gentleness have room in your life.
May you nourish your spirit with song, art and laughter.
May you feed your intellect with curiosity and experiment.
May you embrace your fears with compassion and valor.
May the child within you always be heard.
May your passion always have voice.
May your soul receive the gifts of your passion.
May hope and vision lift the heaviness that sometimes calls.
May you love deeply, honestly and with respect.
May you hold a vision of peace for yourself and the world.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Let them in...
Let them in, Peter,
They are very tired
Give them couches where the angels sleep
And light those fires
Let them wake whole again
To brand new dawns
Fired with the sun
Not wartime's bloody guns
May their peace be deep
Remember where the broken bodies lie
God knows how young they were
To have to die
God knows how young they were to have to die
Give them things they like
Let them make some noise
Give roadhouse bands, not golden harps
To these our boys
And let them love, Peter
‘Cause they’ve had no time
They should have trees and bird songs
And hills to climb
The taste of summer in a ripened pear
And girls sweet as meadow winds
With flowing hair
Tell them how they are missed
And say not to fear
It's gonna be alright
With us down here
Let them in, Peter...
_____________________
Lyrics by John Gorka, adapted from a poem brought home by an American nurse who worked in the Philippines during World War II; beautifully performed by John Gorka and accompanying musicians on his album "the company you keep."
They are very tired
Give them couches where the angels sleep
And light those fires
Let them wake whole again
To brand new dawns
Fired with the sun
Not wartime's bloody guns
May their peace be deep
Remember where the broken bodies lie
God knows how young they were
To have to die
God knows how young they were to have to die
Give them things they like
Let them make some noise
Give roadhouse bands, not golden harps
To these our boys
And let them love, Peter
‘Cause they’ve had no time
They should have trees and bird songs
And hills to climb
The taste of summer in a ripened pear
And girls sweet as meadow winds
With flowing hair
Tell them how they are missed
And say not to fear
It's gonna be alright
With us down here
Let them in, Peter...
_____________________
Lyrics by John Gorka, adapted from a poem brought home by an American nurse who worked in the Philippines during World War II; beautifully performed by John Gorka and accompanying musicians on his album "the company you keep."
Sunday, May 08, 2005
They can not feel your heart break
Father, Mother, forgive them,
for they know not what they do.
They are blinded by their passion,
they are deafened by their fears.
And they cannot feel your heart break,
and they cannot taste your tears.
______________________________________
excerpt from Kyrie by Swanee Hunt,
lyrics in The Witness Cantata by Swanee Hunt
for they know not what they do.
They are blinded by their passion,
they are deafened by their fears.
And they cannot feel your heart break,
and they cannot taste your tears.
______________________________________
excerpt from Kyrie by Swanee Hunt,
lyrics in The Witness Cantata by Swanee Hunt
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold...
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
______________________________
poem by Anna Akhmatova
incorporated as lyrics in
The Witness Cantata by Swanee Hunt
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
______________________________
poem by Anna Akhmatova
incorporated as lyrics in
The Witness Cantata by Swanee Hunt
Saturday, May 07, 2005
I am told you are the goddess of love, fertility, and war...
Dear Inanna:
I am told you are the goddess of love, fertility, and war, fond of the night skies of ancient Babylon. It seems you have been active in recent months. Are you, perhaps, alarmed, aggrieved, and angered by the hordes of American jet planes darting through your beloved desert air?
In photographs from the American run prison at Abu Ghraib I see signs of your vengeful play and, perhaps, the work of your associate Kiskill-lilla (Lilitu/Lilith,) the night demon.
In one picture an American soldier, a young woman, is shown pointing mockingly at the genitals of a naked male prisoner who has been forced to masturbate. She has an eager and wide smile as though she is pointing to a fish she has caught while out with the boys. We are told that she or another young female soldier caught up in the so-called 'prisoner abuse' returned home pregnant soon after the pictures were taken. So we have elements of war, fertility, and sex -- some of the hallmarks of your presence.
I write in hopes that you will be good enough to help me understand how it is that this American woman became an apparently enthusiastic participant in torture.
Before I explore this question I want to make clear that I try to approach such questions with due appreciation that “there but for the grace of goddesses go I.”
Psychologists have found it rather easy to elicit sadistic abuse from otherwise well-behaved middle-class college students who have been set up in situations of fairly unlimited and arbitrary power over other subjects. I don’t assume that I would not, through some combination of a need to conform to the expectations of my comrades and fear of exclusion or retribution, participate to some extent in a norm of abuse.
I do want you to know that sadistic sex play has never held any attraction to me. And, of course, this was not play, but real sadism. It was the exercise of sadistic power in a manner that would have made the worst characters of the Nazi SS proud.
As with the practice of the Nazis, there is in Iraq many of the signs of the dehumanizing “othering” of racism. I am confident that some of the American participants in torture brought a virulent strain of American racism with them to their job of guarding and caring for Arab prisoners.
The women in these pictures have joined the military which is a male institution at its core and which has a central function of organizing violence against people in other countries. These women are taught to kill, but also to follow orders and rules of engagement.
In today’s military culture there is constant questioning about whether the women are “equal” to the job, in other words, whether women belong there doing “a man’s job.” Women feel they have to prove they can “take it and give it out” as well as the men. Also they will earn favors from the powerful men if they “go along” and, perhaps better yet, reinforce the male behavior by doing it one better.
It is reasonable to speculate on the lives of these women before joining the military based on knowledge of the frequency of abusive behavior in American homes, schools, churches, and in dating relationships with men. These abusive female guards at Abu Ghraib may well have experienced physical and emotional abuse in one or more of the institutions and relationships in their lives.
Placed in a position of near total power over Arab prisoners in the late hours of the night, restraints relaxed by instructions, if not direct orders, to ‘soften up’ the prisoners, their emotions heightened by the proximity to “enemy” men who stimulate the fears they may once have felt with the men who abused them earlier, it is a situation perfect for the release of the rage they have held within them. Add to this the social context in which these women must always be careful to please the men who outnumber them and who set the cultural tone and the rules of the military institution and we have a stage set for vicious sadism complete with playful smiles.
Inanna, now I understand.
In this world where abuse remains prevalent we know that that the wounded will all too often turn their rage on the “other.” Revenge was easy on those who do not know how to heal their own wounds and are ready to “give it out” to prove something which can never be proven. Give them digital cameras and stir their rage in the excitement of their officially sanctioned power over other human beings.
While drunk on mortal power these young Americans had no idea what greater powers would envelope them in the desert nights of Babylon.
Inanna, you have taken your revenge and I am sorry for all who have suffered in its making. I wish that soon your desert skies return to peaceful beauty and that human beings leave off hurting the other.
Respectfully yours,
C.D.Knight
July 2004
I am told you are the goddess of love, fertility, and war, fond of the night skies of ancient Babylon. It seems you have been active in recent months. Are you, perhaps, alarmed, aggrieved, and angered by the hordes of American jet planes darting through your beloved desert air?
In photographs from the American run prison at Abu Ghraib I see signs of your vengeful play and, perhaps, the work of your associate Kiskill-lilla (Lilitu/Lilith,) the night demon.
In one picture an American soldier, a young woman, is shown pointing mockingly at the genitals of a naked male prisoner who has been forced to masturbate. She has an eager and wide smile as though she is pointing to a fish she has caught while out with the boys. We are told that she or another young female soldier caught up in the so-called 'prisoner abuse' returned home pregnant soon after the pictures were taken. So we have elements of war, fertility, and sex -- some of the hallmarks of your presence.
I write in hopes that you will be good enough to help me understand how it is that this American woman became an apparently enthusiastic participant in torture.
Before I explore this question I want to make clear that I try to approach such questions with due appreciation that “there but for the grace of goddesses go I.”
Psychologists have found it rather easy to elicit sadistic abuse from otherwise well-behaved middle-class college students who have been set up in situations of fairly unlimited and arbitrary power over other subjects. I don’t assume that I would not, through some combination of a need to conform to the expectations of my comrades and fear of exclusion or retribution, participate to some extent in a norm of abuse.
I do want you to know that sadistic sex play has never held any attraction to me. And, of course, this was not play, but real sadism. It was the exercise of sadistic power in a manner that would have made the worst characters of the Nazi SS proud.
As with the practice of the Nazis, there is in Iraq many of the signs of the dehumanizing “othering” of racism. I am confident that some of the American participants in torture brought a virulent strain of American racism with them to their job of guarding and caring for Arab prisoners.
The women in these pictures have joined the military which is a male institution at its core and which has a central function of organizing violence against people in other countries. These women are taught to kill, but also to follow orders and rules of engagement.
In today’s military culture there is constant questioning about whether the women are “equal” to the job, in other words, whether women belong there doing “a man’s job.” Women feel they have to prove they can “take it and give it out” as well as the men. Also they will earn favors from the powerful men if they “go along” and, perhaps better yet, reinforce the male behavior by doing it one better.
It is reasonable to speculate on the lives of these women before joining the military based on knowledge of the frequency of abusive behavior in American homes, schools, churches, and in dating relationships with men. These abusive female guards at Abu Ghraib may well have experienced physical and emotional abuse in one or more of the institutions and relationships in their lives.
Placed in a position of near total power over Arab prisoners in the late hours of the night, restraints relaxed by instructions, if not direct orders, to ‘soften up’ the prisoners, their emotions heightened by the proximity to “enemy” men who stimulate the fears they may once have felt with the men who abused them earlier, it is a situation perfect for the release of the rage they have held within them. Add to this the social context in which these women must always be careful to please the men who outnumber them and who set the cultural tone and the rules of the military institution and we have a stage set for vicious sadism complete with playful smiles.
Inanna, now I understand.
In this world where abuse remains prevalent we know that that the wounded will all too often turn their rage on the “other.” Revenge was easy on those who do not know how to heal their own wounds and are ready to “give it out” to prove something which can never be proven. Give them digital cameras and stir their rage in the excitement of their officially sanctioned power over other human beings.
While drunk on mortal power these young Americans had no idea what greater powers would envelope them in the desert nights of Babylon.
Inanna, you have taken your revenge and I am sorry for all who have suffered in its making. I wish that soon your desert skies return to peaceful beauty and that human beings leave off hurting the other.
Respectfully yours,
C.D.Knight
July 2004
Monday, May 02, 2005
Last of the outspoken fathers of the bomb
Phil Morrison was an esteemed member of my research advisory board. Phil died April 22nd. Jennet Conant wrote a tribute to Phil which appeared in the Boston Globe. I have copied this below:
Last of the outspoken scientists
Jennet Conant
Boston Globe
28 April 2005
Some deaths mark the end of an era, as with the passing of kings, presidents, and certain beloved pop stars, but seldom do they signal the end of a particular species, the last of their kind.
With the passing of Philip Morrison last Friday, however, so close on the heels of Hans Bethe and Robert Bacher, science has lost the last of the brilliant atomic pioneers who developed the first nuclear bomb, felt the blast of the terrifying test explosion at Trinity, and bore witness to the moral upheaval and unprecedented threat posed by the fiery display of force on that gray New Mexico morning on July 16, 1945.
Forged in the heat of that indelible explosion and the horrifying destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a month later, Morrison, like many of his Los Alamos colleagues, became a leading advocate of international arms control and a vigorous critic of the political and military leaders he had faithfully served.
He belonged to a generation of outspoken citizen scientists who came of age before the nuclear transformation of warfare, the repressive politics of the Cold War, and the reliance of university research laboratories on military funding. The chastening example of Los Alamos's controversial director, J. Robert Oppenheimer -- who was investigated by the FBI for more than a decade before his opposition to the hydrogen bomb led to a humiliating hearing and his security clearance being revoked -- has stood for five decades as a lesson to scientists to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Today it would be regarded as foolhardy for any ambitious young physicist to be an outspoken critic of US nuclear policy. Not surprisingly, few dissenting voices are heard.
Perhaps Morrison's passionate commitment to public life belonged to a time when American scientists' experience of war was not limited to a televised demonstration of shock and awe. Morrison was one of a handful of atomic experts sent to Japan to inspect the damage inflicted by their awesome new weaponry, and he accepted the assignment with the sense that he was completing his "long witness to the entire tragedy," from the bomb's creation to its dreadful execution.
He traveled across the flattened country by train and saw cities large and small left in smoldering ruins by raids of up to 1,000 B-29 bombers. In Hiroshima he saw hundreds of wounded lying along the railway platform and realized that most of them would eventually die from radiation sickness.
"Yet there on the ground, among all those who had cruelly suffered and died, there was not all that much difference between old fire and new," he wrote. "Both ways brought unimaginable inferno." The real difference was less in the nature or scale of the destruction than in the ease of the new kind of war and "the chilling fact" that a single bomb could take out a good-sized city.
Morrison's death, along with that of the other Los Alamos veterans, leaves not only a void but a troubling silence. Scientists have become a quiet, docile lot, and it has been left to the Los Alamos dragons like Morrison to have the temerity to say again and again what they first warned of as far back as August 1945.
"Secrecy will not defend us, for skill and atoms are everywhere," Morrison wrote in Scientific American in August 1995, reaffirming views he held to be as right today as they were at the end of the war. "No defenses are likely to make up for the enormous energy release; it will never be practical to intercept every bomb, and even a few can bring grave disaster. No likely working margin of technical superiority will defend us, either, for even a smaller nuclear force can wreak its intolerable damage."
Morrison remained convinced that the idealistic goal of Oppenheimer and Niels Bohr was still the only viable course of action: a comprehensive international control pact for nuclear weapons. He was not naive about the diplomatic challenges involved in achieving such an agreement, and he resolutely continued to fight an against-the-tide battle for disarmament. "The task is not simple," he wrote, "but was any international goal more important than securing the future against nuclear war?"
Jennet Conant is the author of the forthcoming book "109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation:
Jennet Conant. "Last of the outspoken scientists," Boston Globe, 28 April 2005.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This material is distributed exclusively as an educational service. Inclusion of copyrighted material is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 known as 'fair use' -- for more information visit http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
I urge visitors to this site to use the material herein only within the constraints of Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For citations please use the original source included at the end of each text and do not link to these pages.
I urge you to respect the needs of writers and publishers to receive fair compensation for their services -- most publishers archive this material and provide it in electronic form for a reasonable fee.
Last of the outspoken scientists
Jennet Conant
Boston Globe
28 April 2005
Some deaths mark the end of an era, as with the passing of kings, presidents, and certain beloved pop stars, but seldom do they signal the end of a particular species, the last of their kind.
With the passing of Philip Morrison last Friday, however, so close on the heels of Hans Bethe and Robert Bacher, science has lost the last of the brilliant atomic pioneers who developed the first nuclear bomb, felt the blast of the terrifying test explosion at Trinity, and bore witness to the moral upheaval and unprecedented threat posed by the fiery display of force on that gray New Mexico morning on July 16, 1945.
Forged in the heat of that indelible explosion and the horrifying destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a month later, Morrison, like many of his Los Alamos colleagues, became a leading advocate of international arms control and a vigorous critic of the political and military leaders he had faithfully served.
He belonged to a generation of outspoken citizen scientists who came of age before the nuclear transformation of warfare, the repressive politics of the Cold War, and the reliance of university research laboratories on military funding. The chastening example of Los Alamos's controversial director, J. Robert Oppenheimer -- who was investigated by the FBI for more than a decade before his opposition to the hydrogen bomb led to a humiliating hearing and his security clearance being revoked -- has stood for five decades as a lesson to scientists to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Today it would be regarded as foolhardy for any ambitious young physicist to be an outspoken critic of US nuclear policy. Not surprisingly, few dissenting voices are heard.
Perhaps Morrison's passionate commitment to public life belonged to a time when American scientists' experience of war was not limited to a televised demonstration of shock and awe. Morrison was one of a handful of atomic experts sent to Japan to inspect the damage inflicted by their awesome new weaponry, and he accepted the assignment with the sense that he was completing his "long witness to the entire tragedy," from the bomb's creation to its dreadful execution.
He traveled across the flattened country by train and saw cities large and small left in smoldering ruins by raids of up to 1,000 B-29 bombers. In Hiroshima he saw hundreds of wounded lying along the railway platform and realized that most of them would eventually die from radiation sickness.
"Yet there on the ground, among all those who had cruelly suffered and died, there was not all that much difference between old fire and new," he wrote. "Both ways brought unimaginable inferno." The real difference was less in the nature or scale of the destruction than in the ease of the new kind of war and "the chilling fact" that a single bomb could take out a good-sized city.
Morrison's death, along with that of the other Los Alamos veterans, leaves not only a void but a troubling silence. Scientists have become a quiet, docile lot, and it has been left to the Los Alamos dragons like Morrison to have the temerity to say again and again what they first warned of as far back as August 1945.
"Secrecy will not defend us, for skill and atoms are everywhere," Morrison wrote in Scientific American in August 1995, reaffirming views he held to be as right today as they were at the end of the war. "No defenses are likely to make up for the enormous energy release; it will never be practical to intercept every bomb, and even a few can bring grave disaster. No likely working margin of technical superiority will defend us, either, for even a smaller nuclear force can wreak its intolerable damage."
Morrison remained convinced that the idealistic goal of Oppenheimer and Niels Bohr was still the only viable course of action: a comprehensive international control pact for nuclear weapons. He was not naive about the diplomatic challenges involved in achieving such an agreement, and he resolutely continued to fight an against-the-tide battle for disarmament. "The task is not simple," he wrote, "but was any international goal more important than securing the future against nuclear war?"
Jennet Conant is the author of the forthcoming book "109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Citation:
Jennet Conant. "Last of the outspoken scientists," Boston Globe, 28 April 2005.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This material is distributed exclusively as an educational service. Inclusion of copyrighted material is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 known as 'fair use' -- for more information visit http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
I urge visitors to this site to use the material herein only within the constraints of Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For citations please use the original source included at the end of each text and do not link to these pages.
I urge you to respect the needs of writers and publishers to receive fair compensation for their services -- most publishers archive this material and provide it in electronic form for a reasonable fee.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Am I a fool?
Am I a fool at this late date
To heed a voice that says,
You can be great.
I heard it young, now I hear it again
It says, you can be better than you've ever been.
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In all of the time that I've left to live
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In any of the time I've got left.
I can do more than I thought I could
Work brings more luck than knocking on wood
There's random bad and random good
Work brings more good luck.
You ask the world
And the world says, no
It's the world's refrain
Mine says, go.
You ask the world
And the world says, no
It's an old world refrain
Mine says, go.
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In all of the time that I've left to live
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In any of the time I've got left.
I can do more than I thought I could
Work brings more luck than knocking on wood.
There's random bad and random good
Work brings more good luck.
Better be off
I've got dreams to dream
Though it seems uphill and a little extreme
If I can find hope in this fading light
Then I'll find you on the morningside.
by John Gorka
To heed a voice that says,
You can be great.
I heard it young, now I hear it again
It says, you can be better than you've ever been.
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In all of the time that I've left to live
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In any of the time I've got left.
I can do more than I thought I could
Work brings more luck than knocking on wood
There's random bad and random good
Work brings more good luck.
You ask the world
And the world says, no
It's the world's refrain
Mine says, go.
You ask the world
And the world says, no
It's an old world refrain
Mine says, go.
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In all of the time that I've left to live
Don't want to waste what I have to give
In any of the time I've got left.
I can do more than I thought I could
Work brings more luck than knocking on wood.
There's random bad and random good
Work brings more good luck.
Better be off
I've got dreams to dream
Though it seems uphill and a little extreme
If I can find hope in this fading light
Then I'll find you on the morningside.
by John Gorka
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Nothing without hope, faith, and love
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Solar Plexus - part 1
He awoke in the usual time, somewhere in the dark and quiet hours between 3 and 5 in the morning. It took him a few moments to climb out of the dreaming and realize that the pain was gone; that familiar pain in his belly, approximate to the region known as the solar plexus.
In recent years he had come to know this pain, to acknowledge it. He had learned that it was always there, dull and persistent. For many years he had blocked it from consciousness. But then for some reason he could no longer recall he began to think it important to attend to it -- to, so to say, treat it. Sometimes he sat quietly and breathed into it as he had been taught once by a yoga instructor. He had sought the aid of a hands-on healer who uncovered emotions locked deep in his belly. These were powerful emotions, but they did not surprise him.
And sometimes he imagined a very small rodent gnawing at him, consuming him from within, but with such small and slowly working teeth that he might well not take notice until it was too late, until, well, this wound would grow wide enough to kill him.
As I said he had got to know this pain, to know it as part of his life for some years now. He knew it orgins -- in rage and fear, in sadness and loathing.
These feelings which attended to so many of his waking hours did not derive from some complex of neurotic attachment to old desires and losses. Rather there was immediate cause and accumulating effect.
That cause was the verbal and physical abuse that filled so many of his waking hours. He hated the perpetrators, but judged himself powerless to change the circumstances. Of course, he realized that his position favored the turning of his rage back on himself, hence the self-loathing held in place by fear and sadness that ate away from the inside.
When he awoke in the dark morning hours and realized the pain was gone he also realized that he had made a decision and that his life would change.
In recent years he had come to know this pain, to acknowledge it. He had learned that it was always there, dull and persistent. For many years he had blocked it from consciousness. But then for some reason he could no longer recall he began to think it important to attend to it -- to, so to say, treat it. Sometimes he sat quietly and breathed into it as he had been taught once by a yoga instructor. He had sought the aid of a hands-on healer who uncovered emotions locked deep in his belly. These were powerful emotions, but they did not surprise him.
And sometimes he imagined a very small rodent gnawing at him, consuming him from within, but with such small and slowly working teeth that he might well not take notice until it was too late, until, well, this wound would grow wide enough to kill him.
As I said he had got to know this pain, to know it as part of his life for some years now. He knew it orgins -- in rage and fear, in sadness and loathing.
These feelings which attended to so many of his waking hours did not derive from some complex of neurotic attachment to old desires and losses. Rather there was immediate cause and accumulating effect.
That cause was the verbal and physical abuse that filled so many of his waking hours. He hated the perpetrators, but judged himself powerless to change the circumstances. Of course, he realized that his position favored the turning of his rage back on himself, hence the self-loathing held in place by fear and sadness that ate away from the inside.
When he awoke in the dark morning hours and realized the pain was gone he also realized that he had made a decision and that his life would change.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Regarding the abuses of power and the need to structure their containment
It would be good if the authors of The Liberal Uses of Power in the March 2005 issue of The American Prospect attended more to liberal principles regarding the abuses of power and the need to structure containment of such abuse. I had thought that the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War debacle, and the women’s movement, to name just a few of the major political/cultural experiences of the last half century, had taught liberals about the dangers of unchecked power and reminded them of the need to restrain and hold the use of power to high(er) standards of principle.
The authors admire "realism" in foreign policy while they envision Americans living up to "our highest ideals." Yet this expectation seems highly unrealistic, even absurd, in light of the liberal use of torture by Americans and the killing (so far) of tens of thousands of non-combatant Arabs by the U.S. military in the several wars following 9/11 (many times the number of non-combatant Americans that Muslim jihadists have killed.) If the authors do not understand this from where they sit in the United States, they should know that most of the people across the globe who share their general value-orientation see the contradiction very clearly.
And do the authors really believe that liberal ideals are achieved through the crucible of such warfare?
When force must be used, liberals must be very precise in limiting its scope. Liberals must eschew aggression and aggrandizement, recognizing that state-organized violence always exacts an enormous price from liberal ends.
The capitulation to "what realism demands in the short run" is too broad a stroke and approaches capitulation to the conservative agenda. Liberals should ask themselves what "realism demands" regarding the "forgotten agenda of protecting the global environment and alleviating poverty" (If you don’t know, ask any Republican politician and they will tell you.)
If liberals join conservatives in backing, "as realism demands," more American wars they may as well join conservatives in forgetting that other agenda for another generation or two.
The authors admire "realism" in foreign policy while they envision Americans living up to "our highest ideals." Yet this expectation seems highly unrealistic, even absurd, in light of the liberal use of torture by Americans and the killing (so far) of tens of thousands of non-combatant Arabs by the U.S. military in the several wars following 9/11 (many times the number of non-combatant Americans that Muslim jihadists have killed.) If the authors do not understand this from where they sit in the United States, they should know that most of the people across the globe who share their general value-orientation see the contradiction very clearly.
And do the authors really believe that liberal ideals are achieved through the crucible of such warfare?
When force must be used, liberals must be very precise in limiting its scope. Liberals must eschew aggression and aggrandizement, recognizing that state-organized violence always exacts an enormous price from liberal ends.
The capitulation to "what realism demands in the short run" is too broad a stroke and approaches capitulation to the conservative agenda. Liberals should ask themselves what "realism demands" regarding the "forgotten agenda of protecting the global environment and alleviating poverty" (If you don’t know, ask any Republican politician and they will tell you.)
If liberals join conservatives in backing, "as realism demands," more American wars they may as well join conservatives in forgetting that other agenda for another generation or two.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Some reflections on the Asia tragedy
by Daena Giardella
As I look at the unimaginable images of devastation and loss in the coverage of the Asia earthquake and tsunami, I am grappling with the overwhelming suffering and grief that is engulfing so many people from so many countries. My heart is broken open again and again as I see the agony and shock of the survivors who lost loved ones. The miles of destruction, the piles of rubble that were once homes and thriving communities, the thousands of orphaned children, the stories of terror and heroism leave me speechless, moved, and profoundly saddened. At times, I feel I cannot continue to look, but I also cannot look away. The geologists and earthquake specialists tell us that these occurrences are part of the earth’s history. The scientist in me understands and accepts that. Still, I find myself searching for a deeper meaning behind these cataclysmic events especially in light of the tremendous political, social and worldwide upheaval of recent months/years.
The earth is quaking. It has literally shaken us. Its very rotation has been altered. Like a lumbering giant elephant that has been patiently carrying us on its back while withstanding the indignities of our mistreatment and disrespect, it has finally met our arrogant self-absorption with an unmistakable rumble. It is as if our planet is saying: “Wake up! You are destroying my environment, polluting my atmosphere, defiling my waters, and defying the laws of nature that are essential for a thriving ecosystem. And you are killing each other in acts of brutal violence all over my land. Wake up! Pay attention to the essential necessity of protecting your water sources from contamination. Pay attention to your respiratory systems as they develop epidemic levels of asthma from the toxic additives you release into the air. Pay attention to the fragility of life, the commonality of all humans, and the universal need for compassion.”
We are reminded that with all our technological and industrial advances, we cannot control nature. Despite all our inventions we remain in the dark ages of ignorance in our lack of awareness of global interdependence. We continue to practice the archaic “eye for an eye” revenge that Gandhi reminded us produces only more blindness. All of life originally came from the sea, and now the sea is chasing after us on the land with a vivid reminder of our shared origins. The massive floods in Thailand, Sumatra, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and elsewhere are unparalleled in modern history. The water element represents our unconscious drives as well as our emotions. We are challenged to reckon with these aspects of ourselves as we face the fact that we are tiny specks of matter in an infinite cosmos. Our lives come and go in a blink in the eye of time.
The historic tragedy in Asia has the potential to shake us out of our unconsciousness as we realize that we must rely upon each other if we hope to survive. We have an opportunity to cast off our personal/national conflicts, cynicism, hopelessness, insensitivity, conceit and powerlessness as we observe the democracy of loss that is unfolding in Asia. At least two civil wars have been interrupted by these events of nature. Will they continue to fight for turf as they stand shoulder deep in water? We have an opportunity to exercise our higher intelligence in a way that as been sorely lacking, particularly in light of recent events in Iraq, New York, the Sudan, Beslan, Russia, Rwanda, and in so many other places. Will we finally realize the powerful and inescapable importance of interdependence? I hope so. I believe this is our chance to express our generosity, our caring, our sense of justice and civic duty on a worldwide level. Will we rise to the mission collectively as one world? Will our bonds be lasting or fleeting? The earthquake and tsunami leveled people from every station in life. Floating in the rivers and clogging the streets of the towns are bodies of those who were once wealthy, poor, educated, illiterate, young, old, righteous and criminal. We humans are similarly vulnerable when faced with the forces of nature, no matter who we are or where we come from.
It is not appropriate to try to reframe this disaster with a “higher purpose” spin for the people who have lost family, friends and home. They are consumed with the early stages of a deep personal grief that is unfathomable. They need to focus on bandaging the wounded, disinfecting the water sources, finding makeshift shelter, burying the dead and piecing their lives together. But for those of us who have the luxury of witnessing this reality from a distance, I believe it is a time to call forth everything and anything we can do to help, to make a contribution to the relief effort, to grapple with the deeper planetary lessons that might be hidden in this latest emissary from the mysteries of life. We are not in control. We need each other. We are strong and resilient; and we are fragile and mortal. Life is both transient and constant. We are a bundle of dichotomies and contradictions and we must find a way to live together as we reconcile our shadow selves and our more enlightened awareness. Any one of us might randomly end up as a corpse or a survivor. Because there is no political dimension to this tragedy we have a special opportunity. There is no terrorist group to blame. No country to invade in retaliation. No rogue nation to punish. No war to wage as a supreme act of distraction. No one to call evil. In this event, the face of destruction is nature itself—a powerful reminder that creation and destruction coexist naturally everywhere in the universe. The evolution of matter depends on this ongoing dance. Each of us is engaged in a volatile balancing act of higher reasoning and base instinct when confronted with extreme conditions.
We also have extraordinary potential when we bring consciousness to our thoughts and deeds. Think of the man who had just lost his entire family but who felt compelled to find bowls of rice for a stunned tourist family who had survived. Remember the mother, father, and son who nearly drowned in their boat but who also chose to return again and again in the turbulent sea to rescue dozens of people. The human spirit is awesome in its tenacity, dignity, brilliance, and kindness. The power of love is greater than any force of destruction. My prayer is that a sustainable momentum for worldwide unity, peace, and mutual respect will arise from the immense destruction that is gripping our minds and hearts as we begin 2005 together.
Peace, Daena Giardella
Here are some aid organizations accepting contributions for assistance in their Asia Tsunami Relief efforts:
AmeriCares 800/486-4357 www.americares.org
American Red Cross International Services 800/564-1234, ext 77 www.redcross.org
CARE 800/521-CARE www.care.org
Doctors Without Borders 888-392-0392 www.doctorswithoutborders.org
Oxfam America 800/77-OXFAM www.oxfamamerica.org
Save the Children USA 800/728-3843 www.savethechildren.org
US Fund for UNICEF South Asian Tsunami Relief 800-4-UNICEF www.unicefusa.org
As I look at the unimaginable images of devastation and loss in the coverage of the Asia earthquake and tsunami, I am grappling with the overwhelming suffering and grief that is engulfing so many people from so many countries. My heart is broken open again and again as I see the agony and shock of the survivors who lost loved ones. The miles of destruction, the piles of rubble that were once homes and thriving communities, the thousands of orphaned children, the stories of terror and heroism leave me speechless, moved, and profoundly saddened. At times, I feel I cannot continue to look, but I also cannot look away. The geologists and earthquake specialists tell us that these occurrences are part of the earth’s history. The scientist in me understands and accepts that. Still, I find myself searching for a deeper meaning behind these cataclysmic events especially in light of the tremendous political, social and worldwide upheaval of recent months/years.
The earth is quaking. It has literally shaken us. Its very rotation has been altered. Like a lumbering giant elephant that has been patiently carrying us on its back while withstanding the indignities of our mistreatment and disrespect, it has finally met our arrogant self-absorption with an unmistakable rumble. It is as if our planet is saying: “Wake up! You are destroying my environment, polluting my atmosphere, defiling my waters, and defying the laws of nature that are essential for a thriving ecosystem. And you are killing each other in acts of brutal violence all over my land. Wake up! Pay attention to the essential necessity of protecting your water sources from contamination. Pay attention to your respiratory systems as they develop epidemic levels of asthma from the toxic additives you release into the air. Pay attention to the fragility of life, the commonality of all humans, and the universal need for compassion.”
We are reminded that with all our technological and industrial advances, we cannot control nature. Despite all our inventions we remain in the dark ages of ignorance in our lack of awareness of global interdependence. We continue to practice the archaic “eye for an eye” revenge that Gandhi reminded us produces only more blindness. All of life originally came from the sea, and now the sea is chasing after us on the land with a vivid reminder of our shared origins. The massive floods in Thailand, Sumatra, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and elsewhere are unparalleled in modern history. The water element represents our unconscious drives as well as our emotions. We are challenged to reckon with these aspects of ourselves as we face the fact that we are tiny specks of matter in an infinite cosmos. Our lives come and go in a blink in the eye of time.
The historic tragedy in Asia has the potential to shake us out of our unconsciousness as we realize that we must rely upon each other if we hope to survive. We have an opportunity to cast off our personal/national conflicts, cynicism, hopelessness, insensitivity, conceit and powerlessness as we observe the democracy of loss that is unfolding in Asia. At least two civil wars have been interrupted by these events of nature. Will they continue to fight for turf as they stand shoulder deep in water? We have an opportunity to exercise our higher intelligence in a way that as been sorely lacking, particularly in light of recent events in Iraq, New York, the Sudan, Beslan, Russia, Rwanda, and in so many other places. Will we finally realize the powerful and inescapable importance of interdependence? I hope so. I believe this is our chance to express our generosity, our caring, our sense of justice and civic duty on a worldwide level. Will we rise to the mission collectively as one world? Will our bonds be lasting or fleeting? The earthquake and tsunami leveled people from every station in life. Floating in the rivers and clogging the streets of the towns are bodies of those who were once wealthy, poor, educated, illiterate, young, old, righteous and criminal. We humans are similarly vulnerable when faced with the forces of nature, no matter who we are or where we come from.
It is not appropriate to try to reframe this disaster with a “higher purpose” spin for the people who have lost family, friends and home. They are consumed with the early stages of a deep personal grief that is unfathomable. They need to focus on bandaging the wounded, disinfecting the water sources, finding makeshift shelter, burying the dead and piecing their lives together. But for those of us who have the luxury of witnessing this reality from a distance, I believe it is a time to call forth everything and anything we can do to help, to make a contribution to the relief effort, to grapple with the deeper planetary lessons that might be hidden in this latest emissary from the mysteries of life. We are not in control. We need each other. We are strong and resilient; and we are fragile and mortal. Life is both transient and constant. We are a bundle of dichotomies and contradictions and we must find a way to live together as we reconcile our shadow selves and our more enlightened awareness. Any one of us might randomly end up as a corpse or a survivor. Because there is no political dimension to this tragedy we have a special opportunity. There is no terrorist group to blame. No country to invade in retaliation. No rogue nation to punish. No war to wage as a supreme act of distraction. No one to call evil. In this event, the face of destruction is nature itself—a powerful reminder that creation and destruction coexist naturally everywhere in the universe. The evolution of matter depends on this ongoing dance. Each of us is engaged in a volatile balancing act of higher reasoning and base instinct when confronted with extreme conditions.
We also have extraordinary potential when we bring consciousness to our thoughts and deeds. Think of the man who had just lost his entire family but who felt compelled to find bowls of rice for a stunned tourist family who had survived. Remember the mother, father, and son who nearly drowned in their boat but who also chose to return again and again in the turbulent sea to rescue dozens of people. The human spirit is awesome in its tenacity, dignity, brilliance, and kindness. The power of love is greater than any force of destruction. My prayer is that a sustainable momentum for worldwide unity, peace, and mutual respect will arise from the immense destruction that is gripping our minds and hearts as we begin 2005 together.
Peace, Daena Giardella
Here are some aid organizations accepting contributions for assistance in their Asia Tsunami Relief efforts:
AmeriCares 800/486-4357 www.americares.org
American Red Cross International Services 800/564-1234, ext 77 www.redcross.org
CARE 800/521-CARE www.care.org
Doctors Without Borders 888-392-0392 www.doctorswithoutborders.org
Oxfam America 800/77-OXFAM www.oxfamamerica.org
Save the Children USA 800/728-3843 www.savethechildren.org
US Fund for UNICEF South Asian Tsunami Relief 800-4-UNICEF www.unicefusa.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
