BALANCE of CULTURE

The Apology Resolution to Hawai'i

Although President Obama is probably associated with the state of Hawai'i more than any other politician now, just the other day I was reminded of former President Clinton's 1993 "Apology Resolution."

This joint resolution basically acknowledges and of course apologizes for America's role in the overthrow of the Queen Liliuokalani's monarchy on January 17, 1893.

The joint resolution was extremely welcomed by many politicians and locals alike, but also stirred a lot of controversy when it was adopted. It continues to have a place in judicial discourse as recently as 2009, when the Supreme Court responded to the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement by in essence affirming that the resolution had no legal effect on Hawaii's status as a US state.

I was unaware that apparently every year Hawai'i sovereignty activists gather at the Iolani Palace grounds to voice their desire for more independence from the US.

Nagoya Mayor Denies Nanjing Massacre From His Bubble

In a statement reminiscent of classic genocidal revisionism (a nice word for "denial"), the mayor of Nagoya, Japan, Takashi Kawamura, has sparked rage with both Chinese and non-Chinese citizens alike by stating that he believes the Nanjing Massacre "probably never happened."

Outside the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

This week in Nagoya Kawamura even told visiting Nanjing Communist Party member Liu Zhiwei that Iris Chang's international bestseller The Rape of Nanking is a work of fiction. Not a smart move, considering several high-ranking Japanese officials have repeatedly angered China by this sort of dismissal despite plenty of evidence (just Google "Nanjing Massacre").

I don't think that the majority of the Japanese public actually believes this sort of extremist rhetoric, although I do believe that plenty of people purposely remain ignorant to the historical facts. This is why it's so important that people continue to keep this tragedy in our social discourse as time goes by, as not to have fools like Kawamura direct which way historical documentation takes us. Books like Chang's 1997 (and very non-fiction) The Rape of Nanking and films like The Flowers of War from 2011 are projects that sustain facts above false political or racial agendas.

Sadly, these kinds of denials will only hurt Japan in the short as well as long run. It's too bad that one unenlightened senior is taking the initiative to heighten tensions with Japan's now very formidable neighbor. He must truly live inside a bubble of ignorance to think that his statements were reasonable and safe for him to publicly say.

The Nanjing Massacre was a six-week genocide in the former Chinese capital by Japanese troops, which stormed the city on December 13, 1937 and murdered and raped at least 300,000 men, women and children, though most historians believe the actual number to be much higher.

 

Imbecility Maintenance

If you enjoy laughing (or like being shocked by pure and simple stupidity), check out this quick clip on Iran from Fox News. The dialogue is beyond funny -- starts off with, "Aren't WE the only country allowed to make preemptive strikes? Who the hell does Iran think it is?"

Wow!!!...Excuse me while I wipe away my tears. Since I never watch Fox News, I honestly did not know that the station gets this bad! I mean, I understand they need to keep their viewers hysterical and uneducated for their own purposes, but still!

Burning Korans in Afghanistan

[Update 2/22: The violence continues to escalate.]

As American celebrated a long three-day weekend for Presidents' Day, the US developed quite a messy PR problem in Afghanistan: 2,000 angry local Afghani demonstrators have gathered en masse at the American base, hurling stones and chanting anti-foreigner phrases. And this is all happening because of an extremely shortsighted and utterly stupid mistake made by some of our American troops.

Apparently some US soldiers improperly disposed copies of the Koran (or "Quran") by burning them and then tossing them in the trash. Why they did this is still vague. The local workers who regularly take care of the garbage discovered the remains and reported the findings to outside contacts.

Why would American soldiers screw themselves like this?!

Burning the Koran is an unmistakeable crime in not only Afghanistan but around the Muslim world. This concept isn't so hard to understand. What is difficult to grasp here is why these soldiers would even think this would be a safe thing to do regardless of the reasons behind doing so. Burning an American flag is not something these soldiers would probably like, so why would they choose to burn a holy book while stationed in a nation based upon that text? And how does this reflect upon the entire American presence in the Middle East? Not very positively, that is for sure.

Understandably, General John Allen, head of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has quickly apologized: "When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities. This was NOT intentional in any way."

Too bad the apology has done little to appease the local anger, which is shared among laborers to local Afghan Taliban to NATO's top general in Afghanistan. Surely our soldiers get some kind of cultural/educational training (advice at least?) before being stationed abroad, though whatever they do receive obviously isn't enough (and I've recently seen some footage of interactions between soldiers and local Afghans that would very clearly demonstrate this lacking). They can be against the Koran all they want, but burning a country's holy text within its borders is a weak and senseless act that only downgrades our already contentious and precarious occupation in the Middle East overall.

 

Photo: REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

Korea's Comfort Women choose public art as protest

This sure isn't your typical boring public art…in a bold symbolic gesture this week, a life-size bronze statue named the "Peace Monument" was erected by comfort women protesters in front of the Japanese embassy in central Seoul. Unsurprisingly, it has quickly become a sensation both for ordinary citizens as well as top-level politicians from Korea and Japan.

Japan's spokesman called the statue "extremely regrettable," but South Korean officials have stated they have no intention of forcing citizens to remove the object: "The victims are over 80 years old and passing away, and the government is not in a position to tell them to remove the statue. Rather than insisting on the removal of the statue, the Japanese government should seriously ask itself why these victims have held their weekly rallies for 20 years, never missing a week, and whether it really cannot find a way to restore the honor these woman so earnestly want.”

Yes, it's true these women and their supporters have protested in front of Japan's embassy in Seoul every week since January 8, 1992. Though there have been responses by the Japanese government over the years, no formal reparations have been discussed or offered. And with the many tumultuous changes in Japan's leadership every couple of years, some prime ministers and government officials have unfortunately denied the existence of comfort women, despite an abundance of solid evidence over the decades.

I wonder if Taiwan's recent protest against Japan is a timely coincidence with this brazen statue: though Korea was the main country where Japan obtained most of its 200,000 sex slaves during WWII, Taiwan and the Philippines were also part of the tragedy.

Regardless, President Lee Myung-bak's trip to Tokyo is still on schedule for this weekend. Business will go on as usual, as Korea and Japan have so many economic, political, and social ties now. But no matter what, this issue will always be a testy subject between the two neighbors until something is resolved in a completely public and honest manner.

Most of these women have passed, but there are still 63 alive in Korea today. I hope some of them get to have closure on this issue before it's too late.

EU states asking for financial help from their former African colonies

This is such a fascinating story and I bet the Portuguese colonists in the 1500s never would have fathomed this one coming...

Not only is the Afro-Sino dynamic shifting, but the tides are definitely also changing in terms of the relationship between the EU and Africa: Angola's president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos has offered economic assistance to cash-strapped Portugal.

The crazy thing is, Portugal was once Angola's colonial "master" -- now they're appealing for funds from their former colony.

I think the economic woes of the EU have been well documented the past year or so, but this turn of events sure indicates a new era in international relations. (In 2012 Portugal's economy is expected to contract by 2.8% but its former colony Angola expects its economy to grow by 12%, not an uncommon figure for many African states.)

I also can't help but wonder if Brussels' decision to relax its ban on Angola's TAAG Airlines has anything to do with Angola's humbling new offer directed at the EU.

This is not the first example of ironic relational shifts by any means -- recently some Latin American states were looking to bail out Spain, and Italy may be the new recipient of funds from Ethiopia (yes, the country most people associate with starvation!). Hopefully the mainstream media will report more of these realities, but so far they've done a lukewarm job of it.

What comes around goes around…especially when it comes to colonization -- it just takes a while sometimes.

See more on Angola's colonial history.

Panda's Presence

"Once upon a time, Europe colonised bits of China. Today, China colonises bits of Europe."

Quite a statement, but increasingly true...40% of current Chinese investment in the EU lies in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and eastern Europe, and PM Wen Jiabao plus his entourage have also visited Spain, Portugal and Greece in the last year alone. This piece in the Guardian describes China's growing peripheral EU presence in a way that reminds me of basic continental military strategy, but executed in a more au courant economic sense.

I don't think China is alone in this kind of global expansion (though their presence on the African continent is more noticeable than ever); it's the new way to flourish. Key economic relations are starting to replace military strategies in governments more and more, as it's more cost effective and long term to invest in economic strategy than dump resources into large scale physical conflict.

100 Years of World Cuisine: An artistic perspective on global conflicts

Still a lot of conflicts that are labeled as "ongoing" in this disturbing but useful project: 100 Years of World Cuisine helps us to visualize and understand the context of global carnage.

These alternative types of research and information are important to bring more awareness to plights that are traditionally reserved for the minds of scholars and experts. I also appreciate how the project team (Clara Kayser-Bril, Nicolas Kayser-Bril and Marion Kotlarski) reminds the viewer: "This project remains artistic in scope and does not aim at scientificity. It sheds another light and, perhaps, restores meaning."

While all dates and figures may not fully be agreed upon, and it's pretty impossible to list every single world conflict, this gives a helpful overview of the many issues that still linger today. More description, and how to purchase the poster, can be found at 100 Years of World Cuisine.

Still Scrambling for Africa

Significant developments have occurred in the situations of Libya and Côte d'Ivoire in the last day or so. Unfortunately, I think we can expect more complex conflicts arise as these scenarios move closer to the ultimate circumstances of the African continent.  The "scramble for Africa" is usually correlated with the past but it sure does seem as though we're simply witnessing a current version of it today, doesn't it?

The latest:

--After a week-long siege at his residence in Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo has been arrested.

--Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi has agreed to an African Union peace plan that calls on combatants to lay down their arms and come to the talking table. Rebels are skeptical because the plan fails to call for the ouster of Gaddafi (however, the AU is also known for its support for him).

Curious and naive, plus a free trip to North Korea!

If "permanent attacks from world imperialism" is the main reason why Marxist-Leninist Shmuel Yerushalmi, one of the administrators who established a branch of The Korean Friendship Association in Israel last year, feels solidarity with North Korea's regime, he needs some serious mental clarification.

Yerushalmi states that he doesn't "stand by" the regime's actions, but Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor believes that "This seems a particularly misplaced form of friendship expression."

Hazel Smith, a UK professor who lived in North Korea for two years while working with the UN World Food Program, told The Jerusalem Post: "They are a bunch of individuals who are a mixture of the curious, the naive and those who just want a free trip somewhere."

Most people have no idea what's going on in the world outside of their own bubble, so being curious and trying to get involved in global issues is ultimately a good thing...it's just when such actions are misguided and uninformed that the unfortunate circumstances occur. This particular development (I admit it's rather tiny at the moment considering that North Korea is pretty much buried under the news of other world events) is disheartening because it amateurishly confirms the validity of not only the North Korean government itself (one of the organization's objectives), but also its actions -- despite Yerushalmi's claims to the contrary.

He simply can't have it both ways. Considering his background and platform, he should be able to understand this concept very well.