I recently posted an article about Iris Chang's book, The Rap of Nanking
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art30985.asp.
Not more than 24 hours since that article has gone live, I've received some negative comments that I find disheartening. I invite those people who do not agree with Iris Chang's book to step forward and state why.
But I do want to reiterate, I spent a great deal of time in that review to NOT talk about the whole political scene for a very specific reason. Whether or not I agree with the facts of how many were killed, when were they killed, and whatever other arguments people want to put forward, the one fact still remains -- war is violent and generates gruesome events. And the events that occurred during this period were particularly terrible, around the world.
Period.
I'm angered that people want to simply use this, for either side of the argument, to say one country is bad or worse than the other. Maybe I'm naive in my thinking, but reading that book I felt the message Ms. Chang presented was that it wasn't JUST one nation or another. It was a whole series of event over a length of time that has created this nexus. All nations were involved, all people.
If anything, as a Chinese-American like Ms. Chang, I found her book to actually quiet some of my previous anger towards the incident. I heard the stories like Ms. Chang and it angered me to know the cruelty of the Japanese at this time. Reading the book actually made me pull back and realize that cruelty wasn't just a nation. It was more than that, it was many events that lead up to this.
My take away from this book is to be cautious. To realize this can happen again, in a blink of an eye. It has happened in many forms throughout history. That if we become so desensitized and forget just how cruel we as humans can be, we will repeat this. Again and again.
So for all those dissenters out there who want to bash at the late Ms. Iris Chang, who want to say how wrong she is and how much propaganda is in her words, please go ahead and do so.
But don't try to bury the message that humans are capable of extreme cruelty and we need to be careful not to let it happen again.
