At the end of class, the female trustee brought up a point that I definately connected with. She mentioned how it was interesting to see other countries's museums and monuments, especially war museums and monuments. When I was in Hiroshima there were two places I visited that were eye-opening experiences for me.
The first place I went to was the Peace Memorial Museum with special focus on the bombing of Hiroshima. Before going into that musuem, I had been taught that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't actually just a pointless bombing with many many lives lost. I had learned that bombing those two cities actually killed less people than if an invasion followed by a longer-drawn out war would have occured. Though theoretically this may be the case, going through the museum about the bombing made me feel guilty and ashamed as an American even though I individually had nothing to do with it. Then again, I think that's partly how the museum was set up. Going back to what the performance of the monuments was supposed to be, I think the museum was supposed to project the victimized nature of Hiroshima and its citizens in World War 2.
The second place I saw was the Peace Memorial Park. There were huge silver structures with Peace written all over them in all of the languages of the world. The purpose of these monuments were to show how connected the world can be and to urge us all to see that we can live together in peace. As cheesy at this sounds, it was actually a pretty moving experience. A lot of what we talked about Friday was what all of the war memorials said about us as a country; I think the fact that Japan put all this money into a Peace memorial for the world shows what they value as a country.
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Why is it that governments are capable of building these massive structures dedicated to peace and cooperation with one hand, yet with the other hand they begin more wars and wage violence against the people who say peace in one of the ways that they claim to celebrate. Do monuments such as these really say anything or do they just put up a Goffman-esque front of pretending to care about international and intercultural cooperation?
ReplyDeleteI think this insight is interesting. I can imagine it'd be a very eye opening experience visiting other memorials in other countries to compare them to those of the US. I feel like there is always a deliberate plan for how monuments are structured and what they symbolize especially if it is depicting something specific to that country. So I think in a way they put up a front, but at the same time I think it is an important way to connect with the public and whole world for that matter, about these topics in a more aesthetic, easily accessible way.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your questions Joe, I guess I made some assumptions when I really didn't know enough about Japanese history to make those assumptions. However, at the same time, I still think Japan deserves honorable mention for atleast realizing the whoe "PEACE" front is a valuable portray whether or not their history supports it.
ReplyDeleteAnd to respond to Sophie, I agree with you. Even with a front attached, I think that these monuments did serve their purpose of connecting with the world because of the feelings they conveyed when I viewed them....feelings I wouldn't have felt from someone telling me Japan thinks world peace would be nice.