human
Reading an article about imperial Japan, leading up to World War II. There's a line in it that struck me as especially true.
Like soldiers everywhere, they were taught to hate a dehumanized enemy.
No human should be dehumanised though. Hate them if you want, but respect their right to do as they wish.
A Mouse: A Japanese poem advocating pacifism, that managed to pass the censors.
Throwing away his life
as if he were a cardboard statue,
one mouse
marched out into a busy street
and was squashed.
Many wheels rolled over the mouse
and ironed him out flat,
spreading him thinner and thinner on the pavement.
Soon he was unrecognizable as
a mouse.
as an animal,
even as something that had died.
One day someone crossed the street
and saw a flattened object
battered and warped in the sunlight.
Like soldiers everywhere, they were taught to hate a dehumanized enemy.
No human should be dehumanised though. Hate them if you want, but respect their right to do as they wish.
A Mouse: A Japanese poem advocating pacifism, that managed to pass the censors.
Throwing away his life
as if he were a cardboard statue,
one mouse
marched out into a busy street
and was squashed.
Many wheels rolled over the mouse
and ironed him out flat,
spreading him thinner and thinner on the pavement.
Soon he was unrecognizable as
a mouse.
as an animal,
even as something that had died.
One day someone crossed the street
and saw a flattened object
battered and warped in the sunlight.
Labels: excerpts, exchange, law and the american empire, school, war
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