60.

This Saturday, is August 6th, it marks the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII (August, 1945).

As a footnote to anyone that’s interested, there are a series of paintings by the Maruki brothers – two brothers who survived the bomb – depicting images of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki during and after the bombings. These paintings are of particular interest because as the panels progress, one finds that there is no one group being blamed for the bombs. The Maruki brothers have been quoted many as saying times that the Japanese are as much to blame for the bomb as the Americans, and that there are exceptions when it comes to War – all sides are equally to blame for the horrors and atrocities they commit on each other (a prime example is a panel called “DEATH OFAMERICAN PRISONERS OF WAR,” which depicts the torture of innocent American P.O.W.s, and is captioned by a chilling poem that reads in-part ‘But the surviving American prisoners, in fact, were tortured and murdered by their enraged captors, the Japanese. Our hands trembled as we painted the death of American prisoners of war.’) If you have the time or leisure, these paintings are worth further investigation. Most of them are muddy and derivative but a short narrative poem accompanies the paintings. A warning though: some of them a bit graphic. The Hiroshima Panels by the Maruki Brothers can be found here.

They present an interesting and challenging perspective. It’s all too easy to fan the flames of blame in one particular direction, and away from ourselves. In this day-in-age of MAXIMUM security and paranoia, it’s easy to forget the desperate times when the United States has committed horrible acts of terrorism. It’s extremely important to Remember, and remind ourselves that Newton’s law is equally as applicable in the political realm as it is in the physical one – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We tend to forget that we live in a global community, one that is extremely sensitive and delicate, and one in which an equilibrium is difficult to maintain. For the community to function as a commune, every part of the whole needs to remind itself of Newton’s law (if you will), and stop flexing its proverbial muscle. This goes as much for the United States as it does for ANY country, whether it be the Rome of the past, or the North Korea of the present.