I wonder why the human race wasn’t reduced to ashes a long time ago. We are so ferocious, so incapable of forgiving; we are mad dogs with an elephant’s memory.
What if the US had decided to place hundreds of nuclear bombs wherever there were conflicts… What would be left? The US? What’s the use of subjugating people that way, if there will be no people left after the attack? No people, no plants, no animals, except for a bunch of cockroaches and indelible pictures of those who stood before the walls. Were YOU fighting to keep the cockroaches?
I despise patriotism. It’s such a harmful idea, that of thinking it’s a good deed to protect a spoonful of earth which represents this idea, and this idea, and this idea… Politicians fight for their ever-so-abstract ideals, for the stupid piece of earth they fell on when they were dropped from a womb, thinking it’s worthy enough to die for it. Too bad they’re NOT the ones who end up dying.
People used to say Japanese soldiers in the Pacific War were so loyal to the Emperor, their last words were dedicated to him.
Minori told me the story of a soldier who was about to die in the field. The last words he uttered were “Okasan, okasan…”
(“Mother, mother…”)