2010 Hiroshima Remembers: life is short but memory is long

Having seen the picture of the two survivors of Hiroshima atomic bomb whose face were expressing a bitter feeling and comforting each other in the newspaper, I shared the sadness of those victims with surprise. No matter what exactly my feeling could be, the tear started to seep.

A thousand of survivors joined the ceremony are elderly, children, and relatives of the dead people. But looking at those elderly, their expression is particularly what is in my focus because it is hard to understand how painful they are as victims that had direct experience in place. The bomb may be seen as one of the most severe tragedy triggered by a hand of mankind in the modern history. What I have just been known is that there are several stories associated with damages in Hiroshima and its consequential impacts: job and marriage discrimination against the survivors, and radiation as an exposure of atomic bomb, for instance, remaining untold. It is difficult for those facing such unforgettable experiences to go out there again. Some of survivors losed a numbers of their beloved relatives and properties. Their spirits were also been taken away. Despite getting away from being dead, a lot of survivors got badly injured as a result of radiation. It is too painful for them to recall it.

The 65th commemoration for the worst damages as ever of atomic bomb killing over 140,000 people in the final year of Asia Pacific war of 1945 took place in the western city of Hiroshima as annually usual. However, this is the first time that the US ambassadors was welcomed to be a part of the ceremony. This reflects the close tie between the US and Japanese that has been increasingly stronger over the recent few years in the face of unpredictable threats of North Korea and military enrichment in China. More importantly, the meaningful attendance of U.S. representatives also show a signal of making more effort of the two allies to achieve the nuclear unarmament, the most highly disputable issue in the contemporary world nowadays. Japan as a host of the memorial is careful to ensure the encouragement of the forward-looking approaches representing the mutual commitments of the two powerful countries to the abolition of the nuclear weapon.

Currently, a lot of victims and their descendant relatives are more likely to hold no hatred on the country that launch the bomb to their city, the US, and then left innocent people suffered physically and mentally, because they believe that the things like this would never happen again. To me, peacekeeping processes should be driven collectively by influential nations. Significant cooperation between them will strengthen ongoing mechanism of combating the nuclear problems. 

Hirishima commemoration is the symbol of most apparent nuclear impact that has ever happened in our world. For the survivors' point of views, nothing seem to compensate their resulting pain. For the sake of our generation, the absence of the nuclear piling up should be actualized. How could those nuclear creators who has never experienced any lost caused by nuclear destruction realize how valuable to have a peaceful world? We are being challenged to solve this question.

General overview of Thai politics

       Force of globalization leading to the worldwide revolution of information makes the world more converged. What happens in one particular region can have a wider impact on another one. Now we are all living in the century of liberalization and mutual prosperity. Pattern of national interests among countries has become more harmonized. Accordingly, substantial changes within one specific country have rarely occurred. This implies that the problem about political instability within each member state of the globe has reduced considerably. In one’s lifetime, it is not many times that he could experience the significant political incidents; especially, in the country where is perceived as a peace-loving country like Thailand. Looking back at her history of international politics, we will find that Thailand would compromise conflicts and learn to peacefully deal with any desperate situation rather than choose to implement some decisive actions in the face of external invasion. Thais also became more united, at least for a while, when they felt threatened by the outside countries. The establishment of the Seri-Thai movement is a prominent example that the two extremely different doctrines dominating a country in the reign of Asia Pacific War aimed at the same objective, national survival.

       However, once we felt confident in the security of a national sovereignty, the anxiety in the political conflicts started to pile up again. In Thailand, military and politics are hard to depart from each other. Thai army has taken a position in the political arena for a number of decades. After the year of democratic evolution 1932 C.E., Thais still has never acquired a full democracy and most of the times have had military government, while in some period of time we have had constitution created under the military regime. The conservative idea of nationalism has influenced the thought of most Thai leaders for long time. This factor helped strengthen elite-led organization and deter development of democracy in Thailand. Even though various forms of movements for democracy many times could challenge military power, elite-centered governments always got away from being unseated with patriotism-based excuse, protection of royalty from hostility, for instance. With no surprise, they often try to make accusations of royal hostility, communism, or terrorism toward those demonstrators who just want democratically-elected government. The development of Thai democracy has always been kept undermined. The weakness and instability of democratic government means the strength of right-swing bureaucratic. Gaining very huge numbers of votes does not indicate the legitimacy to administrate the country because the right-swing would always overthrow the game and accusation of cheating it would be given to those election-winning parties. This is how the actors behind constitutional scene simply seize up a power of state.

       Prior to the phenomenon of red-shirt, the people have been led to believe that social class discrimination does not exist in Thailand, accepting patronage. The degree of desperation of people is not so high that some source of evolution would be required. Thais were hardly aware of the need to make a change. The nature of Thai values and cultures prevents people from feeling unequal and it is therefore hard for them to have the democratic consciousness. This can be better explained by the structure of Thai society rather than by political matters alone. It is known that the number of middle class people as a supportive factor of growth in a country indicates a level of development. However, increasing white-collar job in a developing country like Thailand, where most people have to struggle to maintain their sufficiently high standard of living, does not imply an expected enhancement of equality in the country. The grass-root people in Thailand have had only little say, while the middle class in Thailand has not found hardship of the poor relevant to them. This circumstance has even worsened inequality problem in the country and has been a part of the troubles happening in Thai politics.

       It was not until there was newly-emerged party, TRT, which came up with fantastic promises, that the grass-root people felt full of hope. For over 6 years of Mr.Thaksin Shinawatra’s administration, Thai former prime minister, there had been evidence of economic improvement, together with signs of social equality throughout the country. They realized that right and freedom is valuable enough to have a protection from being taken away. Democracy movement in Thailand became stronger after the event in September 2006, the coup in the 21st century. What they question is that if democracy is something that people around the world will fight for, then how could we argue for it to be eliminated? The discussion on right and freedom of the Thais under constitution has intensified. This originated the red-shirt movement. What we have seen is that it is throughout last 4 years that they have had a chance to study democratic politics more intensely than ever. Although bloody incident occurred many times, their fight is still ongoing nowadays as long as the current Thai political establishment keep talking about the reconciliation but in fact attacking its political rivals unfairly and limiting the citizens’ rights in many ways.