YRWYS. (June 10, 2024)

YRWYS. (June 10, 2024);

 On the last day of Spring Semester, my son came home with homework for recess;

Choose one of SDGs and write a short essay what you can do to achieve the goal.

We discussed and chose 16 “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions”. For the purpose, we watched the following movies.

The Great Dictator (1940)

La vita è bella (1997)

Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001)

 We could have chosen The diary of Anne Frank (1959), but I thought my son was old enough to observe what happened to Anne and her family after they were found.

Kitaro ga mita gyokusai (2007)

 This is a made-for-TV movie, based on a story by Mizuki Shigeru who after the war created many horror manga stories such as GE GE GE NO KITARO. Mizuki was a good for nothing Japanese private soldier sent to Pacific Islands to fight American forces. He lost left arm, but survived.

The events in those movies happened in 1930s and 1940s. I picked high school history textbooks and explained the preceding history that led to the events. The explanation was brief. I doubt if it made sense to my son. It is impossible for me to explain the whole picture. There is a network of causes and outcomes throughout human history that is too complex to grasp.

Now we observe wars around the world and want to solve them. But, as the current problems have causes in events and actions in the past, the actions we take today will have consequences in the future. (You Reap What You Sow.)

Do actions today affect not only the future but also the past? Well, could be. A national hero found guilty for treason against state. The state erases the hero from its history as if he/she has never existed. In 1984 (1949), George Orwell describes actions by the State to alter its history; A treaty with a former enemy country is reached, and there never was a war between the countries, never before, never now, never after in the state’s whole history. This is one of the creepiest episodes in the story, because in such a situation, people are unable to learn from history.

God, grant us the memory to recollect history, the cool head to foresee the future, and warm heart to take right actions to achieve world peace.

The Great Dictator (1940), written and directed by Charles Chaplin.

La vita è bella (1997), written by Vincenzo Cerami and Roberto Benigni, Directed by Roberto Benigni.

Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001), TV Mini Series, written by Kirk Ellis and Melissa Müller, directed by Robert Dornhelm.

Kitaro ga mita gyokusai (2007), based on a story by Shigeru Mizuki, written by Nishioka Takuya, directed by Yanagawa Tsuyoshi.

Orwell, George, 1984 (1949).