Nuclear Weapons : The Peaceboat and Nuclear Weapons - Report on Nanjing

Beep. Beep. I awoke. Tired and drained. It was early; in Scotland we refer to this time as the morn too early to be fully morning. Showered, dressed, coffee, drank, tired souls collected on the way to departure. A very busy Zheng Fei arranging and distributing bodies to taxis.

Taxi ride across Shanghai bringing me to full consciousness, a near death experience does much to re-alert tired synapses. Much more effective than any espresso.

A train station chaotic and alive with people, Nagasaki school children clutched close and continually counted. Ich, nee, sun, shi, go.

Arriving in Nanjing I was expecting a small country town but a vast metropolis greeted us. Saturated in rain we waited while a frantic Fei gathered taxis and buses. Clothes shared to keep off the rain, Nagasaki school children in oversized clothes, westerners in Asian shawls. We must have looked a very odd fellowship.

Wet, tired and solemnly we descended upon the Nanjing museum. It seemed fitting this way. Its concrete grounds offered us little solace. Paired up in futile attempt to keep the out the rain we trudged through the grounds in quiet awe. I knew little of this places’ past but could sense the foreboding weight of history and desperation.

Huddled in an enclave like a shrine, the histories of these grounds were explained. The devastation and disgrace of the Japanese massacre of Chinese civilians. The descent into depravity and inhumanity of their acts pressed upon us. Each of us shared their opinions of the scene, I had little to say. Feeling guilty for my ignorance. I was shocked at the descriptions of Japanese text books who seek to bury and hide the atrocities committed here.

Zheng Fei nobly explained his pride at our group’s presence here, particularly those Japanese on a pilgrimage to the truth that rest here.

As we moved on to the exhibition I felt disgust at the bones of the slaughtered laid bare behind Perspex glass within the touch of my hand. I am mot sure if this disgust was at the events that happened here, the rapes, the torture, the beheading and mutilation of children, the contempt shown for human life. Or is my disgust at the parading of the bones. Why cannot these souls be laid to rest. Do I need to see their remains to know of their suffering?

In a wet procession we moved inside the museum, further displays further displays catalogued the actions of the Japanese soldiers. Nanjing was not an isolated case; bloody carnage had befallen all around these lands. Photographs of the war and atrocities hung from every wall in this dark quiet place. A hall of memories and suffering. In one room hung a great painting, the covering the whole of its one vast side, depicting the conflict. The Chinese people fighting with farm tools and hands against the machines of the Japanese army. This picture showed something all the photographs and documents around it could not.

No time for contemplation our visit was ending, ushered out into taxis and away. Empty and discontent.

I had little time to take in to take in facts and history but I did absorb the feelings and weight of pain caged within these soils. We were walking on the remains of humans slaughtered, tortured and raped by other human beings in the name of war. It leaves a sense of despair that you can almost taste in your mouth and heart.

The schoolchildren that accompanied us went in tired and wet, came out with adult expressions of guilt and sadness, tears and anger. This oddly gives me hope, their hope and strength is tangible. One of them commented ‘I will tell people of this, it will never happen again’

A rain soaked concrete memorial in China does not seem enough to do justice to these fallen memories. Education and textbooks in Japan and the world must be changed to honour these people and their suffering. Today was hard and it had little to do with the rain and fatigue. What I learnt today could not be learnt in any text book but it would be a start.

Iain Naughton

Learn more about the Peace Boat and their 'Steps to Nuclear Disarmament' at:
http://www.peaceboat.org/english/nwps/sm/arc/050829/index.html

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