#142 The legacy of World War Two

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2015.03.31 Tuesday

#142 The legacy of World War Two

こんにちは！

明日から4月ですね

特に環境が変わる訳ではないのですが、4月は何だか新しい
気持ちになります♪

WILLでも、この春から英会話をスタートされる方もいらっしゃいます。
何かにチャレンジするには絶好の季節ですね

"The legacy of World War Two"

We received a lot of legacies, which were positive and negative.

The most important positive legacy is the expansion of liberal thinking in many countries.

It is certainly favorable for us to construct the United Nations. The biggest point is that we have come to state officially that the situation of abusing human rights ought to be remedied. Now it has various problems, but there is a big difference between its existence and non-existence.

The worst negative legacy is that we created some, not scarce, new conflicts.

In the context of Asia, we, Japanese have some serious post-war responsibilities different from war responsibility to other Asian countries and Asian people. Especially the ex-comfort women and the Nanjing Massacre have remained important problems and currently we might not think that we could solve them.

We ought not to wait for miracles and we must do our best to solve these problems.

教師より
At secondary school level in Britain (from the age of 12 to 16) history is dominated by the study of the two world wars. The evil of the Nazis, and that we shouldn't permit such atrocities again, is drilled into us.

WWⅡ marked what many consider Britain's finest hour, but also the beginning of the end of Britain's greatness. I also agree that, for all their faults, the UN and the Bretton Woods system which were born out of the War (certainly in the UK WWⅡ is often referred to as 'The War') have done a great deal of good.

What actually surprises me more is the lack of legacy.

In the Treaty of Versailles you can see the seeds of the Second World War. Yet after WWⅡ you don't see old enemies holding grudges. My grandmother lived through the war in Liverpool, which was heavily bombed, as my grandfather was working there. A friend of hers, who gave me my first cricket bat, was a prisoner of the Japanese. Neither have ever said a bad word that I've heard about the 'enemy'.

Likewise in Japan, in Hiroshima of all places, you would almost never know that within living memory the war had taken place.