DELIBERATE IGNORANCE

Cartoon by Latuff

"To gaze idly at a crime is to commit it."
Jose Marti

YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO KNOW ANYMORE!

'Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse'
African proverb

I am sick and tired of hearing 'I don't know, I didn't know, I don't understand' when it comes to social issues, problems in our world and the miserable state of affairs into which we've plunged it!

I live in Japan (I've lived here for 15 years) and this is one of the most, with the USA, (deliberately) ignorant countries in the world. It's just like with the US, it's always the same crap. It always goes like this: 'The American people didn't know, they were lied to,, they were misled, manipulated by the media, they were deceived, the Congress was lied to…..bla, bla, bla. And this has been going on forever. They never know. Always the same excuse! And the result of their (deliberate) ignorance is about 7 million people killed throughout our world by US foreign policy since 1945. And we who know about the crimes of US foreign policy are always asked to be careful and separate the US government from its people because they don't know what their government has been up to. Well, I've had it with you over there in the US and here in Japan! No more 'I don't know, I didn't know, I don't understand'! No more of that bull shit! You should know! You should have known! WHEN WILL YOU KNOW?! Really?! When do you think it will be a good time to know that outside the G7 the world, your world, our world is burning?! That we have made our beautiful planet sick? That you, the ones always with 'I don't know, I didn't know, I don't understand' on their lips, you the DELIBERATELY ignorant and indifferent ones, that you may be one of the main causes of the misery in our world!

Here I am, in Tokyo, in the 21st century, talking about two of the most technologically advanced, industrialized, materially rich countries in the world and yet so poor when it comes to knowledge, compassion, sense of justice, sense of history, generosity, sense of shame, human warmth. You are pathetic!

I wonder how many more millions of people will have to die in our world, how badly damaged will our beautiful planet have to get for you, the I-don't-know dimwits, to notice at best that there is something wrong, to cause you to actually feel slightly concerned. Don't know my ass!!

WHY DON'T YOU KNOW?! WHY DON'T YOU KNOW?! WHEN WILL YOU KNOW?!
WHEN WILL YOU UNDERSTAND?! WHY DON'T YOU TRY TO FIND OUT?!

If you have enough gray cells that allow you to think enough to say that you don't know (in order to escape responsibility), then logically, since you know that you don't know, you should try to want to know, to learn, do a little research, read, use the Internet, go to libraries, attend lectures, hang out with people who do know instead of morrons like yourself....When was actually the last time when you did try to do any of the above mentioned?

I mean, if you have enough 'brains' to locate the latest MP3, a Louis Vuiton bag, a bargain sale, a cheap airplane ticket on the Internet to Hawaii, Guam, Acapulco...a great Italian restaurant om the other side of town, a great vintage clothes store...if you have enough 'brains' to locate all these, then you should be able, while you (Americans and Japanese) are surfing the net in search of emptiness to fill your empty head and heart, to find out why really America is in Iraq (so far more than 600 000 Iraqis dead), why Japan has supported (again) and taken part in this supreme international crime, why the US, since its inception, has been at war with our world, why Japan, while claiming it loves peace, has supported every criminal adventure undertaken by the US since 1945, why Japan attacked and occupied China, Korea and many other countries in Asia, why so many Asians are still so angry at Japan, why the US is resented by so many people around the world...You could find about all this while you are on the Internet if you cared enough or you could ask your stupid parents, but I guess they 'don't know' either.

When I hear that the Americans, the Japanese are 'peace loving peoples', I actually feel like screaming at you, you hypocrites! After 15 years here in Japan you ain't fooling me no more with your pretense of loving, caring for peace, you hypocrites!

How in the world can you, you Japanese, even pretend to love and care about peace when you have followed and supported the US in each and every of its wars?! Hell, you have economically prospered on your pretense of love for peace. Yes! Your economic prosperity is in big part due to your following blindly, out of greed, the US in its wars of global plunder. But then, of course, you, the 'peace loving' Japanese 'don't know, didn't know, you don't understand' what Uncle Sam, your master, has been up to, just like the American people. Maybe we should ask the Iraqis. I bet they know what is happening to them and who is responsible! You should be ashamed of yourselves! SHAME ON YOU!

There is a joke, of sort, about the American people that says that Americans learn geography through their government's bombings other peoples around the world.

I am not saying that you have to lose sleep over Iraqis, Palestinians, Chechens, Rwandans, the Kurds, the Sudanese, the Korean, Chinese and other Asian women who survived sexual slavery at the hands of Japanese Imperial Army that was liberating Asia, the ozone, the pollution, the 30000 people that die of hunger daily.... but you could at least start caring about the needy at home, in your own countries. You could start with the homeless. But, I guess, you 'didn't know ' about them, either.

It is also interesting that expression that you have on your face when you say that rubbish ' I don't know, I didn't know, I don't understand'. It's as if by saying those (magical to you) words you expect to be granted automatic access to innocence, immunity, absolution, total understanding and exoneration, sympathy, love....

You probably even expect the victims of your government's criminal foreign policy to understand that there was nothing you could do since you 'didn't know' what your democratically elected (by you) government was up to because you were too busy reading Manga, the Davinci Code, Harry Potter, watching baseball, shopping, playing video games, ignoring 'politics' because it's boring. Hell, you were too busy doing your best not to know, not to find out even by accident.

In this age of avalanches of information available to us (in the G7), you have got to really try hard not to know! There is also another look you sometimes have on your face, you know, the one where you lower your eyes or look away in boredom but too coward to say that you are not interested. Or, you just say something like 'Oh! Yeah.... that's terrible....' hoping that those empty words of yours would put an end to the oppressing conversation into which you were dragged from your pathetic, parasitic, dead life. And, trying harder to get you interested in our world, the misery, the injustice in it, would be close to, in your mind, violating your human rights!

Now, I could go on and on and on about your kind, the 'I don't know, I didn't know, I don't understand' specie but I'm afraid I'd be wasting my time, and anyway, the 800 000 dead Rwandans have nothing to do with you. Let's just say that you don't know or didn't know or don't understand because you don't want to. And you don't want to know because you don't care. That's the plain truth. YOU DON'T CARE! You are a despicable person!

'THOSE WHO ACQUIESCE IN A CRIME
ARE EVERY BIT AS GUILTY AS THOSE
WHO ENTHUSIASTICALLY PARTICIPATE'
Endo Shusaku

By 'YOU', as I mentioned earlier, I mean mainly Americans and Japanese because you have been the most numerous ones I've come in contact with during my 15 years in this peace loving country that is Japan. By 'YOU' I also mean the middle class, not only in the US and Japan, but in the G7. The guardian of capitalism.
By 'YOU' I mean the ones who, while I am marching with friends in a protest against war, just stand on the sidewalks and stare, laugh, never thinking of joining us, probably too busy shopping.

By 'YOU' I don't mean the people who already have enough burdens on their shoulders, say, the single mother who can barely make ends meet..

In the movie 'V for Vendetta' the hero asks TV viewers who's to blame for the current miserable state of affairs in our world and he answers them in these words:
'LOOK IN THE MIRROR'.

So, let us all, us in the G7, look in the mirror!

'HUMAN BEINGS ARE ALL MEMBERS OF ONE BODY.
THEY ARE CREATED FROM THE SAME ESSENCE.
WHEN ONE MEMBER IS IN PAIN, THE OTHER CANNOT
REST. IF YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE PAIN OF
OTHERS, YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE CALLED
A HUMAN BEING.'
Mosleh al-Din Saadi Shirazi
(13th century Persian poet, from Shiraz)

Brkic SULEJMAN
21/02/2007