In the intro, this show refers to the Public Radio Collaboration produced in 2005 and tell listeners that all this week, public radio is looking at the affects of globalization. This is really not an evergreen program
This hour, under Soundprint auspices (with intros to each half hour) is about people haunting and being haunted; about seeking, offering, avoiding apology; about ways in which war subverts the human heart and about how the spirit struggles to survive. The Korean Sharing House brings us into a Buddhist charity’s home for former “comfort woman” -- those stolen by the Japanese to service the troops. Brutal details provided by academics and the voices of surviving grandmothers, the term the women prefer, will linger long in my mind. That some of these once young virgins, given numbers and treated like “pieces of military supplies,” sometimes tortured beyond the torture of daily rape by scores of men, can be heard singing and laughing is a miracle of spirit. The second half hour portrays veterans of Holland’s ugly “police actions” in Indonesia. Undeclared war still feels like war to those involved and in this piece we hear from men who uncomfortably followed orders and are now unhappily followed by their memories. Academics offer historical context and we hear excerpts from a Queen Beatrix speech in which she awkwardly acknowledges Indonesia’s suffering without in any way owning the brutality of Holland’s colonial violence. There is much that resonates in this country, in this time. Such fine journalism touches the heart and prods the mind.
Comments for War and Forgiveness
Produced by Judith Kampfner, Dheera Sujan
Other pieces by Soundprint
Rating Summary
2 comments
Abby Goldstein
Posted on May 13, 2009 at 11:32 AM | Permalink
This show has dated material
In the intro, this show refers to the Public Radio Collaboration produced in 2005 and tell listeners that all this week, public radio is looking at the affects of globalization. This is really not an evergreen program
Sydney Lewis
Posted on May 03, 2005 at 01:11 PM | Permalink
Review of War and Forgiveness
This hour, under Soundprint auspices (with intros to each half hour) is about people haunting and being haunted; about seeking, offering, avoiding apology; about ways in which war subverts the human heart and about how the spirit struggles to survive. The Korean Sharing House brings us into a Buddhist charity’s home for former “comfort woman” -- those stolen by the Japanese to service the troops. Brutal details provided by academics and the voices of surviving grandmothers, the term the women prefer, will linger long in my mind. That some of these once young virgins, given numbers and treated like “pieces of military supplies,” sometimes tortured beyond the torture of daily rape by scores of men, can be heard singing and laughing is a miracle of spirit. The second half hour portrays veterans of Holland’s ugly “police actions” in Indonesia. Undeclared war still feels like war to those involved and in this piece we hear from men who uncomfortably followed orders and are now unhappily followed by their memories. Academics offer historical context and we hear excerpts from a Queen Beatrix speech in which she awkwardly acknowledges Indonesia’s suffering without in any way owning the brutality of Holland’s colonial violence. There is much that resonates in this country, in this time. Such fine journalism touches the heart and prods the mind.