Unforgettable Fire

In 1974, an elderly man (Iwakichi Kobayashi) walked into the Japan Broadcasting Corporation with a painting entitled "At About 4 P.M., Aug. 6, 1945, Near Yorozuyo Bridge". It was a painting of an indelible image in his memory -he wanted it to live on: seeing burn victims from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The television station put a call out for drawings and paintings by any survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Survivors are known as hibakusha. I think this is the most effective collection of a people's history that I have seen. I am affected by the simplistic translations of the text, the varying quality of the artwork, and knowing that people can still vividly recall these images. Of all the images that I have seen I've noticed the following traumatic images recur frequently: dead children, insects in wounds, melted skin dripping off of fingers, and dead bodies in water (cisterns and rivers) from people trying to cool down.

Mother unable to save her child trapped under the buildingIf she were alive now, she would be a woman of 35 or 36. “Hiroko, don't give up, be strong. Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu.” Hiroko... Only her head stuck out from under the fallen ceiling. A girl of 5 or 6.
Shigeru Miyoshi
(40 at time of bombing, 70 at time of drawing)

Two little girls fanned their seriously wounded motherTwo little girls, one about five and the other about three fanned their seriously wounded mother.
Hiroshi Shindo (33 at time of bombing, 64 at time of drawing)

How old should a child be before they are shown these images? They would undoubtedly be traumatic before they developed the adult ability to desensitize. Worthy trauma? When I was a child I remember Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes being read to us. I knew Sadako had died in the hospital and that pushed history further away, the past was another world. Does remembering help? Some Japanese don't want to reveal that they are hibakusha for fear of discrimination or misunderstanding.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, bless their utopian souls, are a tragic bunch. They collect memories with a goal: to prevent this from happening again. A realist can barely resist telling them that their paper cranes, labyrinthine website, and declarations will not stop future nuclear wars. Still, they collect and preserve. A book was published that contained a series of hibakusha artwork. It's called "Unforgettable Fire: Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors". I'm trying to find a copy of the book but I was shocked to find Chapters/Indigo doesn't sell it, my city's library system doesn't have it, and Toronto's massive web of libraries has one copy that you have to request to look at (but it must stay in the library). It looks like I'm going to make my first Amazon.com purchase.

U2, inspired by the Unforgettable Fire exhibit at the Chicago Peace Museum, took the same title for their album -making it difficult to google. So, here are some online Sources:
Floating Lantern: Hiroshima Speaks Out
Hiroshima Peace Site

The Furthest Fall: Candidate 1: Robespierre

Maximilien Robespierre, 'the Incorruptible', may be the finest name to come out of the French Revolution. He is my first candidate for History's Furthest Fall (theme music plays).

The Rise
In 1789 the French Revolution changed the political face of Europe. In France, a popular uprising, led by relatively young and wealthy professionals (lawyers like Robespierre) demanded a voice in politics. They drew support from the general discontent in the country -overtaxed peasants and dissatisfied aristocrats. They tried to compromise with their King and force him to sign a constitution to limit his powers. But King Louis the 16th dragged his feet and plotted against them.

Along came voices like Robespierre. He sat at the back of the newly formed Assembly. The King was virtually imprisoned as they debated his fate. Robespierre was to deliver some of the most fiery and uncompromising speeches.

"Louis must die, so that the country may live."
-Robespierre

The vote was taken. 361 FOR 288 AGAINST with 72 voting for a delay of the issue. This was the new democracy. They chopped off the king's head. Then his children's heads. Then his wife's (Marie Antoinette). As you can imagine this did not go over well in Europe. Every monarch was pissed and a little frightened by what had happened in France. War began.

(picture: A terrifying Antoinette costume. Too soon?)

The King was dead but you can tell by the close vote that not everyone was on board with the decision. Radicals like Robespierre feared the threat of a counterrevolution to impose a new monarch in France. The Committee for Public Safety was formed and an era of the revolution known as 'the Terror' began. Heads rolled. Robespierre rode highest on the wave. It's difficult to gauge Maximilien's actual involvement with the Committee because other politicians would heap the blame on him -after his death. Yet it's easy to see, from his fiery speeches, that he felt violence was a necessary part of the revolution.

Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.
-Robespierre

The Fall

Perhaps the turning point was when Robespierre turned on Georges Danton for being too moderate. Danton was also an exceptional speaker who had accepted violence as part of the revolution. But then he thought it had gone too far. Robespierre's influence was tied to the power held by the Committee. He branded Danton a counterrevolutionary. Heads rolled. (picture: Gerard Depardieu as Danton. Good looks will not save you.) Eventually the Assembly, now the National Convention, tired of the violence and of Robespierre's passionate speeches. They called for his arrest but he and his closest supporters escaped. As the government forces entered the Hotel de Ville Robespierre tried to kill himself. But the bullet only destroyed his jaw. He was captured, put in jail, and guillotined the next day. They had to pull the bandages off of his face so his head would fit into the hole. Several sources say he let out a long chilling scream that was cut off by the dropping blade.

During the seizure Robespierre was shot in the jaw, probably in a botched suicide, and then led to the guillotine with bandages around his head. The bandages blocked his head from fitting into the execution machine, so they were ripped off. The head went into its stock. The blade was raised for its fall. Robespierre began to scream, a terrible, unforgettable cry that was to live in nightmares until it suddenly stopped.

-Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France.

Maximilien Robespierre
The man who had called for the death of France's King is eventually killed by the very methods he had championed to purify the revolution.

Furthermore:
When shit went down at the Hotel de Ville on 9 Thermidor (the 9th of some French Revolution month. They were even revolutionating their calendars.) some dude claimed that he heroically shot Robespierre in the face. The painter who crafted this blasterpiece clearly liked that version.

Not pictured here: Augustin Robespierre (brother).
When Max was arrested Aug said: "I am as guilty as him; I share his virtues, I want to share his fate. I ask also to be charged" Later, he tried to escape the shootout by jumping out of the window. He broke both of his legs and they guillotined him the next morning with his brother. There's no such thing as a peaceful revolution. I've always thought that Robespierre seems less crazy when I found out what they did to him.