How All Hatred is self-hatred

How Hatred is always self-hatred

In WW II, different islands in the Pacific saw American soldiers in completely different ways. Okinawa, as well as Iwo Jima, where my Father fought, belonged to Japan. The natives there considered us as demonic enenies, as they had been taught since childhood. Some of them jumped off high cliffs to their deaths onto the rocks on the beach way below them. rather than submit to our conquering forces  Other islands, such as Bali and Guam considered the conquering American soldiers as their blessed saviors. I have visited both islands, Guam on the way to Bali, and did not take time to hear the stories of WWII there. However, in Bali, where I stayed for a month, I was treated very well just being an American. I had flown in there in a jumbo jet being the only American among over 300 Japanese, and at customs was taken to the front of the long line ahead of me surprisingly experiencing a rare privilege of being American on foreign shores. And I was told several stories of how happy they were at being liberated from the Japanese by our soldiers.

Recently, I met a beaming faith-filled woman at an empowerment group, who mentioned she had written a book about Guam. Being a writer myself, I enquired of her the content and purpose of the book. Sherry went on to tell me that in the fifties, a few years ago, her Mother Bernie decided to tell her the story of her Mother’s survival of a Japanese concentration camp on her home island of Guam. Thankfully, Sherry Dixon gave me the book.

“My original purpose in writing Natural Destiny was to honor my mother. However, as I was writing each chapter and sharing them with the members of a monthly writing group I attend, I was astonished to find that many of them knew nothing about how Guamanians suffered during WW II. It was then I realized that this story needed to be told to honor not only my mother but also thousands of Guamanians. In the midst of the greatest adversity a child could know, my mother rose above her dreadful existence. She chose the good over the bad, love over hate, and joy over sadness. In doing so, she found her natural destiny.” P. 5

 

 

Before the war, to celebrate her 8^th birthday, little tomboy Bernie decided to cut her hair, as she liked to play with the boy rather than the girls. Her Nana Beha, here caretaker, (both of her parents died when she was 3) was furious with her, and for “punishment” she had to stay indoors helping until Christmas. This turned out to be a blessing for Bernie, as the Japanese thought she was a little boy. If she had been seen as a girl, she would have been sent to the “comfort house” for the “pleasure” of the soldiers. “The screams and cries from the house each night were torture for all of us, but the worst was for the parents of the little girls…”p.79

Summing up the horror: During the Japanese Occupation, the people of Guam suffered terrible atrocities, including torture, beheadings and rape. P. 195

Besides the haircut, Bernie had a “guardian angel” Grandmother Lilly who took up with her after the bombings. Nana Beha had left her at home alone, and the church, where Nana was supposed to be, was blown away, and Nana was considered a casualty. All of the natives, including Bernie, went to the caves to survive. Grandmother Lilly met her there. They were both locked up together in a concentration camp, where they witnessed and heard many of these horrible tortures.

Grandmother Lilly always had a different more positive ways of looking at things. When Bernie would ask how anybody could be so mean and torture and kill? Then she that one particularly vicious guard had his family completely wiped out by an American bomb – a fisherman decided to join the army and kill as many Americans (Guam was an American protectorate) as he could. Grandmother Lilly answered: “He may think killing gives him satisfaction, but I think it is fueling his hatred more. Even if he was able to kill every American he met, it would not bring back his wife and son. And in the end, he will still be filled with hate. His real enemy is hate, not the Americans.”p.83