DouG COLLINS ° get this straight © “ THE SHELL of the Board of frade building in Hiroshima is familiar the world over. Its skeleton dominated the first Pictures flashed to the five continents in August, 1945, when *‘Litdle Boy’’ flattened a great part of the city. It stiil stands today, preserved in the name of peace. The Japanese have made it a tourist attraction, together with the Peace Memorial Park that covers much of the area levelled by the bomb. **Peace,”’ in fact, is the domi- nant theme. Hiroshima calls itself “The city of international peace and culture.’’ There is a ‘‘Peace Memorial Museum,’’ a ‘‘Peace Memorial Hall,’’ a ‘‘Peace Boule- vard,”’ a ‘Peace Bridge,”* and so on. And the discreet message to Westerners is ‘Look what you did T he person atomized by a ‘Little Boy’ is no more dead than the soldier blown apart by a shell, and the horrible wounds resulting from an atomic explosion are no more horrible than those of the man gassed in trench warfare or fried in a burning tank.”? to us.’’ In short, they are laying the guilt on. That is something easily ac- cepted by many who are too young to remember the war in Asia and its bitter consequences, or who started it. When former Mayor Mike Harcourt of Vancouver visited Hiroshima last year for the First World Conference for Peace through Inter-city Solidarity, for instance, he uttered all the right sounds. The ridiculous ‘‘nuclear-free zones’’ here on the North Shore and elsewhere are also not uncon- nected with misplaced guilt. That is not to say that a visit to those shrines of remembrance is not affecting. Ho-v could it be dtherwise when about 130,000 people disappeared in a trice, and the eventual death toll was 200,000? Yet it is worth bearing in TEA ROOM INTERNATIONAL CRAFT MARKET November 6,11- 4pm Masonic Halli 17th & Bellevue Ave., West Van For more information 263-2363 mind that more died in Dresden and in the Japanese rape of Nank- ing without the world taking that much notice. It is war itself that is wrong, not so much the means of destruction. The person atomized by a ‘‘Little Boy" is no more dead than the soldier blown apart by a shell, and the horrible wounds resulting from an atomic explosion are no more horrible than those of the man gassed in trench warfare or fried in a burning tank. If you think there isa difference, read Robert Owen’s great poem Dulce et decorum est.... It is over 43 years since catas- trophe called en Hiroshima, but one :till wonders at the way the Japanese picked up the pieces and won the peace. From View Park, which is set on one of the hills that dominate the city, it is as if nothing ever hap- pened. But of course nearly everything is new. Even ancient Sukkelen Park is new, it having been restored. So today it is once again a wonder of subtle Japanese beauty. In 1945, though, only one of its trees survived the blast. The locals point to it with pride. In one way the ‘‘peace’’ theme stands up. One encounters not a jot of hostility. On the contrary. In the Peace Memorial Park there is a mound containing the ashes of 70,000 people who were killed by the bomb. Nearby, there is a large gong that can be struck ‘tin memory” by a heavy shaft suspended from a chain. Its ; mournful reverberations are heard constantly. I gave it a bang, and heard a loud cheer behind me. It was a group of Japanese university stu- dents, all dressed in freshly pressed white shirts and black pants and shoes and all laughing. Perhaps they were cheering my funny safari hat and shorts. I gave them a little bow and they clapped and laughed some more. It is a cliche, but nevertheless true, to say that the Japanese are clean, neat, polite and dis«iplined. The discipline explains their suc- cess, and the other qualities are a pleasure to see. I never saw a scruffy person in Hiroshin‘a or Kobe, the two cities we visited. Nearly everyone wears business clothes, and the police wear white gloves! Since the Japanese are human, like the rest of us, there must be some bums in the country, but we didn’t see any @ FACE PAINTING tone gue 9 — Friday, November 4, 1988 - North Shore News Paraplegic Xmas appeal begins THE SIXTH annual Paraplegic Christmas Appeal is on. The B.C. Paraplegic Foundation is going door- to-door selling a calendar designed by North Shore artist Royal Plant. Cartoon character I.M. Tuffer, featured throughout the calendar, is also the centrefold for a coloring contest. 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