The big country across the straits...

So far yet so near...

A container ship passes an outlying island…

Host: Look through the binoculars. Mostly Maersk. Heading for Naha I would think.

Guest: Paradise. The garden below, merging into the sea faraway... 

Host: Yes. Nice. But it might not be forever.

Guest: Geopolitics?

Host: Yes. It’s a worry. The big country over there.

Guest: Where would you go if an invasion looked likely?

Host: There’s no way to protect anyone on the island. Sell up for what we could get. Early. Then head back to the mainland.

_________

Voice-over

There is little protection against a big power taking over an island. They can do it with soft power like capital and providing infrastructure. When that doesn’t work, they might fall back on deployment of military materiel. And in a world of burgeoning populations, drum-thumping idealism, egotistical leaders, shrinking resources, finite land area we should expect more attacks. Diplomacy might delay action, but that is a game of carrot and stick.

Helping a crisis from afar

Watching the invasion news…

Sofiya: Outrageous. Villainous. Monstrous. 

Mykhailo: It was unspeakable. Unthinkable. Unbelievable.

Sofiya: Well, there had been signs like the troop buildup on the border. And the rhetoric. There was a hope that it would amount to just more intimidation and psychological warfare.

Mykhailo: Only it turned out not be. Declarations of “I won’t attack” and then the next day invading. 

Sofiya: Well, what to do about the atrocity? How to assist people who fled with nothing from ruined homes? How to help defend the country? How to get the message out?

Mykhailo: Short of going in there, contribute. There are agencies and I’ve even heard of people personally sending money for hotel rooms to accommodate refugees.

________

Voice-over

Supporting humanitarian efforts like UNICEF, medical like Red Cross, feeding the hungry like World Central Kitchen, defence through agencies like Army SOS, media like The Kiyev Independent.

A green door

Looking across the road...

Walter: See that house. Number 9? There's a story to that front door.
Robert: The green front door.
Walter: Yes. It's 1915, and a young man comes out that front door, opens the gate, and walks off down the road with his kit bag slung over his shoulder.
Robert: A soldier?
Walter: Called to the war. To serve country. Boarded the train and never came back.
Robert: Europe?
Walter: Died in the mud near Ypres.
__________
Voice-over
All that is left of those many are their names commemorated on plaques. In the the war memorial. A way to remember young lives cut short. Sometimes memory of them lingers in other ways.

MTB 454

A war story…

.

Raleigh: Picked it up at Belfast shipyards and headed for Lands End. Fire broke out on a switchboard so returned. Attempted sabotage, it was. Even the shipyards had sympathizers. Had that fixed. Asked for a letter to recommend running engines at 2000 rpm so we could plane.

481 and 454 planing

.

Grandson: 2000?

.

Raleigh: Yes, we were only authorized to run them at 1600 rpm. Couldn’t get up to planing speed. Wallowed along.

.

Grandson: I can imagine. Like a hippopotamus.

.

Raleigh: So we got up to planing speed, 20 knots or so. Skimmed around Lands End and up to Falmouth. But when we arrived we received a Morse message. Report to HQ. I was asked, “Did you exceed 1600 rpm?”

.

Grandson: But you had permission?

454, remembered

.

Raleigh: I had a letter, yes. But it didn’t prevent a rap over the knuckles. Carried on to Felixstowe at the designated speed.

.

Grandson: But you had fond memories of 454. So much so you named your lake boat the same.

.

Raleigh: Er, yes.

_______________

Voice-over

MTBs were sprightly little vessels/warcraft, later models achieving 30 knots. Post-war, a generation of MTB sailors relived their memories, in stories, even on boats.

...

Dinh Q. Lê: Sketches of Life from the Vietnam War

At the Mori Art Museum…

Guide: The sketches are reports of the war in mainly in pen  or pencil. Some are in watercolor. Many are portraits serving as identity photos to be passed back to the family if they were killed.

Visitor: It’s amazing they could sketch out on the battlefield.

Guide: They regarded themselves as activists, as artist-soldiers. They had their role to fill. They wanted to leave a record.  Art as activism.

__________________

Voice-over

These are artists who are not engaging in “art for art’s sake”. This is art pressed into service. The pictures are reports from the front.

Dubrovnik 1991

An authentic voice…
The war? I have eleven years old at that time. My sister she went get fish at the market, and the aircraft come, we hear four booms, and my sister, she only have seven years, she sees the pilot, she comes home, she is crying. We stay four days and one night my father takes us to a boat, it is a storm, we go to Dubrovnik. I remember I drank some reddish tea, it was horrible seas, everyone was throwing up that stuff. In Dubrovnik, people say it is safe, it is UNESCO, it has walls. We stay there 40 days. But we are running often into shelters, there is little water, it is not hygienic, a month we do not wash hair. My sister is sick, she has a rash, the doctors don’t know, perhaps it is the war, we go to Split. She’s OK now. My father comes home, yes he is also OK. The house, it has no roof but we clean it, it is usable, slowly my father rebuilds, he grows grapes now. We used to go to Montenegro but my parents not now, they will not go. It is hard for them. But for me, I have eleven years old at that time. I can forgive. But for some they cannot easily forgive.
…

Wars and language

Terence disputes Dale’s insistence that speaking different languages leads to wars.

...

Dale: I mean, if everyone spoke the same the language, we’d all understand each other, and we could resolve all disagreements by negotiation, and wars would die out.

Terence: When did you stop beating your wife?

Dale: What?

Terence: You speak the same language but you still argue.

Dale: I don’t beat her and I never did. What’s your point?

Terence: The point is, dear antipodean, that what have all these countries got in common? In alphabetical order: Bosnia, Korea, Rwanda and Vietnam.

Dale: Rice?

Terence: In those places, the people all spoke the same langu8age, understood each other but they had murderous wars. Words are not the be-all and end-all, they d0n’t solve everything. When did you stop beating your wife?

Dale: I don’t beat her and I never did. You going to take my photo saying this?

Terence: Later. I gotta go to the airport, see off K.

...