❷A letter from a Japanese woman- Iraq war to 3.11

©︎Shiho Niimi @sviesosdaina

When, I went visit to Georgia the summer after the Iraq War started, I asked a friend what he thought about the Iraq War.

 "It can't be helped” he continued “it was to protect our America, our family” 

You know how shocked I was. Since he was always a super caring, calm, and mindful person. I could not help saying back to him aggressively.

 "You have a family and they have a family too! “

I was too young to control my temper. 

As a result, our real feelings were not understood by each other.

Also, during this stay, I had another experience that brought me closer to the War.

When I was winding up the film in a darkened bathroom, and the smell made my head spin. The extremely heavy smell of marijuana.  

Smoking marijuana was fine but how much he had to do was extreme. Already at that time, he couldn’t get out from the chain of smoking,a heavy dependence.

As I shared with his girlfriend about it later, she told me that it was after that war.

Here, tremendously, everything became personal.

Because I had PTSD and trauma from the experience of being discriminated against for being Japanese and having my life in near-death danger by a gun shooting. 

I became to understand the pain of my friend's boyfriend (who was addicted to marijuana) when he came back from Iraq as if it were my pain. 

And the words of Daniel, the only black boy in my class, came flooding back to me.

 "Only you can call me Negro here”.

All at once. 

After returning to Japan from Georgia, I noticed in my student life that I couldn't stop sweating and shivering when some people looked at me quickly.

It's like my body reacts to people staring at me, especially in the dark.

When I had to sing in the garage at night for an event in a friend's backyard, I couldn't even speak and I would shake and cry.

I knew it was a flashback to when the gun was pointed at me.

I understood that even he, who couldn't give up marijuana, would have flashbacks at a moment's notice.

It made me understand that war can cause really big psychological scars not only on the people and families who are killed but also on the people who kill and even on the survivors. What I experienced was not a war, so I know it was different, but at least what happened to him became quite personal to me.

So I had started to think that what it is about this world ?” 

"You're the only one who can call me Negro ".

The world that makes people say that just because of our skin color. 

I was just there as who I was as a Japanese then I was allowed to call him Negro? 

I wondered what kind of person I was in the world of my first host mother, who told me to sleep on the floor just because I was Japanese.

What kind of existence I was to her? 

No matter how many years have passed since my days in Georgia, these questions have kept cropping up in my mind over and over again, and I still, clearly remember those moments. 

So, it became incredibly my matter, from 9/11 to BLM to the presidential election. 

Hatred only creates a cycle of hatred, and discrimination only creates anger and sadness.

And anger leads to division.

On the other hand, love creates hope and allows us to send kindness to each other.

Of course, we all feel anger, grief, and fear, etc, but I believe these feelings could turn into light in our way....

There are many more details about the experiences to make me re-think like that, but I can't convey them well in my words.

Okay, let me go back to the story of editing the music video around the 3.11 in 2011. 

One day, I was waiting for the train to leave, when it started shaking like a boat. 

All of sudden, we all realized, "this is an Earthquake!

Then, of course, the train didn't start at all.

As I got off the train and walked out of the ticket gate, I gazed at the news of the huge tsunami.

I called my grandmother who lived near the ocean, but there was no connection.

Everything had fallen off the shelves at my apartment, so I couldn't continue editing.

Over the next few days, I learned more and more about the damage, and it was heartbreaking to think about how many people had died, and not just the number, but the families of every one of them.

In order to see what was going on in a different outlet, I turned to Twitter 

Here again. There was full of anxious news and misinformation, voices of angry and sad people.

That fact caught me up that this was the same situation that happened after 9/11 and led to the Iraq War.

I was really at a loss for a few days.

Then I decided to stop looking at any information and reminded myself what I learned from 9/11.

Hatred only breeds hatred. Anxiety makes anxiety bigger, and because we are anxious, scared, or sad, we tend to attack each other, unfortunately unconsciously. 

So what I did determine was not to go into a such vortex.

Instead.

Where I have been heading into was a place where hope was born from love and light.

These two could melt my anxious heart into tears, and gently caress me.

This awareness resonated with me as I edited the video.

If I put simply the view of lights into the video, it might bring light to someone’s life. There is a possibility that the light would be cascaded.

Someone unknown might open their computer and happen to find hope from the music video. 

I just wanted to deliver the light. I wanted to use the images as a window to let the light in.

Some of the people were bringing supplies and doing what they could to help. But that was not what I could do at that time. Then what could I do?  

The editing of the video like delivering the light was all I could do.