Buffaloes and Flies in the South China Sea
By Linn Dinh
June 06, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" -
Ignorance is renewed with each newborn, and by the time any man figures out
anything, he can almost feel the mortician leaning over his stiff face. Though
all lessons are embalmed within history, few care to explore that infinite
corpse. Lewis Mumford, “So far from being overwhelmed by the accumulations of
history, the fact is that mankind has never consciously carried enough of its
past along with it. Hence a tendency to stereotype a few sorry moments of the
past, instead of perpetually re-thinking it, re-valuating it, re-living it in
the mind.”
Far from learning from history, people tend to distort it to their own ends, and
thus during the last commemoration of Russia’s defeat of Germany in World War
II, many commentators conveniently forgot that those two countries had
collaborated to start the war in the first place. After the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia, while Soviet Russia poured
troops into Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the eastern portion
of Romania. Russians massacred 22,000 Poles at Katyn alone, imprisoned 100,000
and deported 1,200,000 to Siberia, Kazakhstan and other places within the Soviet
Union. More than half would die.
In the Polish city of Brest-Litovsk, conquering German and Russian troops
paraded together on September 22, 1939. On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded Russia
itself, however, thus ending that evil alliance. Working from London, what’s
left of the Polish government arranged for its citizens in Siberia to be
transferred to British controlled Iran, and from there, many of the surviving
Polish children could finally consign to posterity their horrific experiences of
the Russian Socialist Paradise. In 1981, Irena and Jan Tomasz Gross published a
selection of these accounts in their book, War Through Children’s Eyes.
Here are three:
DOCUMENT NO. 87
PGC/Box 119
TADEUSZ S. Born 1927
Wilejka county
Wilno voivodeship
When the Soviets invaded us Mommy became frightened daddy was taken into
captivity after a sickness lasting a month my mother died When they had made
themselves at home in Poland they began to destroy statues crosses and they
ordered the people to pray to the rifle because that is also a tool of death. on
February 10 1940 at 2 in the morning they came to our apartment and they took us
at the point of a rifle they took us without any reason and took us to Russia in
the train it was crowded cold people were dying from hunger and cold. at the
settlement we worked in the mines 12 hours a day at the mines there was water
the clothes we had all rotted in a week after a 12-hour workday we had to stand
in line another 12 barefoot in the cold. in the barracks there were bedbugs
cockroaches and vermin of all sorts the stoves were busted. After such work
people turned into skeletons and when we got the amnesty the people scattered to
various places and I with my family went to a kolkhoz at the kolkhoz we worked
day and night because it was very hot they gave us practically no food only what
we could gather in the fields. with such a diet my brother died with no one to
bury him so I buried him myself without a coffin even without a suit because we
had only one for the two of us. after such suffering we escaped with my sister
because daddy went into the Polish army which was forming then we walked for 200
kilometers on foot through the mountains of course barefoot over sharp stones in
40 degree [Celcius] heat and without water. At the station as we waited for a
train we were robbed of everything so that all we had left was a can where there
had been milk which we found in the garbage and which we used as a drinking cup.
DOCUMENT NO. 30
PGC/Box120
WLADYSLAW T.
Baranowicze county
Nowogrod voivodeship
My Life in Russia
We were deported to Russia on February 10, 1940. When we arrived we were given
very poor housing. There were many bedbugs, lice, and fleas. After a few days
they sent the children to school and the older people to work. Children were
forced to go to school, and whoever refused was imprisoned in the bathhouse and
denied food. When we first got to school we were mocked and beaten—if a Pole
said there was a God he was beaten up. Father had to work very hard to earn
enough to support the whole family, and not only my father but so did all the
Poles who were deported to Russia. For two years we lived in that awful, poor,
stupid Russia. After two years the Poles started leaving Russia. Polish people
had to get a pass to leave Russia. The trip South was awful. People died of
hunger in the train cars and their corpses were thrown out the window along the
way. We came to Vologda and were issued food ration cards and bread for the
trip. My father was walking toward the car with his bread when a prisoner tried
to steal his bread. Fortunately, the police arrested the prisoner and took him
away. They would throw the corpses out of the cars and the train would grind the
bodies apart on the tracks. From Vologda we left to Chkalov. There, the Polish
outpost gave us food and we went all the way to the harbor in pahlevi. The end.
DOCUMENT NO. 31
PGC/Box 120
HENRYK S.
Baranowicze county
Nowogrod voivodeship
It took place in February. The Russians came and did a house search. They were
looking for weapons. They took us to the station in country wagons. There were
very many people in our freight car. It was cramped and stuffy. When the train
started we cried that we would never see our home again. We traveled for four
days and nights. They didn't give food we used snow to make water. In Siberia
the barracks were cramped again. I was going to school. They taught us that
there was not God. Once I spoke up in Polish and our teacher sent me to the
supervisor and he yelled at me. They drilled two holes in the ceiling. The
commander would say into one: "Boh, Boh daj pieroh" [God, God, give a dumpling]
and nothing would happen. To the other hole he said: Soviet, Soviet daj kanfiet
[Soviet, Soviet, give a candy] and candies would fall down. He would laugh that
God gave nothing. The Polish children ran away. Dad died of hunger. He swelled
up. They wrapped him up in a sheet and threw him into the ground. My brother
didn't have shoes and didn't go to work they took him to prison for two months.
Over thirty people died at the settlement. We would stand on a line for bread
from evening till morning. More than once we didn't have bread for two days in a
row. We waited for our pay for a long time, because the paymaster wasn't there
and there was nothing to buy bread with. At first we sold clothes in Russian
villages to get bread, but then we ran out of clothes.
Grade 2B.
I am 13.
Poland was occupied by both Germans and Russians, then just Germans, then just
Russians. To a Pole, this plot is all too familiar, for in 1772, Germans and
Russians also carved up Poland. Swallowed up by Tsarist Russia, Prussia and
Hapsburg Austria, Poland would not regain independence for 123 years. With such
a history, Poles are understandably leery of Russia, but according to Russian
Andre Vltchek, a prominent voice among the American left, Poles and other
Eastern Europeans are nothing but ingrates for turning their backs on Russia,
“Many countries that Russia had liberated, betrayed her in the most vulgar
manner […] Czechs and Poles desecrated monuments to its soldiers.”
When the Soviet Union collapsed, “the oppressed of the world lost their most
powerful guardian,” according to Vltchek, and “‘Russian’ is not only a
nationality; it is a verb. It means: to stand against oppression, against
Western imperialism, to be building bridges between the countries that are
resisting Western imperialist terror.” Think about that for a minute, Russian as
a verb meaning to liberate all of the world’s oppressed. Such evangelical fervor
is matched only by the American rhetoric of being the shining city on a hill for
all of mankind.
Just as each man must look out for number one, so must each nation, and each
will disguise its ugliest, most selfish moments with twisted self justification,
if not lofty, altruistic language. No one ever invades, massacres or rapes, but
intervenes, rescues or most reluctantly reacts in self defense. No one destroys
another culture, but only saves it from itself. Had Poland been more dominant
than Russia, it might have been the one to kick its neighbor around. From 1605
until 1618, Polish troops made several forays into Russia and even occupied
Moscow for two years. A teenaged Polish prince was declared Tsar. When Polish
troops swarmed into Smolensk after a 20-month siege, 3,000 Russian soldiers blew
themselves up in its cathedral to avoid capture.
While laying waste to much of Asia during World War II, Japan created the
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Like other murderous and plundering
nations before and since, Japan depicted itself as a savior, but instead of
rescuing the other yellow peoples from colonial whites, it killed, starved,
tortured and raped them. Beware, I say, of all countries blaring a messianic
mission, for beneath their uplifting banner of universal brotherhood, freedom,
democracy or international socialism, etc., one will find a rapist of the first
order.
Never colonized by whites, Japan even defeated Russia in 1905, so it did serve
as a model in East Asia. Many Chinese and Vietnamese nationalists went to Japan
to study. A major funder of Japan’s war against Russia was Jacob Schiff, a
Jewish banker in New York, and Schiff was also a patron of Leon Trotsky. Hating
how Tsarist Russia treated Jews, Schiff was willing to do anything to destroy
it. Never leave out race as a factor, for though often disguised, it colors all
human actions. The only ones who insist that race doesn’t exist are either so
racially smug or so racially threatened, though in the second case, they’re
hysterically lying.
When Jews had no homeland, many of them spoke of universal brotherhood and such,
but as soon as they had Israel, they started to act as tribally and racist as
everybody else. Tribalism or nationalism is still the dominant factor in war and
politics, and not ideology, but within this, you also have greedy individuals
who are just looting and hoarding for themselves. As soon as the Vietnam War was
over, the Vietnamese fought Cambodia then China, two foes they’d gone to war
against repeatedly. It didn’t matter that they were all “Communist” on paper.
There is no universal anything, just thousands of tribes and hundreds of nations
trying to survive. The Vietnamese don’t care for International Communism any
more than the Amish or the Jews.
The new rising power in Asia is not Japan but China, and to her citizens, the
Middle Kingdom is only regaining her rightful place on the world stage. After
being misruled by the feeble Qing Dynasty, drugged and pillaged by the British,
carved up by other Western powers and Japan, raped by Japan then subjected to
decades of terror by Mao and his gang, the mainland Chinese are finally allowed
to catch up with their overseas brethren. With their intelligence, diligence and
commercial prowess, the Chinese can succeed anywhere when not held back by an
asphyxiating system.
Writing in 1911, Edward Alsworth Ross observed, “It is rash […] to take the
observed sterility of the Celestial mind during the period of intercourse with
the West as proof of race deficiency. Chinese culture is undergoing a
breaking-up process which will release powerful individualities from the spell
of the past and of numbers, and stimulate them to high personal achievement. In
the Malay States, where the Chinese escape the lifeless atmosphere and the
confining social organization of their own land, their ingenuity is already such
that unprejudiced white men have come to regard them as our intellectual peers.”
Feeling ever more confident, China is ready to shove a weakening United States
from its own back yard, and that’s why it’s laying claim to an increasing
portion of the Western Pacific. Doing so, it has also come into conflict with
Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Gaining access to oil, natural
gas and fishing rights has been cited as the rationale for China’s behavior, but
the Chinese are also keenly aware that those who control sea lanes control
energy supplies, and the United States is still the preeminent naval power. With
its ability to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz or Malacca, the US
can certainly cripple any adversary. To gain leverage of its own, China is
building a canal in Nicaragua to connect the Pacific with Atlantic, and a
Chinese company is also managing the container terminals at both ends of the
American-built Panama Canal.
Most opponents of the American Empire are cheering for China in the South China
Sea faceoff, but Vietnam, the only country to have fought and defeated outright
this empire, is forging closer military ties with the United States, all because
of China. To a Vietnamese, the white man will come and go, but China is an
eternal shadow menacing his identity and existence. From 111BC to 938AD, China
occupied Vietnam almost continuously, with only two breaks, of three and 58
years. To gain final independence, Vietnam defeated China in 938 at the Battle
of Bach Dang. After planting steel tipped stakes in the river, the Vietnamese
lured Chinese boats over this watery trap, and at low tide, these boats were
pierced and their soldiers killed. In 1288, the Vietnamese repeated the same
trick, at the same river, to vanquish the Mongols. One ignores history at one’s
peril.
Ngo Quyen and Tran Hung Dao were the leaders of those two battles, and there is
hardly a Vietnamese town without streets and schools named after them, and by
the Saigon River, there’s a statue of Tran Hung Dao. Every so often, I’m
harranged by a Westerner about my flawed reading of Vietnamese history, though
his knowledge of the subject doesn’t extend beyond Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam
War. Beyond the racial chauvinism that comes from several centuries of being on
top of the world, this attitude also betrays the progressive bias that deems
much the past as simply a repository of absurd habits, mistakes and
superstitions. Mumford calls it “anti-historic nihilism.” Writing in 1944, he
comments, “During the last generation, particularly in the United States, it
became popular to say that only contemporary history was important; whereas the
truth is that all of history is important because it is contemporary and
nothing is perhaps more so than those hidden parts of the past that still
survive without our being aware of their daily impact. He who knows only the
events of the last generation or the last century knows less than nothing about
what is actually happening now or what is about to take place.” In this age of
geriatric sex change, Kim Kardashian’s bulbous buttocks and endless porn for
everyone, including nuns and tots, your average American doesn’t remember what
he half read half an hour ago, much less know anything from another century. He
wouldn’t be surprised to be informed that this big, beautiful orb of polluted
dirt he’s standing on is only a few thousand years old. Wow, that old?!
While most Americans are only becoming aware of the tension in the South China
Sea, Vietnamese know that the trouble started in 1974, when China wrested
control of the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam. In that one-day battle, 74
Vietnamese and 18 Chinese died. Though the US 7th Fleet was in the area, it did
nothing to intervene and even refused to rescue South Vietnamese sailors. Nixon
had visited China in 1972, and so Vietnam, all of it, was becoming superfluous
to Uncle Sam. In 1988, China attacked a Vietnamese garrison in the Spratly
Islands, and in that one-day battle, 64 Vietnamese and six Chinese died. In the
last two years, Chinese ships have rammed Vietnamese ships just off the coast of
Vietnam, and they have also rammed Filipino fishing boats or used water canons
against them. Boarding some boats, the Chinese have tossed their catch
overboard.
On November 1, 2014, there was an official ceremony in Hanoi to
honor the 74 South Vietnamese soldiers who died defending the Paracel
Islands, and this is remarkable because it’s the only time the Communist
government has acknowledged its former South Vietnamese foes as nationalists in
any way. As fate would have it, the colonel of the capsized ship is named Ngụy,
the same word used to denigrate South Vietnamese troops as “fake.” Equally
weird, the site of the most horrific American atrocity against Vietnamese
civilians, Mỹ Lai, means “Half American.” The gods are sick.
Odds are high, fighting will break out again in the South China Sea. Pushing
weapons of mass destruction, Uncle Sam rakes in many coins from all crises, so
he has billions of reasons to stoke the flame, but it’s anybody’s guess if he’ll
risk his turkey neck when the missiles fly. Though America needs to defend its
ebbing hegemony, its manufacturing base has been mostly relocated to China, and
China is its biggest creditor. In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet clipped an
American spy plane near Hainan Island, and its pilot, Wang Wei, was killed.
Forced to land in Hainan, 24 Americans were kept for ten days, then released
after the US agreed to a letter expressing “regret and sorrow.” A Chinese demand
for a token million dollars in compensation was ignored. Hardly any American
remembers this incident, but the Chinese haven’t forgotten, and the next time
planes collide, expect a much bigger explosion. In 2014, a Chinese jet swerved
within 30 feet of another American spy plane.
All sides in this brewing fiasco have reasons to act the way they are, and
though each will cite law or logic to defend their actions, it doesn’t matter
who’s right or wrong, only what the winner, if any, can get away with. The
Vietnamese have a saying, Nine men, ten opinions. And also, When buffaloes
collide, flies die. While leaning militarily on an unreliable United States,
East Asian countries continue to be integrated into China’s (and Russia’s)
economic sphere. Perhaps they will take their losses and accept being lesser
partners in this new world order. As a castrated ex champion, the United States
might have to do the same. It’s a good bet, though, she won’t go down so
quietly.
Linh Dinh
http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com