I wonder if there are people here, who´s parent/parents have been a victim of war. Statistically, it would be very strange if no-one here would have either a mother or a father, or both, who has at least experienced warfare.
How do you feel about this, then?
Is there something like a 2nd-generation war-trauma? Or are some people just imagining that they have a syndrome that doesn´t realy exist, so that they have an easy excuse for their own personal shortcomings? (some psychologists believe this to be the case)
It seems that psychologists are divided about this subject. Some are actually treating 2nd-generation victims while others mock and ridicule the very idea.
My personal story: my mother was raised in a japanese concentrationcamp (chideng)during WW2 and she experienced the horrors of the indonesian civil war (bersiap) that followed, witnessing for instance how another child who was a friend of her, was litterally being chopped into pieces.
I personally don´t feel like a victim. But i do have the very strong feeling that somehow, all of this has had some kind of impact on me.
For instance: as a child i was afraid of japanese people and i sincerely believed that japan was a dark and sinister power, waiting for the right moment to take over the world. I also believed that all japanese people where more or less the same, like 'clones'. I believed that they where all brainwashed by the emperor. Molded into perfect soldiers, killing machines, assasins. It took some time for me to find out that this view was quite an exageration. I don´t know how old i was when i realised that japanese people aren´t scary. Or at least, that not all japanese people are scary, and that those who are, are scary because of their own unique personal character instead of their 'japanishness'.
Another thing: there are these annual war commemorations. I don´t know why, but i never ever believed that all the people joinging these commemorations, are even remotely sincere. It always seemed like a play to me, a theatrical performance of people pretending to care, just to look civilised on the outside: whenever i told somebody that my mother had been in a japanse concentrationcamp, i was ALWAYS told (by teachers for instance) that she should concider herself lucky that it hadn´t been a german concentrationcamp. When i then asked:'Oh, so you know about the japanese camps?' then people always had to admit that actually they didn´t. Whenever i told anyone some of my mothers story´s about the bersiap period, people always assumed that i was just making things up :'knifes aren´t thát sharp, there couldn´t have been thát much blood, people couldn´t have been thát cruel, they wouldn´t do those kind of things to little childeren, etc.' (i still get mad thinking about these things) So maybe, as a child, i was (unintentionally) fed with a lot of paranoia and cynicism.
But maybe i´m just clinging on to an excuse for being cynical and ill-tempered, wich i definately am at times.
Does anybody recognise any of this?
How do you feel about this, then?
Is there something like a 2nd-generation war-trauma? Or are some people just imagining that they have a syndrome that doesn´t realy exist, so that they have an easy excuse for their own personal shortcomings? (some psychologists believe this to be the case)
It seems that psychologists are divided about this subject. Some are actually treating 2nd-generation victims while others mock and ridicule the very idea.
My personal story: my mother was raised in a japanese concentrationcamp (chideng)during WW2 and she experienced the horrors of the indonesian civil war (bersiap) that followed, witnessing for instance how another child who was a friend of her, was litterally being chopped into pieces.
I personally don´t feel like a victim. But i do have the very strong feeling that somehow, all of this has had some kind of impact on me.
For instance: as a child i was afraid of japanese people and i sincerely believed that japan was a dark and sinister power, waiting for the right moment to take over the world. I also believed that all japanese people where more or less the same, like 'clones'. I believed that they where all brainwashed by the emperor. Molded into perfect soldiers, killing machines, assasins. It took some time for me to find out that this view was quite an exageration. I don´t know how old i was when i realised that japanese people aren´t scary. Or at least, that not all japanese people are scary, and that those who are, are scary because of their own unique personal character instead of their 'japanishness'.
Another thing: there are these annual war commemorations. I don´t know why, but i never ever believed that all the people joinging these commemorations, are even remotely sincere. It always seemed like a play to me, a theatrical performance of people pretending to care, just to look civilised on the outside: whenever i told somebody that my mother had been in a japanse concentrationcamp, i was ALWAYS told (by teachers for instance) that she should concider herself lucky that it hadn´t been a german concentrationcamp. When i then asked:'Oh, so you know about the japanese camps?' then people always had to admit that actually they didn´t. Whenever i told anyone some of my mothers story´s about the bersiap period, people always assumed that i was just making things up :'knifes aren´t thát sharp, there couldn´t have been thát much blood, people couldn´t have been thát cruel, they wouldn´t do those kind of things to little childeren, etc.' (i still get mad thinking about these things) So maybe, as a child, i was (unintentionally) fed with a lot of paranoia and cynicism.
But maybe i´m just clinging on to an excuse for being cynical and ill-tempered, wich i definately am at times.
Does anybody recognise any of this?
