The Aftermath
· The lingering effects of war ·
Today is the last day to introduce a montage for a movement of Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man – I chose Now that the Guns have stopped (Music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac6IHmzVjvg). If you want to see the remaining ones you need to come to Astoria on May 21/22…..
The lyrics to this movement were written by historian Guy Wilson, who was then Master of the Royal Armouries Museum which commissioned the musical mass. They tell of survivor’s guilt, the shame and loss of having been privileged to survive when friends and comrades did not. This is only one of the aspects that haunt those who survived war – post traumatic stress, as it is called these days, is another all too faithful companion for many who lived through hell, victims as much as perpetrators. Loss of limb(s) or other physical ailments incurred in war make it hard to return to the life once known, forcing different job choices, if there is employment at all. Hunger in post-war societies, the psychological burdens of rape victims, the displacement after your country is no longer yours, all contribute to an aftermath that lingers when the history books have long closed the case on the actual conflict.
Psychological research shows that for those families where parents were under extreme stress situations like concentration camps, and where one or both parents have a tendency to dissociate strongly, even the second generation can be psychological affected in their ability to cope. Most of the second generation, however, shows resilience, as did after some time many of the first. So there is some hope. http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Holocaust-survivor-trauma-rare-in-2nd-generation
The montage tries to capture the lingering of the wounds and trauma of war. Like all of the works in this project it tries to convey that we have to fight for the alternative, in small and large measures, together, for peace.
Freud wrote in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), “The present cultural state of America would give us a good opportunity for studying the damage to civilization which is thus to be feared.” His enduring nightmare, that America, with its notions of Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny, would be “gain[ing] control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last man” was made real in 1945. In August of that year atomic bombs were deployed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 100.000 people immediately, 10s of thousands through radiation exposure later, and devastated most of the attacked cities. Current talk of “Let’s make America great again!” hints at a willingness to repeat this kind of strategic annihilation, and one wonders if and what we’ve learned from history, if anything at all; it also makes Freud seem quite prescient.
