The article is written by Stephen Brawer, Chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden and Distinguished Research Fellow at Guangdong Institute for International Strategies.
This poem, written by the author after seeing the film “Dead to Rights” on Monday at a showing in Stockholm organized by the Chinese Embassy in Sweden, is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the 1937 massacres by the Japanese military in Nanjing.
High above the Commemoration parades and Victory Celebration
Sing the souls of fallen heroines,
Of heroes’ heartbroken lives, lost to the heartless boots of terror.
The blood-soaked bodies, victims of the merciless beasts of war.
Yet their song is not of darkness,
The light inside them glows and shines for future souls,
To know, to witness tales and times so grim,
That nevermore will poison posterity’s promise of better projects,
Built, not on lifeless bodies gone, but with living minds and hearts,
Seeking justice, remembering sacrifices, Honoring us,
We sing out, ever for harmony’s shield,
No beast its power shall break.
Our breath will reach the farthest hills,
Our love will climb the mountains high,
We sing forever to the stars,
That echoes our eternal cries.
The profound suffering embodied in the history of the great World War Ⅱ lives forever in memory banks of the universe. That history will never be erased and forgotten despite all futile attempts to do so. Yet, today, on the 3rd of September in Beijing, the Commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War brings together those nations and peoples ready to acknowledge and honor those fallen victims in the great struggle for victory over the fascist forces of darkness and bestiality. This should be an event celebrated internationally at every capital city around the world. Yet, there are still those in Europe and Japan, and the USA, who wish to bury their heads in the sands of time, pretending that what happened, did not actually happen. Those who run from truth ultimately do so at their own expense.
The world, despite its present great turbulence and dangers, is moving towards a new chapter of human history. The recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has already marked a new direction for the great majority of humanity. Russia, China and India, represent the core of this transformation process, together with the many additional allies and friends of nations internationally. The world is moving into a new alignment, whereby the framework for global cooperation and development, represented by the Belt and Road Initiative, is growing rapidly. In addition, China’s President Xi Jinping, has added a new and extremely important initiative, the Global Governance Initiative to the already three existing Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. These constitute the basis for “a community for a shared future for mankind.”
As a visitor to Chongqing in May of this year, I had the privilege to visit the museum commemorating the courage and resolve of the Chinese people to resist and overcome the War of Japanese Aggression. I stood among the statues of the historic leaders, including Zhou Enlai, among those heroes who led the resistance. I even stood before the national monument in center of Chongqing to permanently memorialize for all the people of China the tremendous sacrifice the people were forced to endure. These timeless reminders of true history will not fade away. Rather they invigorate the spirit of the Chinese people to continue the road to rejuvenation, that will never again allow the humiliation and suffering of the people. Today’s military parade marks the strength of the Chinese nation, not for conquest or aggression, but to defend and if necessary to clearly counter any new attempts to impose the will of the unilateral world system through force of arms.
The opportunities for the West to join hands and participate in the rising multilateral world system are virtually unlimited. Will USA, Europe, and importantly the EU, choose to abandon the old system of arrogance, superiority and dominance against the great majority of the developing nations? That remains a great unanswered question. Resolving issues through conflict and more military buildup is a dead end in world history. Geopolitics or the balance of power politics has never provided any solutions for international issues. Rather, it has always been based on the law of the jungle, and winner take all—a zero sum system. The West desperately needs new leadership. One that can appreciate the profound role of history and culture in building international trust and respect among all sovereign nations. This is also the 80th year since the founding of the UN charter, an excellent starting point for reestablishing just principles of international law. It will eventually, require even deeper and more challenging ideas and understanding of how to unite humanity under the great banner of “natural law.” Xi Jinping’s Global Governance Initiative can be the starting point for unleashing the necessary dialogue between cultures that bring this about. Let the Commemoration of the Victory over World Fascism point the light towards “a community for a shared future for mankind.”
