| | | A few thoughts
(1) The Jack was asking me yesterday in his typical daily way, "what is happening? besides bitcoin and ethereum" by which he always meant macro, geopolitics, inventions, and such
I said "cease fire is in"
His followup question, "what were they fighting over?"
Coconut chimed in, "there have been fighting in that neighbourhood for about a thousand years, and earlier"
I followed with, "it is possible that the folks fighting no longer remember what they are fighting about"
I told the Jack that we shall watch the BBC documentaries re the Crusades over the summer. He is enthusiastic.
Unclear to me that he would be illuminated afterwards.
A lot of political hijackings took place over the eons.
Jack is very familiar with the takedown of the Eastern Roman Empire, and sees that, by Erdogan's moves, perhaps the same energy is still operating.
Jack, "what is Turkey trying to do? revive the Ottoman Empire?"
I do not know enough to say, but tell him that there might be more to it than just that, and having to do with money and power, and not so much religion.
Jack knows that he has Jewish uncles, and a Muslim aunt.
(2) Jack once asked me, "why do they (whomever they might be, and he probably meant the Italians) allow the Vatican to exist? ... isn't the Catholic Church sort of evil?"
Again, a difficult question, especially as my mom is a Roman Catholic practitioner.
Certainly much evil happened in the name of the Church, and at times incited by the Church.
(3) Re the Holocaust, the Jack only knows a bit, as the full history of many episodes best wait for when he is older. The Jack has friends who are Japanese, Germans, Russians, Americans, Koreans, Taiwanese Chinese, ... and the different ethnic groups that make up the school for that is the sort of school he is in. I cannot make blanket though simple statements re any episode of history, but the temptation is strong to say, "every nation and people take turns to go mad"
Jack knew of the Jews more as an ethnic group than as a nationality, but the recent events might have changed his view. I do not know yet. Shall sort it all out whilst watching the BBC programs. We promised each other to re-watch all episodes about revolutions, and such (Renaissance, etc). I am debating whether he is ready for the "World At War" series.
(4) We do not watch TV as any habit during school year, but the televised news gets into consciousness when we are in the subway or elevator, and what is on screen gets imprinted on mind. It is good that the Jack asks questions.
On occasional Saturdays we watch some movies on Netflix or Now TV, but the programs I watched when young (Ascent of Men, World at War, Nova, Civilisation, etc etc) are all handily available.
(5) Your personal experience is the type I have deliberately sheltered the Jack from. Erita discovered the tragedy of humanity through her insatiable reading of everything in our Kindle and in her school libraries.
We dribble out our own experiences by and by, in small doses, as a part of progressive explanation of why the Jack have so many cousins.
(6) I have never and will not willingly watch Schindler's List. Once the Coconut asked to watch, and I pointed her to the login and password of our local movie on-demand. I di d point out to the coconut that there was a Chinese version of Schindler's List en.wikipedia.org
Ho Feng-Shan ( traditional Chinese: ???; simplified Chinese: ???; pinyin: Hé Fèngshan 10 September 1901 – 28 September 1997) was a Chinese diplomat for the Republic of China. [1] [2] When he was consul-general in Vienna during World War II, he risked his life and career to save "perhaps tens of thousands" of Jews by issuing them visas, disobeying the instruction of his superiors. [3] It is known that Ho issued the 200th visa in June 1938, signed the 1906th visa on 27 October 1938, and was recalled to China in May 1940. [4] Ho died in 1997 and his actions were recognized posthumously when the Israeli organization Yad Vashem in 2000 decided to award him the title " Righteous Among the Nations".
(7) Last year by example we demonstrated to the kids on how to make a new life
(8) This year we are demonstrating to the kids how to take care of elders
So, yes, what you wrote in the last couple of post do ring bells.
Best, j |
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