Monday 4 July 2005

Pic of the day: Why have fireworks without a yukata? (That's the Japanese summer dress shown here.) Screenshot from the anime Bottle Fairy. Coming soon to America! Well, the anime at least. Not so sure about the yukata, more's the pity.

No fireworks here

For one thing, I'm not living in the USA (although you might be excused to think so with all my talk about the economy there). I've actually never been there, so I know their "independence day" only from media and my blogging friends.

For another, while I think world history was well served by the independence of the American colonies, it is kinda sad to have a bloody war to achieve it. The Norwegian independence was won through a referendum, and it's widely agreed that Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence movement did far more to free India than did the insurgencies that had gone before. War is not cool. I suppose at the time and place, it was the best they could do, but you'd think the celebration of that could become a little more subdued as civilization progresses.

And finally, I think nations is an idea whose time has come and gone. I've explained that in detail from time to time. Again, I'm sure it was a good idea back then, but we should be more advanced today. Oh, it's surely OK to set aside some parts of the globe to perform social experiments. But the idea that some people are more worth than others because they are born on this side of an invisible line, that's out and out crazy. Let's face it, if someone had suddenly come up with this idea on his own, he would have been medicated and given lots of rest.

That said, fireworks are good. In Japan they have fireworks in the summer anyway, or so it seems in anime and computer games. I think that is a good idea, to have fireworks only to make people happy, not to commemorate wars. Then again, their wars are hardly anything to celebrate, at least those I know about. But again, few are. I'll be quite happy when we've put that craziness behind us and can all be friends. I like to think I'm doing my little bit to bring that day closer.