Confucius believed that war should be avoided at all cost, and resolution should be sought by all means necessary.

Though he did not rule out military intervention, but only on peaceful terms and not for self-gain or retaliatory motives. Such philosophy on pacifism, whether from the books of Confucius or Plato, has never been—or could ever be—widely adhered. Immanuel Kant’s ‘Perpetual Peace’ was read, acclaimed, and had enlightened many—young and old alike—but could never transform the hearts of men neither train them to become the ‘greater good’ of society. It made no saints, but rather it surreptitiously created a little box in the human mind for darkness and its evil to generate. Books will eventually create beasts in us if not cautiously espoused. The choosing of good or evil depends wholly on which one the heart bows to. Inherently good or inherently evil, ‘our deeds’ always determine the good or evil that lies in us.

‘Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind’, said the African American civil-rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr, of blessed memory. War, since the dawn of age, has always been a ghastly and dreadful sight to behold. No human with a heart and soul would ever want to live through it; not something to wish upon even your enemy. Those who waged war against another, after seeing the destruction, the irretrievable and incalculable lives lost, would have thought twice before declaring it a means to an end or a way to settle a dispute. There is no solution in war. There is no joy in seeing people massacred, starving, and even resort to eating the dead to not become one. There is absolutely no justification in destroying lives. War eventually leads to more animosities and unending series of conflicts in which unspeakable consequences follow. War is like cancer that spreads through the flames of hate, and none can put out the fire alone. However, war has a cure. It is what we humans find it hard to show, but before the genesis of antiquity it is what we simply abided by, one of the foundational pillars of existence and a fundamental and indivisible element that we human beings were created in, we call ‘love.’

To complete and fully understand the history of World War II would, perhaps, take a lifetime—or perhaps never. However, I am certain that no book in the world can contain all of the historical events. Over a thousand chronicles have been written on Hitler alone, and we still haven’t read enough about one of the, if not, the most shadowy persona in world history. Germany’s history books of World War II could well fill an auditorium and generations will not go halfway thru them. Of all actions, stories and legends I have read, I have never come across such a true story, that when watched rather than read, brought tears to my dry eyes and made me to question even humanity itself. In war there are no friends. Men could be extremely violent, could do the irrational, be merciless and bloody-minded—of beast than human. Can man really be so heartless? I sometimes ask myself. Or has the devil taken our hearts and replaced it with his own? The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru, proved just that. Devils have always walked among us, disguised as humans, donning human skin to cover their grotesque form as they invigorate themselves from our fear and prey on our flesh. Hateful and unforgiving. Foe or friend, they spare none. The Japanese Imperial Army proved to be just that. Between 1936 and 1945 the infamous Japanese military Unit 731, or the Ishii Unit, as it was also known, was responsible for conducting hundreds of deadly human experimentations of the most monstrous and appalling kind on prisoners of war and helpless Chinese citizens they had captured, children and pregnant women amongst them, tortured and dissected upon while still alive. It undoubtedly brought Imperial Japan, as a nation, into absolute opprobrium and condemnation by the international community all together. The soldiers and doctors who had taken part in its unimaginable atrocities had forthwith abandoned empathy—they had no human feelings.

Their inhumane and utterly disgusting doings of such extreme depravity could make us reckon if man is not the devil himself. The devil could be kind. These murderers were shameless, deranged and dysfunctional souls that deserved the harshest and cruelest punishment known to man.

Must we also speak of the rape of Nanjing? Again, Japan, was held accountable for its genocidal war crimes against Chinese citizens; massacres, mass rape and extrajudicial killings that went beyond the sum of terror and all human nightmares put together. Resonant of Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ on the Jews. Or what of the first genocide of the 20th century? The ethnic cleansing of over one million Armenian Christians in the inglorious war campaign of the Ottoman Empire. The Imperial Japanese Army—truth must not be withheld—were monsters not human beings. The culmination of their nefarious deeds not only in China but in Taiwan and other countries they had invaded as well gave rise to the unexpected that would have generations not only speak but live in the after effect of it. Hiroshima and Nagasaki—karma.

The cinema was cold and the lights were turned off, leaving the silver screen to brighten almost every part of the room. A week prior to the occasion I received an invitation from the Chinese Embassy, that H.E. Wang Qing, requested the pleasure of my company at the film screening of The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru, at the movie hall of the Golden Beach Hotel. I accepted with pleasure. Behind me sat Ambassador Wang Qing himself, ambassadors from India, Egypt, Cuba and other dignitaries were there to grace the occasion. Some watched in silence, like me, attention fixed on the screen; others did not waste time to pour out emotions over the cartoon-like depictions of massacres, the narrations of the survivors—some who were well over a hundred years old—and the families the victims had left behind: the daughters and sons who never saw their fathers again, and the wives who never got another chance to hold their husbands in their arms. The documentary of the Sinking of the Lisbon Maru had us to do some soul searching as beings of flesh and blood, of an apocalypse where only few had survived to tell the story of it.

The Lisbon Maru was a Japanese 7000-ton transport ship that carried over 750 Japanese soldiers and more than 1,800 emaciated and sick British prisoners of war (POWs), some even bullet-ridden, sealed in three holds by hatches covered by tarpaulins, where the smell of appalling body odor and excreta prevailed to utter disgust. The ship took off from Hong Kong and was bound for Japan when it was torpedoed by an American submarine, the U.S.S Grouper (SS 214), unmindful that the ship held Allied forces inside. The prisoners of war took more than 24 hours, fighting to climb the wooden staircase which lead to the upper deck of the ship, but eventually due to the weight of the soldiers gave way and many fell to their deaths. The remaining struggled to break free from their holds, but due to their weakness and nothing to clutch on to bring them out they had ultimately perished. The few hundreds who had made it above water, gasping for every breath they could and feeling, at least, a measure of hope, clinging on to whatever was floating, saw themselves, once again, decimated by a hailstorm of bullets as the Japanese army sought to leave no survivors of the POWs. The water turned into a foam of blood. The perished had rejoined with their comrades beneath the depths of ocean’s oblivion. A horrible way to meet one’s end. Not the least of mercies for a human life was shown. Savagely heartless the Japanese armies were. The languished survivors began to be drifted by the currents towards the Sing Pan Islands. Japanese ships made no attempt to save them. They watched, perhaps in pleasure, as the British soldiers were being carried away by the brutal tides, and others struggling to keep themselves from meeting the same fate.

They were eventually picked up by Chinese sampans and traditional vessels and taken to the islands where they were fed, clothed, nurtured and treated with utmost respect as though they were of the same family with the seafarers. However, the POWs luck ran out, the Japanese, in their fury, returned to the islands and recaptured the remaining prisoners, caring less if they were sick, naked or dying—and many had died along the way from diphtheria and other illnesses—hauled them back into their ships so they may watch them suffer and die in captivity rather than enjoy freedom. The peasants had managed to hid about six of the British soldiers—they would forever be grateful to them. In the documentary, the survivors recounted how they were provided with necessities, by the peasants as though they were helping their own friends. There was no discrimination but ‘compassion.’ This simple act of kindness from strangers to people who had once taken lives themselves, in the battlefields of war, made water streak down my eyes. How many more human lives must we waste before we realize that we are only destroying ourselves in this infernal realm of war. We must have a heart after all, even towards our bitter rivals.

Compassion, humility, and frugality are the ‘Three Treasures of Taoism. A religion not practiced by many Chinese, but a school of thought that contributed in reshaping Chinese way of life. Empathy is the hallmark of the Chinese soul. I am one man who can attest to that. My visitations to the Middle Kingdom, as China was known in ancient times, has always been met with cordiality and brotherly love. I recall, during one of my shopping sprees downtown, at one of Shandong’s flea markets, some electronic devices caught my attention so I went into one of the stores, which was managed by two elderly couple. I was welcomed with smiles and I returned my smile to them, then and I pointed the device of my choice, the old man told me the cost of it, I said it was too much, without much negotiation he lowered the price, and seemed pretty happy doing it. What made emotion stir my heart was the benevolence of the old woman towards my care in handling what I had bought: she took a bag and put the products in herself, and made sure the plastic bag was closed perfectly tight by tying it with two small ropes. She and her husband brightened my moment with another smile that ushered me out of her store. I always wanted to return and see both of them smile again to me. Everywhere I went, stranded or just couldn’t find what I was looking for, there was always someone to give me a helping hand. Just half of the tenderheartedness of the men and women of the Sing Pang Islands, who had endangered their own lives to save the lives of those prisoners of war from the Lisbon Maru, the world will be a better and safer place to live for us all. They had demonstrated their inherent nature and ethical standing towards human life, that even our enemies have the right to live and be given a second chance to make things right, and in the end love must, by all means, overcome hate.