The fires beat their retreat just shy of the stone marker that stands at the edge of an expansive vineyard. It honors the partisans who parachuted in on the night of July 14, 1944, to subsequently chase out the fascists who had invaded two years before. In a house on the hill above, a Browning rifle leans against the fireplace, a decorative item that Lai Yong found in a shop somewhere. The gun scares me a little. How many people had it killed, or was the person to whom it was issued himself killed?
I watched many films during the pandemic, including a number of classics that dealt with the European theatre of WWII. It was an educational exercise for me, wanting to learn more about the history of the continent, and film can often provide evocative waypoints to better, more detailed sources. I usually abhor violence, particularly the Hollywood variety, where behind high bodycounts is a person to be grieved for. This feeling became particularly acute while watching Stalingrad, in those dark months after the death of my own son.
I am amazed that war has lasted as long as it has. Man’s greatest advantage over his fellow animals is his intellect. So war begins where intellect fails. But diplomacy in general has been scarce of late, might has again become the order of the day. Like most of us, I was shocked to see Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine, as land invasions feel oh so 20th century. We all have a different take on these events, and while I do paint Putin as a villain, so too are the heads of state whose bullying and aggression propelled those tanks into motion. And now many of those same “leaders” seem dead set on bullying China in a similar fashion. How do they not see that war is a failure, that all military gains are temporary? The world order today is nowhere the same as in 1918, 1945, 1991. Politics change, borders shift, ideologies prove a mere product of their time. We should have evolved intellectually to a place beyond war, where we can sit together to find compromise and solution. Yet war continues to flare up time and time again. It is the place where man devolves into animal, and the passions that serve as ignition are equally beast-like.
My travels through a vast number of long-dead civilizations and empires along the Silk Road have proved to me that in the end, only the land is eternal, and the letters carved in stone to mark long forgotten heroes will themselves fade with the eternity of time.
On the turntable: Dinah Washington, " In the Land of Hi-Fi"
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