Of Goose and Gander and War Crimes Torture

My grandmother, civilian internee at Changi Prison, Singapore during WWII, was tortured during the infamous Double Tenth Incident

Hmm. The New York Times has a scathing (as they say) editorial re Omar Khadr’s sentence.

Warped Justice

Last week Salon.com had an article claiming that Khadr’s treatment at the hands of the Americans was just typical of their treatment of ‘young offenders’ in general. Why Gitmo Justice Shouldn’t Shock us

In a recent blog, right here, I wrote about Winnipeg in 1910, how the social elite were desperate to ‘civilize’ those crude and rowdy new immigrants from Northern Europe, who worked the land during the week, but who went berzerk when they had down time, so to speak.

They decided that for the children of these immigrants who broke the law, youth courts were the way to go. Rehabilitation instead of punishment. After all, a child would only learn to be a better criminal if imprisoned and Manitoba was desperately in need of citizens to work the land and breed future citizens. They didn’t need a prison industry. (How times have changed.)

Here in Canada, the population appears divided on Khadr. I think the general idea is, if he wasn’t a full-blown terrorist before, he certainly is now.

Well, Khadr has certainly become a ‘symbol’ – because ordinary lives do not matter in the big scheme of things, and in war, they matter even less.

I believe in one over-riding principle: In a democracy, it isn’t about ‘one vote per every man’ (or woman) it’s about ONE LAW for every man and woman. Once you start making exceptions, it’s that slippery slope and no one is safe anymore.

But this is a war crime, isn’t it?

Well, we have laws for war, too. Those Child-Soldier Laws. Those Geneva Conventions. Even if they are window dressing, for the most part. Let’s face it.

My grandmother was interned at Changi Prison (made infamous by various books, including King Rat) but she was also one of only three women tortured in the Double Tenth Incident. I wrote a play (from her memoirs) about at www.tighsolas.ca/page745.html. I was hoping to get it produced on BBC Radio Four, but that’s not an easy process.

The War in the East was not a big issue in the UK, although they love their WWII stories. It was a big issue in Australia, and I get lots of hits from there. And in Singapore.

The fact is, the Allies put the perpetrators of the Double Tenth Torture on trial in 1946 and excuted many of them. (My grandmother’s post war testimony, which is the crux of the play, helped put the evil Sumida Haruzo and his henchmen away.)

The war crimes tribunal accused the Japanese men in question, Gestapo types and their minions, of performing acts of ‘unspeakable horror, stark and naked.’

But the Japanese who did this were just people, no different from the Americans who stripped, humiliated and tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib or the British soldiers accused of doing the same in Iraq. As my play shows, these Japanese soldiers were made up of good eggs and bad eggs and eggs just blindly doing their job, just like now. (When the war was going well for them, they could be indifferent, even kind, but when the pressure was on, they turned evil.)

But the British won WWII and that’s the difference.

If you want to read a first hand account of how it feels to be tortured during war, read my play.

My grandmother went to her grave despising the Japanese with every ounce of her being, so that pretty much tells you what torture does to people. My grandfather, who also interned at Changi Internment Camp, but not tortured, visited Japan once a year during his retirement. He clearly did not hate the Japanese for what they did to him (and he worked on the Thai Burma Railroad of Bridge on the River Kwai fame).

I see that George W. Bush, out promoting his memoirs, is being quoted in the news today saying that “waterboarding’ saved American and British lives. Well, waterboarding figured at Changi, and in the war crimes trial in 1946, it was described by the British as the worse kind of torture, worse than the beatings, the burnings, and even the electric shock.

A Guardian article today seems to concur with me: Bush’s Torture admission a dismal day for democracy

Looking For Mrs. Peel -Part 3

My grandmother, at about 72, the age she was when she visited in 1967.

I have only one or two more installments of Flo in the City, my novel in progress based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/, to end 1908. And, then, I will probably go back and edit what I’ve written so far. I now interrupt my Flo in the City blog to bring you my third installment of Looking for Mrs. Peel, my ‘radio play’ about the Summer of Love, Expo 67, WWII and the Fall of Singapore…not to mention waterboarding. It can be found -with audio visual links-at my Looking for Mrs. Peel Blog.

Scene Four: Lemon Creek Living Room

SOUND: Announcer on radio

Roger Scott broadcasting live on location from Expo 67 Or Girl Watching Central.( sx cheesy wolf whistle sound effect) Everywhere you turn a gorgeous young thing in a sarong, sari, or kimono. Still it takes more than a beautiful face and perfect proportions to be a hostess at the fair. All 240 Official Expo hostesses speak both English and French…and have some college; And lucky me,in a minute, I get to interview two leggy birds from the British Pavilion whose miniskirts are the envy of all the Expo hostesses, (ID. CFOX. MontreeeeALL The Island City) But first this word from Clairol. Who writes this shit?

(sx radio: Sad-sack women’s voice: Oily hair?? My hair is so oily this big man from Texas came up and asked if he could invest. PSSSt. Good news for you; fade)

Marthe: Mark. Dorothy. Come to the window. They’ve found a parking space right in front.

Dorothy Vo: She is small. Very very small. With a broken down sparrow body, the high forehead and steely gaze of a chicken hawk and a giant square chin just like that Tasmanian Devil on TV. Her hair is snow white and short cropped. My tall tall father shyly takes her little birdy hand as she materializes onto the sidewalk from the rusty cocoon of our Austin Cambridge car. With my fine-tuned daughterly radar I can sense that despite his big bones and broad shoulders, my dad is the one feeling very very small.

Dorothy: I bet Granny’s never seen anything like Madame Dufour’s pink Thunderbird with the wings at back.

Mark: They’re fins, tail fins, not wings.

Dorothy: I bet they don’t even have cars in Malaya. Bunga’s father doesn’t drive!

Mark: No they travel by rickshaw and elephant, mostly.

Dorothy vo: My peregrine progenitor has to pause three times to catch her breath as she climbs the 18 or so freshly swept stairs to our second story 5 and a half.

Marthe: Don’t crowd the door.

Peter: (Indistinct grumble)

Martha: Dorothy, so pleased to finally meet you. This is Mark,our eldest and, this, of course is “my” Dorothy, or String Bean as we call her. (whispers: Mark:HO HO HO Green Giant. Dorothy:Shut up Mark)

Granny: Oh, Martha. What enormous children you have

Martha: Well, I am very proud of my cooking. I am French.

Daddy: (growl)

Martha: Mark, help your dad bring up your grandmother’s suitcases. Dorothy, you must be exhausted. Let me show you your room.(fade) I hope you like the colour yellow, we bought new curtains for your visit. And we finally found a store that sells yogurt, so you can have your usual breakfast in bed.

Granny: Oh, you needn’t have bothered.

Scene Five: Nixon Living Room

SOUND: Drone of TV. (CFCF 12 Montreal)

Man on TV: Good Evening.I am Pierre Berton. Last month the Australian Rock Group, the Seekers, sang at Expo67 and their performance was broadcast live to over 70,000,000 people worldwide by Telstar satellite. Newton N. Minow, the US Broadcast Regulator (who famously called Television a “vast wasteland” back in 1961) claims that satellite technology, will, in the long run, have more of an impact than space technology, because spaceships only send men into space while satellites will send ideas into space. Our special guest today is Marshall McLuhan, University of Toronto professor …fade

Dorothy vo: A few days later, Granny, recently retired colonial librarian, lectures my older brother on a point of media literacy.

Mark: When Bridge on the River Kwai played on TV, the next day everyone at school was whistling (whistles tune) I told them my grandfather helped build that bridge.

Granny: Oh Mark. Don’t believe anything you see in the cinema. It’s all bosch. If you – and your sister – come to visit me in Malaysia I’ll let you read some first hand accounts. Many of my good friends died on that beastly Thai Burma Railroad. Yes, many friends, British, Chinese, Malay and Indian.

Dorothy: When I go can I have a mongoose like Riki Tikki Tavi ? I don’t want to be gobbled up by a King Cobra like Daddy’s dog. And I don’t want lizard tails to fall into my oatmeal. No way. And I don’t want to see a monkey being killed, because they cry just like human babies, Dad says.
Granny: Girl. Whatever are you chattering about? What tall tales has your father been telling you?

Dorothy vo: So, I decide to ignore my grandmother, which is easy as it is Canada’s Centennial year and those magical Expo islands are only a short bus and metro ride away. (sx Mexican mariachi band. Israeli fiddle; Trinidad steel drums). Expo, with its mishmash of experimental eye-candy architecture,is better than real life, anyway, a mind bending multi-national experience, McLuhan’s Global Village in giant size diorama. I lope miles over the macadam on my long giraffe legs and queue for hours in line in the wilting humidity,(or biting wind or freezing drizzle, whatever the 6 month Expo season serves up)to gawk at cultural signifiers like wallabies and totem poles and scorched space capsules and visit “the future” with its talking robots and video phones, and uncluttered modular dwelling places. At the International Broadcasting Center, around the corner from where my father works, I see how radio programs are produced (in tiny little rooms) and learn that it takes a mile of tape to make an hour of TV.
When my senses get overwhelmed I visit the Australian Pavilion to sink my burning toes into the decadent deep wool carpet there, or I escape to the near people-free garden behind the glittering geodesic dome of the American Pavilion to lie down in the prickly grass, by some mini waterfall, often the lone fleshly figure amid the park’s many bizarre Cezanne-inspired sculptures. But not always

Scene 5 1/2 Park at Expo
(sx) water, wind

Dorothy: I like your lipstick. What colour is it?

Woman: Blue Surf by Yardley. The London Look

Dorothy: Yardley opens your eyes.

Woman:Huh?

Dorothy: That’s their slogan – in Mademoiselle oh

Dorothy I like your white Go Go boots too

Woman: Oh, they are part of my uniform.

Dorothy Uniform?

Woman: I’m a hostess at the Kaleidoscope Pavilion

Dorothy: You are a beauty queen then. The TV said every hostess at Kaleidoscope is a beauty queen. .

Woman; They exaggerate. I was a contestant in the Miss Canada Pageant, that’s all.

Dorothy:That’s pretty good

Woman: Yea, that’s pretty good

Dorothy: What are you reading? Beooo

Woman: Beautiful Losers

Dorothy: Is it good?

Woman: Sort of. It’s by Leonard Cohen. He’s from Westmount, you know

Dorothy: Read me a bit

Woman: No. It’s too grown up for you. But I can recite the words to Suzanne for you.. Have you heard the song on the radio?

Dorothy Sort of

Woman: Well Suzanne was a poem before it was a song. We studied it in literature class. Suzanne takes you down. Beside the still water..

Dorothy:Sorry.I gotta go and meet my brother. We were watching movies at the Cuban Pavilion. About the Revolution. But I got bored.

Dorothy VO:I do watch dozens of other movies at Expo67, much much happier movies. Multi-screen movies, interactive movies, movies that surround the audience 360 degrees and movies where the stage- and audience- move around the screen. Movies where the medium is the message. Movies that teach about point of view. And sometimes, on the site, if I hear the sound of polite applause rippling my way I know a major movie star or world celebrity is soon to rise up out of the ether. Twiggy? Princess Grace?

Scene Six: Expo 67

SOUND: wave of applause, growing louder

Martha: Look! It’s Bobby Kennedy and his family.

Dorothy: Where?

Martha: Over there.

Dorothy: I can’t see anything except his golden hair. All those men in black

Martha: Those are his secret service agents. He has a lot of protection. He has to have.

Scene Seven: Nixon Living Room

SOUND: background cocktail party chatter. coughing in background

Dorothy VO: Returning home I wolf down a savory pot au feu and catch a summer rerun of a favorite TV show,the Man from UNCLE, and drop with numb knees onto my little cot. My father, an accountant for the Fair Commission, works late most nights, so my mother tackles a second shift, entertaining Granny, who fairly crackles with charisma in the company of grownups, especially men.

Granny: Yes, Martha. A double scotch would be fine. We made our own amusements in those days. Dances at the Royal Selangor Club,in the Reading Room on Saturdays. Cricket on the padang. Once I was given a polo pony by the Sultan of Jahore’s son Bu. For keeping him on the straight and narrow, before a match. And, I was the only woman ever allowed into the men’s bar at the Club, as Selangor’s official cricket scorer; and in 1953 I was actually filmed scoring a match in a March of Time newsreel about the Emergency. Millions saw me.

Man: (chortle. grunt.)

Granny: The children were in England, at school.

Man: HUH?

Granny. Of course I missed them. But duty called – and my duty was to my husband. Still, during the Depression I travelled steerage to England on a banana boat just to see them.

Man: Grumble Granny: If you are referring to Somerset Maugham, I must warn you. He has painted a rather unflattering portrait of colonials. In my opinion he’s a misogynist. He hates women.

Martha: I know what misogynist means. I was taught both Greek and Latin at the College Marguerite Bourgeoys. Jules, did I tell you about my visit on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Il ya deux semaines. The Queen was in Halifax and the boat had to go back and get her. Meanwhile Peter and I were invited to a soiree on board, on June 28, I think. Well, the lights were off deckside and there were frogmen in the water and a crewman asked me why I wanted to kill the Queen. I said, “I don’t want to kill the the Queen. I’m not a maudite separatist. He said he didn’t care one way or da udder because he was Welsh.

Granny: Ah, what an appalling thing to say, even in jest.

Dorothy: (coughing) Mummy, I can’t sleep. The smoke is coming in under the door.

Martha: I’ll open annuder window.

Looking for Mrs. Peel Part 1

Me at 12. In the Kitchen on Coolbrook,which I call Lemon Creek Road in my story, in homage to the Japanese Canadians who were interned unjustly during WWII in the interior of British Columbia. Dig those 60′s curtains.

I’m going to interrupt Flo in the City (since I’m struggling to figure out where to go from here) to bring you Looking for Mrs. Peel, my play about the 60′s, WWII, and waterboarding. I spent years researching the background to this play and I do believe I nailed it. The complete play is at www.tighsolas.ca/page745.html

LOOKING FOR MRS. PEEL: Script of a play for radio about The Fall of Singapore and Changi POW Life and The Double Tenth Incident at Changi Prisoner of War Civilian Internment Camp from a first hand account INTRODUCTION:”All Things are Connected” Chief Seattle The year 1967 has been described as The Last Good Year, by Canadian historian Pierre Berton, also as The Year That Changed Cinema, by Time Magazine, as well as the Best Year Ever in Pop Music by, well, just about everyone. In and around anglo Montreal,that memorable year, radio was the communications medium of choice for young people. Kids listened to the likes of Buddy Gee on CKGM, Dave Boxer on CFCF and CFOX’s Charles P Rodney Chandler on their chintzy transistor radios and kept track of the respective weekly hit lists. One of the most popular new DJ’s was an import, a former British merchant marine sailor named Roger Scott also on CFOX. In late May of 1967 Scott aired ‘pirated’ tapes of the Beatle’s Srgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Album,before it was officially released. My older brother was mightily impressed.

. In the US it was the Summer of Love and the Summer of Race Riots -two facts I couldn’t ignore because my British father preferred getting his news from American Walter Cronkite, on the CBS television station WCAX Montpelier Vermont – and as was the norm, we had but one black and white tv. But these same heady Expo months were also a time of tension in the Middle East with Six Day War where we came close to nuclear war ….again… and ‘the tipping point’ for Vietnam and a time when decisions were made that ‘signaled the end of Britain’s’ imperial adventure’.* According to Historian Matthew Jones, in 1967 the British wanted to pull out of ‘East of Suez’(Singapore, Malaysia and the MIddle East) entirely. While school children from Victoria to Gander were learning the words to CA NA DA, Bobby Gimby’s giddy centennial year signature song , the Americans were putting pressure on the British to stay. President Lyndon Johnson even bribed them, offering to back the pound sterling and “solve all your financial problems.”*

So, if Lyndon Baines Johnson appeared to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, as he rode that long long escalator up past the kitschy photographs of Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart in the American Pavilion at Expo 67 on his official visit, that’s because he did. (* Matthew Jones’ Decision Delayed Historical Review.)

Malaysia, the 15th country to sign up for the World’s Fair – in July ’64 (plot 3320 Ste Helene’s Island) didn’t have a pavilion in the end. They had pulled out; perhaps because Singapore had been expelled from the Malaysian Federation in 1965 ( to quell the unrest between the Chinese and the Malays) and couldn’t come up with the money.

Tunku Abdul Rahman Malaysia’s first PM had visited the Expo site in ’64. One wonders what Bobby Gimby felt about all this: the so called Pied Piper of Canada, a former CBC musician and bandleader, and a Canadian cultural icon, is reported to have composed them an unofficial anthem, Malaysia Forever, and earned his whimsical moniker, on a visit to Singapore in ’62. The song itself is steeped in mystery; no former colonial or expert in Malaysian studies I have reached has ever heard of it. Negara Ku has been Malaya’s (Malaysia’s) national anthem since 1957