There is a story going around that the Thais asked the Japanese government
for help in creating a memorial park to commemorate the horrors committed
during the Japanese occupation of Thailand in the Second World War,
and especially the building of the Death Railway from Malaysia to Burma.
The epitome of this horror was the buildings of The Bridge over the
River Kwai, built and rebuilt after successive Allied bombings. The
Japanese refused, saying that "One doesn’t build a Disneyland at
Aushwitz."
It’s a shame. They would certainly have dealt with the subject using
much more tact and sensitivity than the Thais who have created a mini-Niagara
Falls around and even on the famous Bridge. There are shops for selling
cheap jewellery, a huge store selling tasteless stuffed dolls, tchatchkais
vendors on the Bridge and even a loudspeaker blaring out popular
music.
It is impossible to imagine that 80,000 Thais lost their lives building
this damned Bridge when you consider the insensitivity with which their
descendants treat the site. About a kilometre away from the Bridge on
the banks of the Kwai, a Buddhist monk built a museum next to his monastery.
It is the only official museum to the war and is tasteful, poignant
and beautiful. The name is the J.E.A.T.H, meaning Japan, England, America/Australia,
Thailand, and Holland. In one word he has managed to conjure up all
the participants in this terrible drama and at the same time skirt around
the word Death.
The museum is built in the style of a prisoners’ barracks and packed
with artefacts, photos and drawings by the prisoners themselves. In
the guest book near the exit almost every visitor has written the same
comment: Never Again. And yet the railway leads north to Burma where
the same thing is happening Once Again, and south towards Indonesia
where the most unspeakable horrors are being committed.
Never Again.
But beside the Bridge is another museum housed in something so garish it looks
like a Chinese restaurant in a Toronto suburb. There’s nothing in it, but the
owners decided to grab what they could by calling it the J.E.A.T.H. and Art Museum.
Stealing the labours of a monk! It’s like ripping off an alms box in a church
or stealing from a Rabbinical student: some people have no pride, no shame.
The Bridge itself is not exactly the one the POW’s built, since it was bombed
to smithereens, thereby preventing the Japanese from convoying troops, supplies
and slaves to their Burmese front towards the end of hostilities. Even so, the
present Bridge – built by the Japanese as part of their terms of surrender – has
an eerie quality to it. The River Kwai runs gently beneath it and you can see
large yellow fish near the surface. The Bridge is beautiful, built of iron and
timber, with arches and balconies to step onto when trains pass.
It is interesting to visit the place. It is also good to consider the age old
theme of Man’s Inhumanity to Man and just as horrifying to consider Man’s Inhumanity
to Memory.
Mair and Marie-Do
Photo galery 