#kwayne

Through more thorough research, I found out that 9 more statues have been built internationally (mainly in South Korea and the United States of America) to help remember the crimes committed against comfort women during Japanese colonialism.

After thinking about it for a long time, I thought that the appropriate national binds present in the transnational context of my object are Japanese uth, colonialism, and citizenship and conservative nature of Korea. As for Japanese colonialism, the Japanese military took power over most of East Asia during the Asia-Pacific War. While they had authority, they explicitly used such power to deceive, recruit, and kidnap local women (especially in Korea, Taiwan, China, Philippine, and Indonesia) to military brothels called “comfort stations”. Their idea of colonialism wasn’t just about obtaining more land, but rather on exploiting the resources and women to relieve the stress soldiers go through from the war.

I also thought the national binds of citizenship and the conservative nature of Korea were important to consider while writing about the idea of Pyeongwha-bi in Korea. Because of the conservative nature of most Koreans and the government’s state after Japanese colonialism, “comfort women” victims hid the truth, fearing that they might be seen as prostitutes (generally, ones with immoral values). However, following the democratization of the Republic of Korea, a Korean former “comfort woman” came forward publicly and sought formal apology in 1991. From then on, nationalism and citizenship in Korea helped embolden and enlarge the movement, starting with the Wednesday protest march outside the Japanese embassy, which has been happening every week for almost 25 years now. An extreme example of this nation bind could be a man named Mr. Choi who set himself on fire to protest Japan’s forced recruitment of sex slaves for military brothels during World War II and passed away after 9 days. In addition, many students and adults, especially women, had and have been active participants of the movement. If not for the nature of citizenship in Korea, it would not have been possible for the protest to go on for over a thousand times successfully.

The problem of relating intersectionality with an idea is that the idea may not necessarily have a gender or a definite race. Fortunately, the entire idea of Pyeongwha-bi was based on a young, Asian girl. The girl that the statue represents seemingly has an age of around 13-14, and is depicting one of the comfort women as a young girl, sexual slave of the Japanese military during the Second World War. The fact that the statue is female, Korean, and young contribute to the subtle image of innocence, youth, and vulnerability of young Korean girls at that time, and how such image was trampled by the Japanese soldiers.

Sources:

http://www.awf.or.jp/e3/oralhistory-00.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/fact-sheet-on-japanese-military-comfort-women/5449039

Kolumbus (comic)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kolumbus is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Oren Vargas about a 49-year-old man that explores Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in 1987, a year after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster rendered the city unlivable. He adopts an alternate persona named “Kolumbus” that revels in the city’s desolation. The story tackles themes of isolation, narcissism, colonization, and the moral dilemmas associated with scientific research against the background of a manmade disaster. The main character’s plight into the city is based on a reversal of Plato’s Allegory of The Cave wherein a single man is tasked to free and educate his contemporaries. In Kolumbus, the main character struggles to accept the world outside of his understanding can be trusted.

Author

Oren Vargas to most is “OVerwhelmed”, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist of experimental-folk-rock band “Camera Crew”. To everyone else, he is simply Oren. As a small child, Oren was uniquely reserved; a product of mild hemophilia and phobia of church organs. When he was five years old, he was nearly killed in a freak hammer accident that jump started an early life crisis. Since that point, Oren pursued an unfettered interest in being a learner of untold stories, using them as inspiration for producing harshly personal reflections through music, film, and short fiction. His writing has been featured in literary arts magazines as well as counterculture zines despite his primary motive to promote Camera Crew’s music. Currently he is embroiled in a psychological battle with a bot fly infection he procured from an Argentinean vacation. Regular doodles of his battle are located on his tumblr: hyenasgiler.tumblr.com

Setting and Plot

Kolumbus takes place in an alternate version of Chernobyl and its surrounding countryside in 1987. A year has passed since the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and everyone has evacuated the city due to massive nuclear fallout. A single man living miles from the city has occupied a makeshift hut and cuts his arm while tending his crops. It is revealed through flashbacks that the man’s family had escaped to the countryside and isolated themselves from an undisclosed Communist regime. The man contemplates whether he should seek help in the neighboring city or tend to his arm alone. He decides to travel into the city and discovers it is completely abandoned. The state of the city is decaying with nature taking over uninhabited buildings. The man manages to stitch his arm together using leftover medical equipment, but feels compelled to stay by an unknown voice within him. As he explores more of the decrepit city, the voice becomes more pronounced and begins to unearth traumatic memories for the man to face. Once the man commits to leaving, he proclaims the voice’s name into the city: Kolumbus. The voice takes over the man as he attempts to fight back and regain control of his sanity. Kolumbus takes advantage of the city’s lack of authority to destroy indiscriminately. The man has receded as simply a voice in Kolumbus’ head and struggles to maintain focus. After streaks of heinous violence and arson, Kolumbus realizes a grave physical weakness in himself and collapses. When the body awakes, the man finds that he has regained control against Kolumbus and tries to uncover the reasons for the city’s evacuation. He explores a library, a factory, a carnival, and a lab until finally arriving at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The man connects evidence gathered from each location and decides to leave the city immediately. However, Kolumbus reawakens within the man and hijacks control once again, vengeful at his body’s frail composition. Kolumbus scavenges equipment to build molotov cocktails while the man, once again a voice, continues to break Kolumbus’ hold over his body. Kolumbus, unmoved by the man’s attempts, gathers his cocktails and climbs the top of the nuclear plant. He announces to the city that he will end the world by burning it down and filling the air with fallout. The man’s voice prays within Kolumbus and arrives in an astral plane of emptiness. Another voice begins to speak to the man’s and explains that nothing can be done about the current situation and that only faith can overwhelm the power to do harm. The man continues to pray, urging each arriving voice to pray with him until millions of voices manifest into the plane. Kolumbus lights a single molotov cocktail and is seized by a heart attack. He stumbles over the top of the nuclear plant and falls to his death into his own fire.

A day passes and the perspective shifts to two Russian pilots flying to Chernobyl on orders to put out a wildfire.

Characters

The Man: The man is 49-years-old and lives in solitude on the outskirts of Chernobyl. He is reserved, systematic, and analytical. After a severe wound on his arm, he travels into Chernobyl for medical attention.

Kolumbus: Kolumbus is a violent and narcissistic personality that manifests inside the man and eventually takes control over the body to perform dangerous temptations.

Father: The man’s father is given no explicit name and is depicted in flashbacks as cruel, unrelenting, yet seemingly justified. He inflicts verbal abuse on his son and has high expectations for his son to change the world significantly.

Mother: The man’s mother is given no explicit name and is portrayed as warm yet distant. She taught her son everything he knows about the world.

Merchant Arina: Arina is a travelling merchant that was the only source of information about the outside world for the man as a child. He visited the hut weekly and was discovered dead by unknown causes when the man was a teenager.

Themes and Social Critique

Kolumbus critiques the pervasive and dogmatic relationship between power and colonialism of identity despite never interacting with the colonizing power directly.

While the novel never identifies the specific name of the colonizing power, it explores how colonialism can be associated with any act of explicit power. The man in the beginning of the novel appears ignorant and segregated from the rest of the world, but begins to develop a sense of superiority as he realizes that his separation from the world had saved him, that his separation gave him an advantage.

The man is victim to a culture he cannot fathom or understand while being raised apart from it. He grows up and learns through the lenses of his parents’ veiled subjugation. His lack of knowledge about outside powers that force him to live in a state of solitude purportedly save him from the world’s cruel injustices of economic disparity, political conflict, and social discrimination. In this sense, the man’s parents use the man’s upbringing as a petri dish for a guarded and pure character empty of corruption and suffering. Ostensibly, the man is protected from the injustices inflicted on his parents under a Communist regime. However, the man is then declined agency. Because he cannot identify the problems that exist in his world, he is powerless to prevent their occurrence.

The graphic novel tackles the concept of colonialism subsisting on the ignorant or misinformed. The man in his youth has only three sources of information to develop his values about the world: his father, his mother, and Merchant Arina. Each character imparts upon the man paradoxical philosophies that prepare the man for his most significant journey into Chernobyl. The man’s father teaches him to be ruthless and fair. The man’s mother teaches him to be forgiving and cynical. Merchant Arina teaches the man to be selectively open-minded. These influential characters are all designed under colonialism’s ability to deceive benefit in its victims. Despite the stories of each character being told in fragments, it is clear that their lifestyles were significantly affected by governmental interference. In turn, the man is never told the complete story and understands very little of why he is a victim to something he does not understand. It is not until he is in the middle of a dire situation warranting action that he begins to realize he was a part of the structure the entire time. Regardless of their good intentions, neither his parents nor the merchant were able to prevent colonialism’s grasp on the man’s life.

It is suggested by the flashbacks that there is a historical critique on the Communist revolution, but most evidence is implied between the presumed relationship and past of the main character’s parents.

The city of Chernobyl is also a product of colonialism and is characterized as fertile grounds for reclamation. When the man arrives, he expects the city to be filled with activity. The city is instead devoid of human life, yet latent in human development. It fills the man with discomfort even though he is entirely alone, as if the city is unnatural in its state. The internal voice of Kolumbus enters the story as the temptation to regain control of the city for the purpose of creating legacy. This temptation is again ultimately stunted by the city’s irradiated condition. Any colonial power gets destroyed and replaced by another.

The voice of Kolumbus represents an eternal desire within every victim to colonize and conquer. It manifests within the man as a vengeful, violent spirit that does not pause to consider his actions. To the man, Kolumbus is the sleeping antagonist within himself. He does not know whether it is his true state or an equal part of his personality. As the man tries to reason with Kolumbus, he slowly copes with the fact that Kolumbus has always been a part of him, waiting for an opportunity to reveal himself.

Concept art of the man/Kolumbus

Influences

The title character Kolumbus is named after famous Spanish colonizer, Christopher Columbus[1], who for a long period of time was praised as discoverer of New World America. Vargas describes that Columbus’ eventual fall from grace from “textbook celebrity” to “ruinous traveller” inspired the construction of a character involuntarily tasked with great responsibility and criticism.

Vargas cites his parents economically enforced career paths as inspiration to the intangible colonial powers represented in Kolumbus.

Vargas lived in a Southern California suburb for the majority of his life and was practically “raised on television, videogames, and microwaves.” He describes his parents’ distant relationships with him  providing him everything he needed in food and shelter. “They raised me to survive, not to live,” he spoke during a panel in SXSW 2014.

In a video interview with Nerdist.com, he explained in more detail that his parents worked in Native American gaming or casinos established on Native American reservations for the majority of his childhood[2]. He expressed disdain that their work splintered the parent-child relationship into one of “simple economics.” In an emotional outburst, he exclaimed that he had “suffered under sufferers” and could never “progressively or practically complain” about his upbringing. Vargas later apologized after receiving social media backlash on websites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Mythological References

The man and the entire graphic novel represents a counter-narrative to the myth of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In the myth, prisoners in the cave interpret shadows of objects as real; they mistake “appearance for reality.” (Cohen) The prisoners are given limited information about the world they exist in and are predisposed to deny their truths and beliefs to be false. Plato promotes the necessity of “reflective understanding.[3]” (Cohen) While Plato describes a scenario in which an individual must free the perceptions of his peers, Kolumbus is a character that must free the perceptions of himself and ultimately must admit that he requires help from other people.

Through the majority of the novel, the man is blind to the events that led to Chernobyl’s abandonment and does not understand the implications of his presence in the city. Kolumbus instead treats the city as if he possesses its entirety. He does not acknowledge or accept his ignorance of the truth.

The story is meant to evoke an internal struggle within people that addresses the pride and arrogance that prevents understanding. Plato’s allegory lays the infrastructure of perception versus reality. Similar to Kiik AK’s short story, whiskey over barbed wire, the main character is required to come to terms with “a unique opportunity” that they did not ask for (AK)[4].

Visual References

The lonely landscape is reminiscent of the future society described in Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction novel Parable of the Sower; ruined and teeming with harm[5]. As the man enters the city, the grandness of buildings are emphasized and exaggerated, functioning as a key component to the visual theme of the novel. The man sees ghosts of a city that was once alive and struggles to find human life where there is none.

Aesthetic juxtaposition is a significant element within the novel that highlights multiple structures of intentional or unintentional colonization. Coming from the rural outskirts of Ukraine, the man ventures into Chernobyl appearing as a stranger from a strange land, wearing modest clothes against the backdrop of a concrete jungle. Aspects of natural reclamation of urban environments are heavy inspirations of the novel’s style. Examples of this include the film, I Am Legend and the video game, The Last of Us[6],[7].

Common urban imagery such as roads, cars, and buildings are consumed by foliage. The mixture of manmade structures and integrating plants represents the lack of human interference and the persistence of nature. Kolumbus himself too is a product of conflicting ideologies of systemization and organic influences, extending further that he is a microcosm for the city itself.

Graphic Novel Episodes

Kolumbus is comprised of four episodes split into four issues: Country, City, State, World. Each issue is named after a denomination of political, social, and economic place, increasing in magnitude per issue.

Kolumbus: Country begins the series with several news outlets covering the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The story jumps to 1987, where the man is introduced in the countryside reminiscing on his childhood. He spends days wondering about things that may lie beyond his homestead. While farming one afternoon, he severely cuts his right arm and considers whether it demands professional attention in the city. He decides to venture off, feeling ominously uncertain to whether he will return home.

Throughout the first issue, the man’s past is unearthed through dreams and memories. It is unclear when these instances are distinguished from another, alluding to a blurring and blending of the man’s perception of time. Every major character is introduced in Kolumbus: Country except for the titular Kolumbus. However, moments of anger manifested within the man present similar characteristics and mannerisms to Kolumbus when he is revealed in Kolumbus: City.

Kolumbus: Country explores character development through indirect interaction. The first issue designs the periphery of the man’s situation and emphasizes themes of isolation and unknowing. The man’s parents and Merchant Arina are introduced through the man’s first memories of them and the city of Chernobyl is only viewed as an outsider. The first issue serves to set up the man’s struggle against Kolumbus in subsequent issues.

Reception and Criticism of Kolumbus

Kolumbus: Country was highly acclaimed upon release and received positive reviews from literary critics that praised the “instantly iconic” sense of style and “awareness” that “attracted a mature audience to an easily digestible state of familiar identity-loss.” However, the graphic novel was simultaneously criticized for depending too much on the audience’s faith to interpret narrative elements that were “simply pretentious and unexplained.” The lack of clarity and structure in the novel in regards to character identity elicited remarks of Vargas being a lazy author.

Vargas’ attempt to highlight the invasion of colonial ideology in everyday life was lambasted by some. Critics faulted Vargas for not coherently describing roots of colonialism and explaining origins and places of power. Vargas responded to critics in an open letter on his blog that stated that, “colonialism transgresses and passes in every environment. Specifying that the whites started this all is as easy and simple and uninspired as believing that there is an adequate answer for injustice. We can only learn and heal now and hope to understand and foster a future of more understanding.”

Criticism was also drawn on not attempting to delve far enough into the Communist implications and Eastern European backdrop of the graphic novels. Other than the use of character names, locations, and reference to the nuclear disaster, Chernobyl’s depiction in history was seen as “stagnant and lifeless” by some critics. A reviewer from the Washington Post cried out that Kolumbus “does nothing to teach or educate or inspire if the historical landmark is used simply as wallpaper.”

References

^1. "Christopher Columbus." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 7 June 2015.

^2. "Native American Gaming." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 7 June 2015.  

^3. Cohen, Marc S. "Allegory of the Cave." Allegory of the Cave. N.p., 22 Apr. 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm>.

^4. AK, Kiik. "Whiskey over Barbed Wire – By Kiik AK." The Masters Review Whiskey over Barbed Wire By Kiik AK Comments. The Masters Review, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. <https://mastersreview.com/new-voices/whiskey-over-barbed-wire-by-kiik-ak/>.

^5. Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993. Print.

^6.Image of I Am Legend (2007) retrieved from <http://imgarcade.com/1/i-am-legend-city/>.

1. Research of terms:

Mi’kmaq: A First Nations band originally from Canada’s Atlantic Provinces and was officially recognized on September 26, 2011.

Stan Rogers: A Canadian folk musician and songwriter of songs inspired by Canadian history and lives

Maliseet: An Algonquian-speaking indigenous group of people in Canada from the Saint John River valley and its tributaries.

Mohawk Territory: Indian Territory located in southeastern Ontario, Canada which is the land bas for the Mohawk of the Bay of Quinte Fir. 

2. Lilo and Stitch have a complicated situation concerning belonging to a nation-state because they are misfits in society. Lilo followed the rules of the government (using the dog adoption paperwork to restrict the Grand Councilwoman from taking Stitch away), but she also ran away when social services tried to separate her from her sister. Stitch was a rebel, created for evil, but found a home with Lilo and all her love and kindness – this lead him to become more accepting to the world and abiding by the rules. I believe they wish to become more integrated into the nation-state to feel a greater sense of belonging, but at the same time they just want to exist in their own lives happily and together.