Artwork & Content Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
Cartoon Pen & Watercolour 8″ x 12″
“Collateral Damage” appears in Heat 5 of the NewMatilda Political Cartooning Competition
I found the letter the other day. The one I wrote to my father over half a lifetime ago from the deep incarceration of Boarding School. I was complaining about the French. “How dare they!”… lept the resoundingly indignant words from the page.
I remember my father’s nonchalant reply had astonished me at the time. The acquiescence of it… something along the lines of “have patience they too have their story”… simply didn’t wash with me. I mean… he was an activist too wasn’t he? Well okay maybe not an activist exactly… although he had lobbied against fluoride and won back in the 50s… but that’s another story. But that strong sense of justice and penchant for doing the decent thing [I was certain] had been inherited from him.
So where was it?
In hindsight… his reluctance to fan the flames doesn’t surprise me at all… and might have had something to do with fears his young daughter might attempt to storm the Embassy… or some such silly thing? Well gee… a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do ~grin~
I believe it was the French who awoke the sleeping giant back then… in more ways than one. They certainly instilled in me a deep sense of disdain for self righteous injustice back in the 1970s. How anyone could go around blowing up, polluting and destroying someone else’s pristine back yard was beyond me.
The fact that it was my back yard… and the back yard of millions of other innocent and uninvolved people who lived in and around the South Pacific region (and more precisely downwind of Mururoa) at the time… probably had something to do with it.
And so it was that the world’s youngest activist and staunchest stickler for justice was born. I have the French to thank for that. And to everyone else I can only apologise! *wink*
The Good News.
You will be happy to know that the French Government… whilst stopping short of an apology… late last month opened their cheque book to begin the compensation process for those affected by the nuclear tests conducted in the Pacific over an astonishing 30 year period between 1966 and 1996.
The Bad News.
We will probably never know the truth about the full extent of damage to the fragile geology of the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls.
We will probably never know the full extent to which the health of the peoples of the South Pacific Islands has been affected.
The Sad News.
We will only know the full consequence of mankind’s greatest folly… the indiscriminant harnessing, mismanagement and misappropriation of nuclear energy… when it is too late.
The genie is out of the bottle…
and nobody knows how to stuff her back in.
PS I know Swine Flu is the topic du jour… but absolutely everyone’s talking about that! ~chuckles~
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the cartoon, Jean, and I embrace your sentiments one hundred percent. Yes, the genie is out of the bottle, but perhaps everything that is happening is, in its own way, inevitable. That is, as mankind infests the planet we may be on a path charted for us by universal laws we cannot fathom. I don’t mean this to be negative or fatalistic. I applaud the French for attempting some sort of amends, but share your skepticism.
As for swine flu, the lead headline in this morning’s Los Angeles Times proclaimed that things may not be so dire or dangerous, this coming after the past days of breathlessly hysterical doomsday predictions.
Thanks John
I believe you are right about the inevitable. On a personal level I have probably never felt this to be more so than this past year as I move further into uncharted waters. There is a certain knowingness attached to the path that I had not really experienced before. And I guess there is no reason to suspect that the trajectory of the world is any different… or that in fact… it might not for all intents and purposes be linked in some inextricable way. We as humankind are on some sort of course with destiny. I guess that’s what makes me so skeptical about what influence we (particularly as individuals) might have on the greater outcome. Except of course to do the very best we can with whatever life throws at us.
Swine flu is a scary prospect… especially in the hands of an unscrupulous and unaccountable press. I see this as a wake up call for the real pandemic ahead. The pandemic that kills with graceless indiscrimination and efficiency… the one we have no effective drugs for yet. It’s coming… just not sure that this is it… quite yet.
But I might be wrong… I often am (grin)
I am off to France May 24. Paris and then a week on a self drive boat on the canal lateral de Garonne in Southwest France. When you get outside of Paris the French are nice folks. Very much like getting outside of Washington and New york in this country. I have very mixed feelings about nuclear bombs. The two we dropped on Japan saved more Japanese lives than they took. As to swine flu we all owe nature a death and I will neither court mine nor go too far out of my way to avoid it.
Oh Roger… you mustn’t take me too literally. I love France! And the French. It wasn’t their decision I am sure to bomb the begeezes out of the pristine Pacific! In fact Paris would have to be pretty much my favourite place on earth. I loved every single minute of my time in Paris including the people who I’ve got to admit loved me in return once they had established I didn’t hail from the home of their infamous foe across the channel! (((LOL))) I loved le tour eiffel… the seine… the bateaux mouche… Fauchons… le louvre… the lido… and even the Gare de Lyon where I dragged my suitcase the full length of the platform and back looking for the TGV and someone who spoke English… only to find it right in front of me all along. The French love to play games with tourists! LOL
Lovely to hear from you… can’t wait to see your sketches from the south of France. Stay in touch okay?
Wow Jean, blown away by your cartoons! When did this change take place? See what I miss by not hanging around Art Cafe. . .
Hey Vera… long time no see!
How are you?
The blog’s been up for over 2 years now and the cartoons have kind of evolved over that time. I found I needed a faster way to illustrate each article than with a full scale painting which as you know can sometimes take more than a couple (!?) of weeks. grin. With articles going up (ideally) each week it just wasn’t feasible. So now my art goes on quietly behind the scenes while the cartoons (which I must say are a total joy to do) play a supporting role. The blog has been so much fun. In no small part due to the ongoing moral support I (gratefully) receive here from everyone. The comments pages are waayyy more fun and interesting than the original article… without exception! LOL
Hey Jean….your cartoon sparked an avalanche of memories! I remember having the same reaction as you. What I could not get a firm grip on was the “why does any nation need so much power???”…to the point of risking the safety and wellbeing of other countries and environment. I am warmly relieved that the French Government has found the wisdom to try and redeem themselves, but..as you said, the true extent of the damage will never be known. As much as I love French food, the art, the history and culture of the French, I did not welcome their attitudes regarding their “security” – thank goodness for the light that now shines the way suggesting that blowing things up does not make you the “super power” of the world.
As for the Swine Flu…well, I think that the media did an excellent job of turning a news report from another country into a global paranoia festival!! But I guess we really needed to know what was killing people (other than wars) somewhere else in the world….prevention is better than cure?
LOL too true about Swine Flu. I guess forewarned is forearmed… but the conflicting media and even the conflicting advice coming straight from the pigs *wink* mouth has all been pretty confusing. On the upside though… the panic may prepare us for the real thing (the pandemic/superbug with no known vaccine) when it eventually does come along.
It was heartening back in 1995… when the French astonishingly resurrected their nuclear testing in the Pacific with plans for a further eight tests… that Australia for one (and Japan and several other countries around the Pacific rim) imposed a blanket ban on French imports sending the message loud and clear that their actions were completely unacceptable. We can only hope that it will never happen again in such an ecologically fragile environment. Bearing in mind of course… the other nations now flexing their nuclear muscle China Iran North Korea India Pakistan. My wish would have been that no-one had gone there in the first place. Mankind has shown itself perfectly capable of self destruct… without the catastrophic consequences of unleashing a monster such as this.
Oh totally Jean!!! Why was it ever thought of in the first place????? I guess a quick war is a good war?
It certainly silenced all/any opposition back in the day. But as the rogue states are now showing us two can play at that game!
Hmmmm..thats what is scarey. Not the actual bomb itself, but the people in charge of setting it off! Makes you quite thankful for the good things we do have in our lives!! Hopefully those powers that be, will only use these weapons as an “electric fence” and not as a tool for invasion or revenge. Hopefully they value their lives and the lives of the rest of the world enough to not act irrationally.
Sadly there is nothing rational about a despot. Imagine if Hitler had had a nuclear arsenal. There would have been no need for extermination camps. The final solution may well have put paid to everyone on the planet! Everyone except those with fair hair and blue eyes that is. Not quite sure how he would have sorted them out though! (grin)
Madness!!! Its all madness Jean!