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Email: Tuesday September 4 2001, 02:45 | Joshua Bryan to David Bryan

Dear Dad,

Still a having a great time here, I'm in Hiroshima, where Diane lives. I've been here for a week now. It is a fantastic city - it has shown an incredible sense of purpose and vigor in regenerating itself so completely since '45. Naturally the Peace Park and the accompnaying museum are incredibly moving and upsetting but certainly leave you with a immense sense of conviction that this must never happen again. I felt quite ashamed also to come from a country who continue to justify our nuclear arms industry and national army store.

Anyway, Diane's apartemtn, which is quite small and traditional, over looks a beauitiful park at the centre of which is an abdandoned school building which was one of the few building left vaguely standing after the A-bomb, and which is maintained as a memorial. At first I thought this was quite am errie sight to have to see every day, but actually you do get used to it. I haven't sensed any kind of resentment from anyone here (people naturally assume I'm American) but I think everyone here has come to the understanding that the crime committed against the people of Hiroshima, is one of hundreds of terrible human crimes, some of which the Japanese were also guilty of. ......

Email: Wed September 5 2001, 02:17 | Joshua Bryan to David Bryan

Dad,

Thanks for the email. One interesting and frightening thing I learnt at the Peace Museum was that the A-bomb at Hiroshima was convient for the American for more than the obvious reasons. Apparently the Russians had signed an agreement after the German-partners had surrendered, to enter the Pacfic war for the Allies. But because the Americans didn't want the Russians to have an improved position after the end of the Pacfic war they decided to speed up the progress against the Japanese before the Russians took part for the Allies.

Also Hiroshima at the time had been relatively untouched during the random bombings the rest of Japan had been affected by, for example Tokyo was largely destroyed, only the historical Capital Kyoto kept most of its heritage sites. The city also had an important strategic position for the movement and manufacture of military supplies. It represented a perfect site on which to test the short and long term effects of a single nuclear bomb on the human population, ecology and geography of a �normal$B!I(J[compared to others in times of war] city. Unfortunately these types of bombs don't distinguish between civilian and other [do any?] and of the 300,000 people living here, in one instant 140,000 lost there lives. In practice the US broke all conventions of war with regard to the treatment of civilians in a single shocking action, where as the Japanese military it has always been argued at home, broke the same �rules of war� in the concentration camps. It seems futile to even think about these things, but I guess it is important to remember and learn from Hiroshima's lesson particularly, perhaps more than other lessons of the war, because for the first time the world saw the destructive force of nucleur weapons. When I left the peace museum here last week, one of my most prominent thoughts was astonishment that we haven:t completely destroyed our selves by now!

Thank God we have escaped it so far.
JX

Email: Wed September 12 2001, 02:10 | Joshua Bryan to Family

Dad, Mum and Hannah,

I'm in a a bit of state of shock this morning. It was quite late at night when I first hear what had begun to happen in the US and called home, speaking to Dad. I was up quite late going to an American friends apartment for a while, she is a Japanese American from NY. Naturally was very upset and concerned for her family and friends who work near the World Trade Centre.

Early this morning we got a call from Ramona before she went to bed. I'm finding it very difficult to understand what has happened - the Japanese TV only have limited pictures and I don't understand the commmentary, however there have been English interviews with eye witnesses. It is particularly frightening to be in Hiroshima when this is going on. It certainly the biggest event (most provocative to another WW) that has happened in the last 50 years perhaps. It couldn't have happened at a worse time with the current President.

In Tokyo all the planes have been cancelled. I believe this is also the case in London. I called both the British Embassy and BA this morning. All is supposedly going ahead for my flight tomorrow, however I doubt whether I will leave within 24hrs of the planned departure time.

I have booked my over night bus from Hiroshima to Tokyo and will leave as planned this evening. I'll call BA again before I leave to get an update if there is one. ...

"...How can Islam, with its Barbaric code of criminal punishment and its treatment of women, be reconciled to modern Western notions about human rights?

The veil, the Taliban's refusal to allow women education or hospital treatment, the widespread practice of female circumcision � all mean that Islam is frequently accused of treating women as second-class citizens. Muslim apologists suggest that these are cultural practices not religious ones. But the Koran and hadith contain provisions which make a prima facie case for misogyny � ruling that a woman's testimony is worth only half that of a man, that her inheritance rights must be lesser, and that woman is to be seen as Satan when a man is sexually tempted. And the Koran lays down punishments regarded in the West as barbaric � cutting off the hands of thieves and stoning adulterers to death. Yet many British Muslims, including white women converts, insist that they have found embracing Islam to be a liberating experience which has brought them inner peace. It is a reconciliation which continues to mystify most non-Muslims.

Even so it is difficult to spend any time looking into Islam, and meeting modern British Muslims, without concluding that often it is our questions which tell us more about the problems we face than do their answers, even where they fail entirely to convince. It is clear that much of our contemporary secular mindset about Islam is about as accurate as an assessment of Christianity were to be if we made it on the basis of the rhetoric of the Rev Ian Paisley or the actions of the IRA in its terrible heyday. The 1,000 Muslims who were reported to be among those who died in last week's attacks on New York would doubtless tell us so, if only they now could.

The issue, of course, is not Islam but fundamentalism � a tendency which is as evident among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and even Confucians. Academics argue that it makes no sense to talk of Muslim fundamentalism � for if you don't believe that the Koran is literally the inspired word of God, you're not a Muslim. But fundamentalists in all religions share common characteristics beyond the fact that they interpret symbols literally. All are highly selective in "the fundamentals" they chose to return to, and in what part of modernity they accept. All take traditional texts and use them out of context. All embrace some form of Manicheanism � seeing themselves as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil in which they have to find an opponent and demonise them. The danger in the days in which we non-Muslims now find ourselves is that we too will succumb to some of the same temptations.

If so, it may be that there is indeed a time-bomb ticking away at the heart of our society. But it is ignorance of Islam that may prove to be the deadliest thing we have to fear."

The full article What is Islam? by Paul Vallely is published online at http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=94977