Following the link from Pwen’s blog, I got to this site which is very interesting. Didn’t believe I would read all 27 chapters of it but yea, I did. It talks about the Chernobyl disaster and life in that area after that.
This sentence in Chapter 2 made strong thoughts form in my mind. I was actually bursting to tell someone about it. But the people who would discuss this were either a) asleep, b) talking on the phone and c) well, just not around. So what to do? Pick someone at random on MSN. Yew Seng…who ended up…not answering me. -_-|||
Quote “In keeping with a long tradition of Soviet justice, they imprisoned all the people who worked on that shift – regardless of their guilt. The man who tried to stop the chain reaction in a last desperate attempt to avoid the meltdown was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He died 3 weeks later.”
My thoughts:
Humans are fuckin’ stupid. Why the fuck go sentence the guy to 14 years imprisonment when he’s probably going to die of radiation in a matter of days? Like he’s not suffering already. Yea, way to go manz. *rolls eyes*
Open the room door. YES! Dad’s still awake. Finally, someone whom I know will discuss this with me. *teary eyes*
He said that’s coz they need to make someone the scapegoat. Whatever happens, SOMEONE needs to shoulder the responsibility or rather, be blamed for it. I didn’t quite get what he meant at first but upon further questioning… It’s like how the boss never gets the blame but the small frys get the worst. So I said, “like the government?” Which was precisely what he meant.
I came to the later chapters which described this town where all the people were evacuated. It’s practically a ghost town.
Quote “This town might be an attractive place for tourists. Some tourists companies have been trying to arrange tours in this town, but the first group of tourists found the silence unnerving and downright SPOOKY. And it is. They charged 1200 hryvnas for a 2 hour excursion and after some 15 minutes, they wanted to flee to the outside world. The silence here is deafening.”
Reading on and looking at all the photos, it IS kinda spooky since time really seemed to stand still for this town. Calendars hung on walls are from some 20 years ago. Decorations put up to celebrate Labour Day…a day which never came for this town.
The town would only be ready to be re-populated after 600 years. But by then, the people who are going to live there probably won’t feel anything much for the town and its sad memories. Simply coz the people aren’t descendants of the original population. In case you’re wondering why, the original population would have died of radiation. Even if they did reproduce their next generation, how long would this go on? Their children would either be born deformed or have a short life.
I told Dad my thoughts. We need experiments to learn about things. Whatever those people were trying to do, they were doing it to learn something new. To prove a theory. If you don’t try, how would you know? But the sad thing is, failure does happen at times. And in this case, this failure cost the lives of thousands of people. Sad isn’t it?
I went on to tell him about what Per and I talked about some time ago. The lack of friends to discuss matters like these. No offence to anybody but I do have friends who refuse to discuss such stuff. Partly coz they find it profound? But I don’t understand why people refuse to think and question? Is it so hard to do so? To me, it’s just linking thoughts with events happening around the world. If we don’t question then how do we learn? Which is why I get pretty frustrated when people watch certain “thinking” movies just for pure entertainment value and later say it’s boring. Why do you think it’s boring? Coz there’s not enough action? Not enough blood and gore? Not enough romance? It does not follow the usual storyline – introduction, problem, happily ever after?
Dad presented his theory. Don’t laugh ok…I’m sure everyone has little theories of their own.
He said people can be classified under 10 different levels. 1 being the “earthy” people. With their nose to the ground, like hogs sniffing out truffles. They only worry whether they have a roof over their head, when their next meal is and how much money to make. 10 being the saints. Eyes fixed on the skies. They only think about their next life and reaching heaven. The last they worry about is food and money. Then there are the people who are in-between. Those are the ones who think and question about all sorts of things. People like us (him and me).
Per, you gotta give it up to my è€çˆ¸ for this little theory of his. Haha…I love my dad when we discuss such matters. He always gives me answers or new things to think about when I ask him questions. :laugh:
If people treasured life, things like these won’t happen. If the Communist (‘higher’ up just because they were) of power treasured life, they would have evacuated the citizens immediately, not 10 days after constant exposure, so the citizens might have a chance to live.
Why did they keep it a secret?
1. They are not exposed to it, they can afford to wait.
2. They want face so they don’t want to admit (that’s also why they put the blame on the guy like your dad said).
3. Unprintable
NOTE: No. 3 is horrible. It’s not a fact. It’s speculation. But these words may turn up somewhere on Google and maybe 15 years later, you might find me arrested or something like that so I’m not printing it out. Ask me on MSN k?
But there is an importance of knowing what happened. Because it forces you to think about your life, and life itself. What kind of a human are you? Apathy can be a sad thing.
What’s level 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 then?
elisia says: Why am I not surprised that you commented? :rofl:
Ok…I must have not read the whole article properly coz I didn’t know that they evacuated the whole town 10 days later. Omg…they are freakin’ evil. But that’s it. Most people with all the power and money in the world wouldn’t care less about the other people suffering out there coz they have what they need around them. They probably “pretend” to care. They are expected to and not coz they really cared. Even now, look at all the nonsense about going to war. Who are the ones who really suffer in the end?
Hahaha…about number 3…I should catch you on MSN soon.
It’s just a scale. Which means the in-between levels are just the people who are catogorised on how much they question and what they question about.
I reckon the meaning is in the act of imprisonment itself, not the fact that that man will die anyway. It’s not an act of stupidity, it’s the way people were then – inflexible and scared of the higher powers.
elisia says: My friend pointed out that that’s how the law is. Just like when someone commits suicide. The police has to handcuff the person even though the person may be dead.
Inflexible and scared of the higher powers…haha…I wonder whether it’s still the same now. To an extent, probably still is…