“Sadly, sometimes it’s too late. And that’s the thing about time, we cannot get it back.”- Thomas Shelby. 

There are times in life when I want to go back and fix my mistakes. These times are gone, we can’t take them back. The accidents and mishaps of war and tragedies are things that will curse us if we don’t learn from history and her mistakes. Our mistakes can’t be fixed but we can at least apologize and repay.  It’s like how part of the story where at the near end, the times gradually change and our presidents still reflect on what was done in the past even if it wasn’t their choice to commit those crimes. 

“From Peace comes within, do not seek it out.”- Siddhartha Gautama.

We can only remember what the past times have caused us, and how they affected us. There is nothing to really do now but to accept it, come to terms with it, and pray for repayment. The term “everything comes around” will eventually come with good karma. With this, the events that inturn after you don’t act upon the harm, life will blossom and give.  In the novel, Siddhartha Gautama seeks out peace and hope. He goes to various people asking for help and training under them until he realized that the only peace he could get was from himself. All the seeking he did was all a waste. He could not regain that time, only reflect and come to peace with it. The presidents eventually repaid and made countless apologies to those affected by the imprisonment. Although these apologies and 20,000 dollars won’t make up for the lost jobs and lost years, they will at least amount to something that the people can remember. The government doesn’t want to live this down and will remember this. They’re willing to go distances to repay their mistakes, not forget about them.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”- George Santayana.

The events of the concurrent pandemic and the events of the world war have scared us. It’s like how history repeats itself with people in the position to do so.  The people with power who don’t learn and remember can often repeat the same actions that cause the same consequences. How we slit our fingers by touching the broken glass. If we don’t learn from this experience, we will cause the same harm to ourselves. If we do, we won’t slit our fingers a second time. The pandemic has made us learn by forcing us to wear masks and quarantine to prevent the spreading of the virus. As we learn and learn, the world will be a better place eventually. 

One of the personal events in my life that have redirected me towards the book, “They called us enemy” was the exclusion that I get from certain things. Things that separate us should not make a difference in the way we interact with each others. These exclusions and specialties should not make us superior. As a Vietnamese person, I should not be superior to others, this is the opposite of what my cousins think though. They say it as if they’re special for being Vietnamese and not white.  There should be no reason to express that.