August
24, 2002
Hiroshima
Under the Shadow of 9/11
When
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi rose to speak at Hiroshima's
Peace Memorial Park at 8:26 a.m. this past August 6, that is to
say, precisely 11 minutes past the sounding of the Peace Bell which
commemorates the world's first dropping of the nuclear bomb, he
could have barely imagined the negative impact his address would
have upon his audience. The contrast between Koizumi's uninspiring
and cliché-ridden speech – which barely mentioned the growing
danger of a nuclear war – and Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba's
address, delivered just 10 minutes earlier, was stark.
Akiba
did not mince his words while underscoring the nuclear danger and
reprimanding the government of the United States: "Since the
terrorist attack against the American people on September 11 last
year, the danger has become more striking. The path of reconciliation
– serving chains of hatred, violence and retaliation – so long advocated
by the survivors has been abandoned. Today, the prevailing philosophy
seems to be 'I'll show you' and 'I'm stronger than you are'. In
Afghanistan and Middle East, in India and Pakistan, and wherever
violent conflict erupts, the victims of this philosophy are overwhelmingly
women, children, the elderly, and those least able to defend themselves."
Akiba
spoke of the "spiritual home for all people" that Hiroshima
is building, in which "grows an abundant Forest of Memory,
and the River of Reconciliation and Humanity flowing from that forest
is plied by Reason, Conscience and Compassion, ships that ultimately
sail to the Sea of Hope and the Future."
Akiba
said: "I strongly urge President Bush to visit Hiroshima and
Nagasaki to walk through that forest and ride that river. I beg
him to encounter this human legacy and confirm with his own eyes
what nuclear weapons hold in store for us all." But he declared:
"The United States government has no right to force Pax Americana
on the rest of us, or to unilaterally determine the fate of the
world."
In
Nagasaki, on August 9 too, Mayor Iccho Itoh delivered a powerful
moral rebuke to war-mongers responsible for raising the probability
of a nuclear catastrophe. Recounting September 11 and the US response
to it, he said: "International tensions have since been heightened
by the ensuing attacks against Afghanistan and intensified strife
in the Middle East, as well as military clashes between India and
Pakistan that have threatened to devolve into nuclear conflict."
Itoh
added: "In the midst of such serious international conditions,
the government of the United States has unilaterally withdrawn from
the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia in the name
of terrorist countermeasures, and is moving forward with missile
defence programmes. The United States has also rejected ratification
of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and has suggested
the possibilities of restarting the production of plutonium triggers,
developing a new generation of compact nuclear weapons, and engaging
in preemptive nuclear strikes."
He
said: "We are appalled by this series of unilateral actions
taken by the government of the United States, actions which are
also being condemned by people of sound judgment throughout the
world."
The
two Mayors' speeches reflect the predominant popular sentiment in
Japan, which remains overwhelmingly opposed to nuclear weapons in
spite of recent slidebacks and hesitations in the government about
the three "non-nuclear principles" which Japan advocates – not
manufacturing, not possessing and not "bringing in" nuclear
weapons.
In
May, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fakudo suggested Japan could
review its long-standing commitment to these principles. Since then,
matters have been further muddied by the growing pressure from Japan's
militarist Right wing and by Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni shrine,
which is a monument to Japanese militarism and "war heroes".
Koizumi
on Hiroshima Day reiterated his commitment to Japan's pacifist constitution
and the "three principles". But his Liberal Democratic
Party has rejected a proposal by Social Democratic Party leader
Takako Doi to give full legal effect to put the three non-nuclear
principles. Nor have the people of Hiroshima forgotten the fight
they had to wage with conservatives in the Ministry of Health, Welfare
and Labour to insert a critical phrase in an inscription on a wall
panel leading to the display corner of the newly completed National
Peace Memorial Hall for the Deceased Victims of the Atomic Bomb
in Hiroshima.
The
inscription reads: "While praying for those who died from the
atomic bombing and remembering the many who fell victim to the erroneous
national policy, we hereby pledge to hand down our memories of the
tragedy to posterity, disseminate them here and abroad and build
a peaceful world without nuclear weapons as soon as possible so
that the same tragedy will never be repeated." The words, "the
many who fell victim to the erroneous national policy" were
inserted after much wrangling and at the insistence of the hibakusha,
the survivors of the bomb attack.
Contrary
to what many people believe, and despite the moral stature and respect
they command, Japan has not treated its hibakusha well. Literally
thousands of them – and they are a rapidly depleting species – have
had to fight long legal battles to get relief and medical treatment
from the state. For instance, I briefly met Hideko Matsuga in Nagasaki
who had to fight for 12 long years to receive compensation. According
to Senji Yamaguchi, a leader of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation
of A- and H-bomb Sufferers' Organisations), at least a quarter of
the 400,000 people who survived the nuclear bombing of 1945 have
received no assistance.
At
an international peace conference organised by Gensuikyo (Japan
Conference Against A- and H-Bombs), which I attended with 60 other
foreign participants from 30 countries, two important speakers were
Mukai Shunji, a Japanese hibakusha living in Brazil, and
Choi Il Chul, a Korean who lived and worked in Hiroshima in 1945.
Both narrated terrible stories of the plight of the hibakusha
living abroad. Most of Brazil's 300-odd hibakusha of Japanese
origin and the bulk of Korea's 15,000 or more have received little
assistance from the Japanese government.
Evidently,
there are many people in Japan who would like to forget Hiroshima
and Nagasaki and turn a blind eye to the growing global nuclear
danger too. The reality of this danger was highlighted repeatedly
at the peace conference I attended. Here, the principal focus was
on the shadow which September 11 and subsequent developments has
cast over the world, causing radical shifts in perceptions of "terrorism"
and "security". No recent event has led to a more one-sided
and warped definition of terrorism (reduced to sub-state terror
alone), or to more far-reaching legitimation of the use of force
as a universal solution to all security problems.
Post-September
11, any military action, whether punitive or pre-emptive, can be
rationalised so long as it has the approval of the US. America is
threatening to destroy the whole complex architecture of multilateral
agreements on arms control and disarmament, and on rules about the
justice of and in war. It has taken the world two centuries, countless
wars, and the loss of millions of lives to evolve this multilateral
edifice.
With
its Ballistic Missile Defence plans, the US is about to inaugurate
a Second Nuclear Age with a not-so-clandestine Manhattan Project-II.
Its Nuclear Posture Review opens new avenues for the development
and actual use of weapons of mass destruction against seven
named states (including Russia and China, as well as US-designated
"rogues) and for a variety of purposes and objectives which
go well beyond the standard concepts of deterrence, flawed as these
are.
Many
conference participants stressed that Bush may be about to put into
practice his doctrine of "pre-emption" in Iraq. This would
make a mockery of international law – which, in the absence of Security
Council authorisation, only permits use of force in self-defence
after a state has been attacked. The US is not preparing
to defend itself against known or likely threats. It is seeking
permanent military supremacy against all real or imaginary
adversaries, present and future.
It
is the world's gravest misfortune, and a consequence of the present
"unipolar moment" conjuncture, that there is so little
resistance to the US from its allies/friends, neutral powers, and
rivals.
This,
then, is a dangerous moment. It is marked by a distressingly high
probability of the use of nuclear weapons, far higher than any time
since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
India
and Pakistan have contributed in their own sordid ways to the cynicism
that has produced this moment – through a reversal of India's nuclear
doctrine and the 1998 tests, by vying with each other in courting
the US, and through their intensified mutual rivalry – a South Asian
sideshow to America's "War on Terror". Particularly deplorable
is the post-December 13 conduct of the two, led by Vajpayee's jingoistic
regime, which is aping Bush's government. The eight-months-long
South Asian stand-off highlights Kashmir's potential as a trigger
for a nuclear conflagration.
This
underscores the urgent need for a truly international peace
movement, with strong organic roots and an ability to act simultaneously
in a number of countries. What exists today is a collection of national
movements and discrete campaigns with some minimal cooperation between
them, but without the mobilising abilities available, say, in the
early to mid-1980s. The once-very-powerful peace movements of Western
Europe went into decline post-Cold War. They are in revival mode,
but their influence remains limited. Peace movements are growing
in the Global South, but have a long way to go. This is also true
of Central and Eastern Europe.
The
peace movement in the US appears to have gathered some strength,
as testified to by a 100,000-strong rally on April 20 in Washington,
a revival of interest in peace issues on university campuses, and
growing links with the anti-globalisation movement. But it falls
woefully short when it comes to effecting a major change in public
perceptions, leave alone official policy.
Perhaps
the greatest message from the 57th anniversary of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki is that the peace movement needs to go global – not just
in perspective, but in effective action as well as organisation
and logistics. It is time peace activists everywhere devoted some
serious thought – and resources – to planning a truly international
movement.
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