Peace Philosophy Centre, est. 2007, provides a space for dialogue and facilitates learning for creating a peaceful and sustainable world. ピース・フィロソフィー・センター(2007年設立)は平和で持続可能な世界を創るための対話と学びの場を提供します。피스필로소피센터(2007년 설립)는 평화롭고 지속 가능한 세계를 만들기 위한 대화와 배움의 장소를 제공합니다. 和平哲学中心(成立于2007年)致力于提供一个对话与学习的平台,以建设一个和平且可持续的世界。Follow X: @PeacePhilosophy ; Email: peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com
Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races
核戦争の防止と軍拡競争の回避に関する核兵器国5カ国首脳の共同声明
JANUARY 03, 2022
2022年1月3日
The People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America consider the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities.
We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war. We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented.
We reaffirm the importance of addressing nuclear threats and emphasize the importance of preserving and complying with our bilateral and multilateral non-proliferation, disarmament, and arms control agreements and commitments. We remain committed to our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, including our Article VI obligation “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
We each intend to maintain and further strengthen our national measures to prevent unauthorized or unintended use of nuclear weapons. We reiterate the validity of our previous statements on de-targeting, reaffirming that none of our nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or at any other State.
We underline our desire to work with all states to create a security environment more conducive to progress on disarmament with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all. We intend to continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations, strengthen stability and predictability, increase mutual understanding and confidence, and prevent an arms race that would benefit none and endanger all. We are resolved to pursue constructive dialogue with mutual respect and acknowledgment of each other’s security interests and concerns.
2021年1月22日、核兵器禁止条約 (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(英語条文はここ、外務省の日本語仮訳はここ)が発効となりました。核兵器の使用、使用の威嚇、開発、実験、生産、製造、取得、保有および貯蔵を禁止し、その移譲、受領、禁止行動に対する援助、奨励、勧誘も禁止する、全面的な「禁止」条約は長年の世界の被爆者や根強い市民社会の運動の成果と言えます。条約では「核兵器に関する活動が先住民にもたらす均衡を失した影響を認識し」と、核問題と植民地主義の関連にも触れています。
著書:Bioinorganic Chemistry, an Introduction(Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1977)、 Bioinorganic Chemistry, a Survey (Elsevier, Amsterdam,2008)、 Hiroshima to Fukushima (Springer, Heidelberg, 2013)、 Nuclear Issues in the 21st Century , Nova Science Publ, New York, 2020)、『原爆と原発』(鹿砦社、2012)、『放射能と人体』(講談社、2014)、『病む現代文明を超えて持続可能な文明へ』(本の泉社、2013)等多数。
We Need an Alternative Peace Museum in Hiroshima -- Questioning the Hiroshima-centred War Memory in Japan
Satoko Oka Norimatsu
Abstract:
Marking the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII this year, the author problematizes the general lack of recognition in the Japanese war memory for the history of the Empire of Japan’s seven decades of colonial rule and aggressive wars. This tendency is prevalent even in the “peace,” “anti-war,” and “anti-nuclear” communities, accentuated by what the author calls the “Hiroshima Historical View,” which centres itself around the Japanese suffering in the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This view of history omits what led up to the atomic bombing and depicts the event as a sudden tragedy that befell the otherwise “peaceful” lives of Japan's innocent people. The newly renovated Hiroshima Peace Museum is no exception. It neither touches upon Japan’s invasions of neighbouring countries and Hiroshima's role in them, nor does it point to the United States’ responsibility for the evil that it committed. The author will discuss how such sanitization of historical responsibilities contributes to today’s acceptance of the U.S.-Japan military alliance that enables further buildup in the region, including Iwakuni and Kure, constituting a permanent “war capital” identity of Hiroshima. The author will conclude by presenting a vision for an alternative museum in Hiroshima.
On September 20, 2020, I organized a member-hosted special event with my colleagues Yuki Tanaka, a historian based in Melbourne, Australia and Akari Kojima and Yoshiki Kanai, members of a new social action group RADICAL BANANA.
For a Peaceful Future without Nuclear Weapons and Wars
-- On behalf of the A-Bomb Survivors in Japan --
Mikiso Iwasa
FunabashiCity, ChibaPrefecture
May 2010
Dear friends,
I feel honored and pleased to be together with you, who
have come to New York
to achieve a successful outcome of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, and who are
earnestly hoping and working for a world set free of the threat of nuclear
weapons and nuclear war. Let us work together to abolish nuclear weapons
without any further delay. Representing the Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors of
Japan,
I have come here today to work for our common goal. Allow me to share with you
my A-bomb experience and my appeal as a Hibakusha.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6, 1945 and on August 9, 1945 respectively turned the
two cities into rubble in instants through the enormous, combined destructive
power of blast waves, heat rays, and radiation. The citizens there were thrown
into infernos of fire and devastation contaminated with radioactivity.
At that time, I was a sixteen-year-old middle school
student. As the factory at which I was mobilized to work was closed on that day
due to a power shortage, I did not go to work. I was in the yard of my house,
which was located 1.2 kilometers from what would be ground zero. Soon after I
heard the roar of planes flying over, I felt the impact of a strong blast, and
my body was smashed to the ground. I was not particularly injured, as the
ground was soft soil. If I had stood about half a meter to the right, I might
have been killed instantly, smashed on a garden rock. Miraculously, I suffered
no burns, as I was in the shade of a neighbor’s house standing opposite mine
across the street.
In the ominous silence, it suddenly dawned on me that my
mother was under the collapsed house. I cried out, “Mom!” And I heard her
reply, “I’m here,” from under the fallen roof. I was relieved to know that she
was alive, but my joy was short-lived. When I managed to lift the roof sheet and
to thrust my head under, I saw the fragments of the collapsed support pillars
scattered over the foundation of the house. Through narrow slits between them,
I saw my mother lying on her back about a meter away. She was bleeding from her
closed eyes. “I cannot get in from here. Can you move out from there?” I asked.
She said, “I cannot move unless you remove the beam lying on my left shoulder.”
I tried to remove the debris, attacking it from another side, but I could not
make my way any closer to her. After some time, a fierce firestorm approached,
and I worked desperately in a shower of falling sparks. There was no one to
help me. Feeling powerless, I became nearly frantic and cried, “Mom, there’s no
way I can move it. The fire is coming. Can’t you make it through somehow?” I
had no idea what was happening in Hiroshima
beyond the confines of my collapsed house. My mother must have been full of
fear, not able to see anything around her, trapped under the fallen house. But
she seemed to have accepted death and said to me, “Then you must escape
quickly!” And she began to recite a Buddhist prayer. Hearing her prayer, I ran
away. I left my mother to be burnt alive in raging flames.
At
that time, all around me was a sea of fire. I struggled through and managed to
reach the swimming pool of a junior high school located behind our house. I
jumped into the water and eventually escaped from the fire. But I saw a man,
who was also trying to flee from the fire, reach the edge of the schoolyard a
little later. He was enveloped in flames and burnt to death. Like him, many
people were burnt to death after narrowly escaping their fallen houses. Losing
their way in firestorms, they swarmed to a small water tank and died
altogether. Similar dreadful scenes were seen everywhere in Hiroshima and Nagasaki right after the atomic bombings. It
was literally a hell on earth.
A
couple of days later, I dug out what looked like my mother’s body from the
ruins of our house. It was a greasy and slimy object, like a mannequin painted
with coal tar and burned. I could not believe that it was my mother’s body. She
was killed mercilessly, not as a human being but as an object. The deaths of
A-bomb victims in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
could not possibly be described as human deaths.
My
younger sister, then aged 12 and a first grader in a girls’ middle school, had
been mobilized by the military and was working near ground zero when the bomb
was dropped. To this day, she is still unaccounted for. We do not know where or
how she died. As my father had died from an illness in May that year, I became
an A-bomb orphan. Looking for my sister around the city center, I fell ill,
suffering the acute symptoms of radiation poisoning. Scarlet spots developed
all over my body. I could not swallow due to a sore throat. I bled from my nose
and from my gums. I lost my hair. Thanks to the devoted care of my aunt, who
lost her husband to the A-bomb, I survived. But since then, I have suffered
many different illnesses and health conditions related to radiation poisoning.
Recently, I developed cancer caused by the delayed effects of A-bomb radiation.
I continue my Hibakusha activities while battling my cancer.
Please
remember that my experience is only one of the several hundred thousand victims
who went through the A-bombings. Not all of the Hibakusha were under the
mushroom cloud. Many more people who later came into the city looking for their
families or engaging in rescue work were also exposed to residual radiation,
inhaling radioactive dust and air and drinking or eating contaminated water and
food, irradiated not only externally but also internally. Even after sixty-five
years, many Hibakusha still suffer from the dreadful consequences of the
A-bombs, many worse off than I, but they still struggle to survive. We want to
make sure that we stop repeating such atrocities. No one should have to
experience such atrocities.
The
harmful effects of nuclear weapons are not limited to the damage done to the
bodies of their victims. Survivors continue to suffer in their everyday lives
and from psychological wounds that will never heal as long as they live. Many
of the Hibakusha have had chronic health problems, have lost family members,
have experienced family break-ups, and have not been able to rebuild their
lives, facing various kinds of social discrimination, giving up thoughts of
marriage and children. In the cases of those who were exposed to the A-bombs in
utero and were born with microcephaly, their parents continue to bear
unimaginable burden and suffering, not only as Hibakusha themselves, but as
parents of Hibakusha. While we know of many cases of second-generation A-bomb
victims who have died from leukemia or cancers, the mechanism of the genetic
effects of the A-bombs remains unstudied.
Thus,
the A-bombs continue to inflict serious damage on the survivors to the extent
that they are not allowed to die as human beings nor live as human beings. We,
the Hibakusha, are living witnesses of one of the worst human disasters in
history.
But we have never called for retaliation. The A-bomb damage
was too grave and too destructive to consider retaliation. Instead, we have
promoted our movement to ensure that such tragedies should not be repeated. We
have worked to prevent nuclear war and to abolish nuclear weapons. We have also
worked to achieve state compensation for the A-bomb damage. We speak about our
A-bomb experiences both in Japan
and internationally. We are confident that our activities have contributed to
preventing the outbreak of nuclear war in a number of crises.
Now, we are at a very important juncture in our history.
On April 5, 2009, U.S. President Obama in his speech in
Prague, Czech Republic, expressed his strong determination to achieve a “world
without nuclear weapons”, acknowledging for the first time the moral
responsibility of the country that has used nuclear weapons to act for that
goal. We the Hibakusha pay tribute to him for his statement. We sincerely hope
that during this NPT Review Conference his determination will be translated
into real action. Discussions should start immediately to set out a concrete
path for international negotiations for and realization of the abolition of
nuclear weapons.
At the same time, we are aware of the significance of our
own task. Currently, in the Main Gallery of the Visitors Lobby of the U.N.
building, we are holding an A-bomb exhibition entitled “A Message to the World
from Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.”
There, our delegation members are also giving witness to their atomic bomb
experiences. Please come and visit our exhibition. We earnestly hope to achieve
our goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons, and for this, we continue to
work together with you. Thank you.