I spoke at the annual Hiroshima Day commemoration in Wellington today. It was great to see two former Parliamentarians who have worked hard on this issue, Gerald O’Brien and Graham Kelly, pictured above.
This is the day that reflects on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The scale of both the short term and long devastation in these two cities was horrific. 92% of the buildings in the city were destroyed, between 140,000 and 160,000 people died. The health effects of radiation were felt immediately, killed many over the following months, and the legacy of illness and disability has stayed with descendants over generations.
Hiroshima Day has become not only a day to reflect on the horror of the bombing, but also to mobilise support for ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In my speech today I talked about the hope that many people have for progress towards that goal. In New Zealand we now have cross party support for abolition. Phil Twyford sponsored a resolution in Parliament this year that had support from all parties. Both Ban Ki Moon and Barack Obama have committed themselves to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. But of course hope is not enough. There are still 28,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and an enormous job to be done to move the major nuclear powers.
NGOs and governments are working together on this. As I looked at the likes of Dame Laurie Salas, Gerald O’Brien and Alyn Ware and some of the younger folk present today, I know that this is a campaign with a huge history and a desire to carry on.
Thanks Grant. My mother marked Horoshima Day every year, and I’m reminded of her when I visit the Peace Flame in the gardens (behind you in the gardens).
Those poor people
Every day I thank God for Captain Tibbets and the Enola Gay.
My father was serving in the Pacific when the war ended. I was born in October 1946 and I dare say had it not been for the bomb I may never have been conceived and born.
Perhaps you have forgotten that the Allied war planners calculated on roughly three million deaths if a conventional assault on mainland Japan was launched. That is, the total death toll including Allied military personnel, Japanese military personal and Japanese civilians who had been brain washed into committing suicide when American servicemen approached.
This was the demented regime, supported 100% by its civilian population, which pioneered the technique of carpet bombing civilian cities in China during the 1930s, which killed no less than 200,000 people in Manchuria in biological weapons experiments.
I could go on but it seems to me that the unpleasant slaughter of a few hundred thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a fair price to pay for the saving of over three million.
You see, war is a terrible awful thing which does not well lend itself to the simplistic vaporings of today’s hand wringers. It is always the calculation of the lesser of two evils.
Such was the use of the atomic bombs in 1945.
It all could have been avoided had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbour and inflicted horrific carnage there.
There are always two sides to every story,
It’s also been theorised that the real reason Japan waved the white flag was because the Soviets were threatening to rout Tojo’s forces.
Anybody who is nuts enough to support nuclear weapons should read ‘Hiroshima’ by John Hersey – the horrific imagery if nothing else should soon change their minds about it!
Bear in mind that there’s conventional weapons carnage inflicted on military personnel at a base and then there is nuclear carnage inflicted upon a city full of civvies.
loota – are you saying the Japanese were careful to avoid civilians.
Not so from the stories I was told and read about when growing up in the 50′s. They were not averse to `dealing to’ civilians.
Soz mate, was only referring to your statement that the use of nuclear weapons could have been avoided if Pearl Harbour (a military base) had not been attacked.
My support goes out to Barney and all the organisers. And the various speakers on the day. I spoke at the event last year. We need abolition of nuclear arms. And soon. The world can only solve it’s fundamental problems with peace.
Loota in case you didn’t realise, the attack on Pearl Harbour was the start of the war in the east…
The song “Enola Gay” by OMD always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up…
There are no winners in war. War kills women, children, civilians, other living things, as well as the adults who are required to participate. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just particularly cruel and horrific examples of one group of humans using technology to kill other humans. If we can’t learn from such evil there isn’t much hope for humanity.
But commemorating Hiroshima Day shows hope.
The Japs were on the ropes anyway for all money by the time the two cities were A bombed. Nuking Japan is seen by many as the ‘opening shot’ of the cold war period, the USSR had served its purpose in helping the allied forces defeat fascisim, and it was back to business as usual for the USA and Britain. These radioactive blasts were partly to serve notice to the ‘Russkis’-watch your step! Of course soviets nuked up in short order and the most wasteful arms spending in human history was underway. I blame the arms race and subsequent division of the world into 2 blocs plus significant small nation minority non aligned group for derailing the United Nations from it’s early promise.
So good on those that continue to commemorate Hiroshima Day and support the ultimate decommissioning of all nuclear weapons.
Yes, Pearl Harbour was the start of the shooting war between Japan and the US. The trade and diplomatic war between the countries had been in full escalation for a couple of years by then, however.
It is sad for us all that some still find justification in the nuclear night mare. So much propaganda is swallowed in war and lives on for the next generation to swallow hook line and sinker.
Money and industry have a large part to play in nuclear proliferation and this still continues today.
More than 70,000 devices produced in the US with over 5000 sites contaminated and a clean up of those alone is estimated at over 250 billion in todays money. It would take more than 30 years to do that clean up if it is at all possible.
Many other hazards for future generations lay waiting with nuclear contamination and waste storage outside of this.
A new programme is being pushed to update the US supplied warheads as there is no profit for that nulcear arms industry unless growth of the nuclear problem perpetuates. The so called reductions are mainly words. The problem is enormous and will still affect at least the next two generations if we stared eradicating nuclear devices now.
Our legacy to the ones we love and the future of the human race.
The nuclear terrorists are the ones producing the devices and they seem to be out of control as they are embedded in the US economy.
Grant your post is a welcomed expression of hope that some politicians at least are not bound by present day US Imperialist conformity.
Keep the rotten nuclear crap out of NZ.
Japan was our allies in the WWI and escorted NZ troops to fight Britain’s war.
After that war democracy in japan did not prevent the rise in power of the military which became an instrument of expansion.
Somewhat parallel to US foreign incursions since.
pdm
I for one am glad the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, if they hadnt the US may have continued to pursue profiteering rather than helping its allies.
IF the US had joined in 1939 my money is on the war being over by 1941. That would have saved lots of lives too Adolf Finkelstein
A high proportion of Hawaiians had japanese ancestry.
The US did not annex Hawaii with popular consent of the Hawaiian people. I don’t condone use of force but there is more than one perspective to the Hawaiian affair.
Quote
“n 1893, a small group of sugar and pineapple-growing businessmen, aided by the American minister to Hawaii and backed by heavily armed U.S. soldiers and marines, deposed Hawaii’s queen. Subsequently, they imprisoned the queen and seized 1.75 million acres of crown land and conspired to annex the islands to the United States.”
” Looking back on the Hawaii takeover, President Cleveland later wrote that “the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States. By an act of war…a substantial wrong has been done.”
Rotten politics laced with business interests and greed.
Grievances can have a life of their own. The people of Hawaii have been dispossessed of their land and livelihood to a large extent, The predominant wealth within the country is now held a few US hands.
Noone ever seems to recall what the Japs did in China and in the Pacific..They earned Hiroshima. I met men who worked on the Burma rail rd, in SEAsia I met elderly women still having nightmares about the Jap generals coming for them when they were twelve…my relations were tortured and starved by the Japanese..my father in law can still speak Japanese having being forced to learn it at school..The local people in Borneo were forced to go out and dig the huge pits for the bodies of their countrymen.
I once attended one of these Hiroshima Day things in Chch with an American friend..a uni lecturer..she did not know anything about the ”other side ”of the story..I found this incredible.
It is hard for us to consider the use of atomic weapons as a lesser evil, but in the context of the war to date, it was a far better alternative than a conventional invasion and subsequent campaign, and for both sides.
Lets not forget that Coventry, Rotterdam, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Chongqing, Warsaw, Wielu? and Frampol and many other cities were flattened by conventional bombing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are remebered due to the nature of the device used, but other cities are just as worthy of rememberence,
The power and terror of political will is exemplified by Hiroshima. No justification can reduce the monster released and we should all live in fear of such.
Perhaps we will read the vehemence of Iraqis and Afghanistanis when time has allowed the blinding propaganda of war to open our minds to other than what the media plants.
Invasion is never what common people ask for unless some serious mind bending is abound.
Our press is controlled by an aligned group.
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/15/05.htm
“Nagasaki are remebered due to the nature of the device used, but other cities are just as worthy of rememberence,”
The difference being inter generational suffering as a result of the direct effects of the radiation.
Dresden was an appalling premeditated decision to punish after the event. BUT despite the huge destruction and deaths from it, the following generations werent deformed and dying because of that bombing.
Of course the Japanese troops and leadership inflicted awful things on people, both sides did because it was war. However early involvement in the war by the US would have saved millions and millions of lives on all sides.
We are seeing the same complaints now about depleted uranium. Only the losers of a war are tried for war crimes.
And I don’t think the US will ever allow any of their personnel to be tried for war crimes, under any circumstances. Dropping a 500lb LGB on a village wedding – no problem, its just ‘fog of war’.