World Appeal on the 60th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The people of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki experienced the massive, profound, long-lasting
horror and trauma of atomic bombing on August 6 and 9, 1945.
They tasted the hellish end of the world that nuclear weapons
hold in store, and for sixty years the survivors have done
everything in their power to communicate a single message:
it must never happen again. Will they succeed in awakening
the world from its insane nuclear trance? Or will the past
be forgotten, and repeated.
Incredibly, some in the United States, Russia, Britain, France,
China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea still believe
that nuclear weapons have a legitimate purpose and can be
used to their benefit. They fail to understand that any use
of even a single nuclear weapon for whatever purpose will
benefit only warmongers and terrorists seeking to increase
violence. Any use of nuclear weapons will overwhelm any meaningful
medical response.
The day of deterrence is done. The great
majority of people and nations on Earth want nuclear weapons
permanently gone. It is technically feasible to be safely
rid of these expensive, heinous, and absurdly dangerous weapons
by the year 2020. All that is needed is the political will,
and we are the majority. The time has come to liberate ourselves,
our children, and their children from the intolerable, unconscionable
threat of annihilation. Please let your leaders know that
you will accept nothing less.
Morality is at the core of the nuclear
issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace
or on a culture of violence? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally
immoral: their action is indiscriminate, killing people alive
now and generations as yet unborn. We do not believe that
the people of the world would accept a policy that is inherently
immoral and likely to end in catastrophe.
We all have a common interest: survival.
We have to move forward from a now outdated security system
based on nuclear deterrence and alliances, to one based on
cooperation and allegiance to humankind. In the words of the
Russell-Einstein Manifesto, signed by Albert Einstein as one
of the last acts of his life: "We appeal, as human beings
to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest.
If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if
you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death."
Above all: Remember your humanity.
Tadatoshi Akiba - Mayor of Hiroshima
Iccho Itoh - Mayor of Nagasaki
Sir Joseph Rotblat - Nobel Peace Laureate
Dr Ronald McCoy and Dr Gunnar Westberg - Co-Presidents,
IPPNW
|
