Representatives of hibakusha — the Japanese community of survivors of the United States’ bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — are denouncing an agreement between the U.S. and Japan that equates the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians with at a World War II attack on a key U.S. naval base.
The Biden administration last week signed an agreement with Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui establishing a “sister-park” relationship between the Japanese city’s Peace Memorial Park and the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
At a signing ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel appeared to equate the events that the two parks memorialize.
“Nobody can go to Pearl Harbor, and nobody can go to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and enter the front door, walk out the exit door and be the same person,” Emanuel said.
Japan’s surprise attack on Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941 killed roughly 2,300 U.S. military personnel.
The Truman administration’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945 immediately killed roughly 80,000 civilians, and a second bombing of Nagasaki killed about 70,000. Another 140,000 people died by the end of that year from the effects of the bombing.
The city of Hiroshima estimated that a total of 237,000 people were killed from radiation poisoning, cancer, and injuries in the five years after the attack.
Atsuko Yamamoto, a Japanese educator in Osaka, said the two attacks were “completely different” considering the scale and targets.
The attack on Pearl Harbor and the nuke bombing of Hiroshima are completely different.
— Atsuko Yamamoto🇯🇵 (@piyococcochan2) June 30, 2023
Pearl Harbor was an attack on U.S. troops, while Hiroshima was an attack on unarmed civilians.
Don't talk about them as if those events are the same.
The nuke attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki… https://t.co/MHT7TC0IT3
Several survivors wrote to Matsui ahead of the ceremony to question to purpose of the sister-park agreement, arguing that the two attacks “are historic lessons to learn from and to never repeat” but not “something that we should forgive each other for.”
“The historical backgrounds of the two parks will forever be different,” Haruko Moritaki, an A-bomb survivor and peace activist who advises the Hiroshima Association for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, told the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper.
In response to the pushback, Emanuel said people in Japan should not be “trapped” by the emotions of “anguish and angst” associated with the devastating bombings that took place nearly 80 years ago, and that the agreement between the U.S. and Japan “is the example of what I think this world desperately needs right now.”
Kunihiko Sakuma, who chairs the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organization, said reconciliation cannot truly be reached between the two countries until the U.S. acknowledges that “The A-bomb did not end the war and save the lives of American soldiers as the U.S. side likes to say.”
“It was clear that Japan was going to lose,” he told Nikkei Asia, saying the attack was unnecessary and meant as a display of U.S. military power.
“Unless that fundamental issue is addressed, we cannot just focus on the future,” said Sakuma.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy