Local, national, and global leaders warned of the dangers of nuclear weapons as they commemorated the 78th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima Sunday.
This year’s anniversary comes as the release of the film Oppenheimer has offered a high-profile reminder of the history of the atomic bomb and as nuclear tensions in the current day have heightened, in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the start of the year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their doomsday clock to 90 seconds to midnight.
“Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory,” Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said during his peace address at the commemoration ceremony in Hiroshima Sunday, as The Associated Press reported. “They must immediately take concrete steps to lead us from the dangerous present toward our ideal world.”
Matsui’s remarks responded in part to the Group of Seven summit in the city in May, during which world leaders put out a statement that anti-nuclear advocates considered a major disappointment.
In that statement, the leaders agreed that no country should use nuclear weapons, but that merely possessing the weapons could still “serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war and coercion,” according to AP. Since then, former Russian President and current deputy chair of that country’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev threatened nuclear war if a NATO-backed Ukrainian offensive reclaims land annexed illegally by Russia.
Hiroshima’s Gov. Hidehiko Yuzai agreed with its mayor that deterrence had failed.
“Believers of proactive nuclear deterrence, who say nuclear weapons are indispensable to maintain peace, are only delaying the progress toward nuclear disarmament,” Yuzai said, according to AP.
The U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am local time. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. The two bombings killed between 110,000 and 210,000 people, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Those who survived, called hibakusha in Japan, still contend with sickness and injury from the bombings even as they advocate for a nuclear free world, according to AP.
“For 78 years, the city of Hiroshima and the hibakusha have worked tirelessly to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks delivered at Sunday’s ceremony by Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu.
People began to light candles and incense and pray at a memorial for the victims of the Hiroshima bombings as the sun rose on Sunday, according to The Washington Post. At the exact time of the bombing, a peace bell rang out, followed by a moment of silence, Reuters reported. Around 50,000 people attended the ceremony in 86°F heat.
Among them was Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who also called for peace.
“The tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused by nuclear weapons must never be repeated,” he said. “As the only country to have experienced the horror of nuclear devastation in war, Japan will press on tirelessly with its efforts to bring about ‘a world without nuclear weapons’ while continuing to firmly uphold the ‘Three Non-Nuclear Principles.'”
Kishida added that this work had become “more difficult,” in part because of disagreements over disarmament and threats from Russia.
“But it is precisely because of these circumstances that it is imperative for us to reinvigorate international momentum once more towards the realization of a ‘world without nuclear weapons,'” he continued.
Kishida has been criticized in Japan by survivors for not signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, according to AP. The prime minister, for his part, has argued such an act would not be effective, since no country currently possessing nuclear weapons has signed the agreement.
Guterres, through Nakamitsu, spoke out in favor of the treaty, as well as the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
“World leaders have visited this city, seen its monuments, spoken with its brave survivors, and emerged emboldened to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament,” Guterres said. “More should do so, because the drums of nuclear war are beating once again.”
And he was clear about what must be done to silence them.
“The only way to eliminate the nuclear risk,” Guterres said, “is to eliminate nuclear weapons.”
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 are presently looking for 430 new monthly donors in the next 7 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy