What have we learned?
Is it just me or does everyone wonder why peace seems so hard to achieve?
Yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
Nagasaki will commemorate on Thursday.
JAPAN remains the only country to have nuclear weaponry used against its citizens. They have been pacifists since the end of the Second World War.
Some 45,000 met in Hiroshima at 8.15 am yesterday – the exact moment on August 6, 1945 that the Enola Gay dropped her bomb, instantly killing more than one hundred and 40 thousand people.
The world went kind of silent, after the bombs were dropped. I’ve asked my mum about it. She had only just turned 6 when the bombs were dropped, but says her impression is that people were glad the war was over.
What was happening to the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not foremost in their mind.
The truth is, there was never much information available in the US or Australia about the devastation wrought on Japan – the US government, in particular, wanted to pretend it had never happened.
In the past few years though, more and more stories have emerged, thankfully, before the last witnesses and survivors have passed away.
They tell stories of how the six rivers of the Hiroshima delta were so swollen with bodies that you couldn't see the water.
140,000 dead within days, 100,000 more dying; everything within two kilometres irradiated; 13 square kilometres burned to the ground. Drinking the water was deadly. Small fleshy body parts, like ears and noses, melted long before the people themselves died.
Yesterday, the Japanese prime minister called once again for world wide nuclear disarmament and left us with a chilling statistic.
The world's current storehouse of nukes is 400,000 times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima.
It reminded me of an old quote from Albert Einstein:
"I know not with what World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
Nagasaki will commemorate on Thursday.
JAPAN remains the only country to have nuclear weaponry used against its citizens. They have been pacifists since the end of the Second World War.
Some 45,000 met in Hiroshima at 8.15 am yesterday – the exact moment on August 6, 1945 that the Enola Gay dropped her bomb, instantly killing more than one hundred and 40 thousand people.
The world went kind of silent, after the bombs were dropped. I’ve asked my mum about it. She had only just turned 6 when the bombs were dropped, but says her impression is that people were glad the war was over.
What was happening to the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not foremost in their mind.
The truth is, there was never much information available in the US or Australia about the devastation wrought on Japan – the US government, in particular, wanted to pretend it had never happened.
In the past few years though, more and more stories have emerged, thankfully, before the last witnesses and survivors have passed away.
They tell stories of how the six rivers of the Hiroshima delta were so swollen with bodies that you couldn't see the water.
140,000 dead within days, 100,000 more dying; everything within two kilometres irradiated; 13 square kilometres burned to the ground. Drinking the water was deadly. Small fleshy body parts, like ears and noses, melted long before the people themselves died.
Yesterday, the Japanese prime minister called once again for world wide nuclear disarmament and left us with a chilling statistic.
The world's current storehouse of nukes is 400,000 times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima.
It reminded me of an old quote from Albert Einstein:
"I know not with what World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
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