Hiroshima and Nagasaki hold their annual ceremonies memorializing the 1945 bombings by the United States in a particularly fraught year for peace.
The following article was published in the September-October 2024 issue of NewsNotes.
August 6 and 9 marked the 79th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, respectively. An estimate of the bombings’ combined death toll exceeds 200,000 people.
Each year, both cities hold memorials to remember the first and only victims of nuclear bombings in wartime that the world has known. The ceremonies emphasize the need for peace and the threat to humanity that nuclear weapons pose. This year, the message of peace in the face of global tensions and the threat of nuclear destruction has never been more urgent.
As we covered in the March-April edition of NewsNotes, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock at ninety seconds to midnight again for a second year in a row, the closest to midnight the clock has ever been, due in large part to the increased threat of nuclear disaster. The war in Ukraine is ongoing, and has since expanded with a new theatre within Russian territory. Meanwhile, war has broken out in Israel-Palestine with threats of widening conflict in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran. Israel is a nuclear power, and by all accounts, Iran’s nuclear program is on the verge of weaponization.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, furthermore, were conducted using technology from eight decades ago. Nuclear weapons advanced significantly in the ensuing arms race. Today, the world arsenal of nuclear weapons adds up to 12,512 warheads, with a total power 65,000 times greater than was dropped on Japan.
Nuclear disarmament and de-escalation treaties such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) of 1979, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 1991, and the New START of 2010 curbed nuclear weapons development and established a process of bilateral nuclear disarmament between the United States and Russia. The latest of these treaties, the New START, is set to expire in February of 2026, at a time when the tensions between the United States and Russia have been at their worst since the Cold War. The current stockpile of nuclear warheads between United States and Russia is over 10,000 strong, or 87% of the world’s total warheads. Any one warhead has the potential to cause apocalyptic damage.
It was against this stark backdrop that Hiroshima and Nagasaki both memorialized the 1945 atomic bombings.
Nagasaki excludes Israel from memorial service
The city of Nagasaki’s mayor made headlines in announcing the exclusion of Israel from the annual peace event that draws international attention.
Mayor Shiro Suzuki explained that security concerns for the Israeli delegation were the primary motivation for the exclusion, but this was not a concern for the city of Hiroshima, which hosted Israel in their ceremony three days earlier. Israel has been internationally criticized for its prosecution of the war in Gaza which has claimed at least 40,000 lives and displaced millions of people. Critics of Israel point to the irony of Israel’s participation at a peace event under these circumstances.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel and the British Ambassador to Japan both declined to attend Nagasaki’s peace ceremony in protest of the decision to exclude Israel. They complained of a false implied comparison of Israel to Russia, a country likewise not invited to the ceremony.
Russia and Belarus have been excluded from the Japanese memorial events since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Faith in action
Follow the link here (www.mogc.info/8-6-2024) to take the actions below:
- Pray and share the Prayer for Disarmament by Kim Vanderheiden of Pax Christi Northern California.
- Read about how Maryknoll Sister Kathleen Reiley, who serves in Japan, responded to the call for volunteers in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster in the Maryknoll Magazine article “A Voice for Nuclear Victims.”
- Send a message to your members of Congress asking for the extension and expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act through the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Photo of Hiroshima peace memorial by Andy Holmes on Unsplash.