Lessons from history

Time has passed, ruins are buried, survivors struggle on, memory is painful, yet on the poor, poisoned ground, a city recovered and reminds everyone. — (Boston Times)

Today we join in remembering those who perished in the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan 64 years ago. On August 6, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was dropped by the US and Allied Forces on the city of Hiroshima, and three days after, a plutonium core nuclear bomb was also detonated over Nagasaki. An estimated 140,000 innocent civilians in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki were killed and thousands more maimed and suffered from illness due to radiation. A good friend, Hiroko, wife of the late James Marsh Thomson and mother of Olympic swimming champion Akiko, was a survivor of the bombing and lived to tell the tales of the people who perished and were seriously affected due to radiation fallout.

 As of August 2008, the memorial records, which are updated annually due to the deaths caused by radiation sickness, list the names of more than 400,000 hibakusha (“explosion-affected people” or surviving victims); in Hiroshima, 258,310 and in Nagasaki, 145,984. Aside from this, Mayor Akiba, president of Mayors for Peace, a worldwide group dedicated to nuclear abolition, said, at present, there are more than 73,000 hibakusha in Hiroshima, whose average age is 75, who are in a constant state of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) every day. After more than 60 years, the suffering hibakushas reveal more and more horrifying effects of radiation. Many have died from leukemia and solid cancers attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs.

It is better to remember, not the tragedy that occurred, but the peace treaty that ensued six days after the Nagasaki bombing on August 15. Signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II. The forces represented during that momentous event agreed never to use nuclear bombs again. The city of Hiroshima immediately set about to rebuild itself and the people were happy just to know the war had ended.

History repeats itself, but knowing this, we also hope that some people will not decide one day to drop another bomb. When this happens, we would have to deal with more casualties since countries now are more populated than they were 60 years ago. We watch as North Korea, China and the United States test and prop and show the world their nuclear missiles and continue to build up arms. We are alarmed when a nation like North Korea considers a nuclear blast as a great historical event, a great leap forward in the building of a great and prosperous powerful socialist nation. It is appalling that governments find importance in being listed as one of the major countries, declared or undeclared, as nuclear powers with nuclear capabilities. We are afraid that the world balance of power tips in favor of those countries with weapons and armaments of mass destruction. 

We are human beings created by God. We are not barbarians who must kill each other in order to rule. I hope mistakes like this in history will not happen again.