Reflections on the 76th Anniversary
Written By Karuna Khemaney
Seventy-Six years ago, on August 6th and August 9th 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The predicted death tolls from both cities totalled to about 210,000 people.
I was born and raised in Japan. This upbringing gave me the opportunity to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park a few times. I was in fifth grade when I first visited and was able to hear a first-hand experience from a (被曝者）hibakusha, a survivor of the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombings. One thing that struck me to this day was how the hibakusha had lost everything in a matter of seconds– her land, her city, her home, her family, her friends, and her workplace; not to mention the necessary means of living–water, electricity, food, and shelter. I remember thinking to myself: “How can one invention cause so much suffering to hundreds of thousands of people?”
Shortly after the bombings, the initial phase of a seven-year American occupation began. The United States was able to use numerous Japanese bases to monitor the situation in East Asia. In 1951, San Francisco was a moment of peace and reconciliation from both the US and Japan, where a promise of security was given to the Japanese. However, to this day, the act of dropping the bomb is still a controversial topic for many.
I attended a conference at my university where presenters showed us a chart depicting the magnitude of modern-day nuclear warfare in contrast to the bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chills were sent through my spine just staring at the incomparable size and development of these modern-day warfares.The US’s B83 nuclear bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal, is said to be 80 times more powerful than LIttle Boy. 80 times.
As we reflect upon the 76th year anniversary of the bombings, we must think about why we recall this atrocity? I believe it is because we celebrate the achievements, big and small, that we as people have made since 1945, but also because we remind ourselves of how much work there needs to be done. This year in particular accounts for a celebration– the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’s (TPNW) entry into force on the 22nd of January. In 2017, the United Nations negotiated a legally binding instrument to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons. Currently, 86 countries have entered into force. Unfortunately, although Japan is the only country to be attacked by nuclear weapons in war, the nation has not signed the treaty. This just means that there is more work to be done. And to be done by the powerhouse of every movement: the youth.
As a youth myself, the after-effects of a nuclear bomb will not affect my parents or my grandparents the most, it will affect me and my children and my children’s children. It frustrates me to think that a few officials in each country have the power to kill off billions of lives and destroy the environment around us. The stories of the hibakusha sharing the dangers of the nuclear bomb, the secure relations between the US and Japan, the entry into force of the TPNW– these are all notable steps in peace-building. But we will never know true peace until every nuclear weapon is eradicated off this Earth. And that is what we, the youth, are determined to do.