65 years ago, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the population from Hiroshima. Today they are imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran for its attempt to build nuclear weapons. In 2005, the newly-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the Iranians that nuclear energy is their absolute right.
Reading articles about Hiroshima today made me wonder how developed are the developed nations. Is their level of development measured just in access to education, health services, and resources? Or also in the amount of nuclear weapons that they possess? Mankind is made of a bunch of children playing with very sharp toys.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) seem to have been created by the governments of the great and peaceful developed world for the poor nations that are still fighting religious and territorial wars, are dying of starvation and are uneducated. If the MDGs would have been created by the governments for the development of the whole wide world, the nonproliferation of the Weapons of Mass Destruction would have been one of great MDGs to achieve by 2015. But the governments preferred to promise education, health and water to the Africans that still dream about living in developed countries where “my nuclear bomb is more destructive than your nuclear bomb”.
PS: Ironically enough, I received an e-mail today from Organising for America (a project of the Democratic National Committee of the United States) with the subject “45 years ago”. They are reminding me about Voting Rights Act and asking support for the November elections. But they don’t mention a word about what happened 65 years ago.
Picture credits: http://www.schneiderism.com/the-energy-of-nuclear-weapons/
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/10/stockpile.php
There was no need to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, not even mentioning Nagasaki, as Japan was ready to surrender anyways. But president Truman chose to do it, most probably to show off the power of his country and scare the hell out of the USSR (that’s the revisionist version of the events, the traditional holds that an inland invasion of Japan if there was no bomb would have cost many lives of US troops).
What strikes me when seeing pictures of the holes the bombs made, the complete ruin of environment, all those shattered lives - this is the only planet we have, how can we do this to ourselves? It’s self-harm at its highest level, pretending we have ten more bodies to play with, wounding ourselves and then adding some salt to the wounds. Like you say, Carmen, a bunch of kids playing with very sharp weapons. Only that those kids say they are intelligent grown-ups.
I mostly heard the traditional version, how you call it. I have the feeling that mankind doesn’t give so much importance to this event and the way people react about this topic doesn’t point out how bad this was and how we need to make sure it won’t happen again. But I do feel we should remember this event just like we remember the Holocaust.
How developed are the developed nations and what is the measure for our level? This is the question where I stopped and can’t move anywhere forward as I have no clue about answer.
Hi Carmen, thanks for bringing this up. You mention Hiroshima which was something so awful we do not have words for even today.
Modern nuclear “toys” are dozen or even hundred times stronger than the “original one”!!!! It gives me goose bumps.
And how developed are developed countries? Developed, but losing common sense :(.
Thanks for your comments Aija and Radka. Sometimes I think we just have developed weapons that make it up for our fear of the others and give us a sense of security. I guess it is just like the sense of security some people might get in prisons.
Love your message of peace, Carmen.
‘Is their level of development measured just in access to education, health services, and resources? Or also in the amount of nuclear weapons that they possess? Mankind is made of a bunch of children playing with very sharp toys.’ - class!
It reminds me of Castro’s surprising Saturday appearance on TV and his warning against global nuclear war:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38200725/ns/world_news-americas/
Thanks Helena. I think Castro read my blog post and developed his speech starting from my idea.
Besides speaking Spanish, I didn’t know that him and me have something else in common.
I’ve wondered about that too. USA keeps hammering on about the ‘nuclear threat’ from countries that have no history of using nuclear weapons. USA, however, not only owns them, but also has a history of destroying cities by using them… Hypocrites?
See, Asza, even though the States are a country I love and where I feel at home every time, I must admit they are hypocrites. And maybe that comes easy to them since 65 years have passed, the people that threw the bombs have died and now the American leaders are trying to safeguard themselves and the whole world from the threat of weapons of mass destruction. By putting terrorism together with nuclear bomb one can understand why, but that doesn’t mean they are less hypocrite.