War is a curse to human civilisation. Waging war is the luxury of the powerful who either pretend to hear nothing or hear everything. In either case, the impunity or arrogance with which their measured silence or involvement is maintained reflects their criminal minds.
Mankind witnessed two greatest curses since the advent of human civilisation because of the criminal minds of the nations involved in the two World Wars. Mass people did not give any nod to those destructive wars.
It was on August 06, 1945 when Hiroshima became the first victim at 8.15am. The city dwellers were on the way to work. Suddenly from the tranquil sky the greatest curse fell upon them. Just in three days, Nagasaki, another city of Japan, faced the same fate at 3.47 a.m. when the people were asleep. The bomb sent millions of them to eternal sleep. Arne Westad, Professor of U.S-Asia Relations at the Harvard University, said he believed the massive destruction, contamination and humanitarian suffering from the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an even broader impact by successfully deterring warring nations from using them again for nearly three quarters of a century. "The world became aware of the terrible consequences and that was very significant. It is remarkable that in the 70 years since Hiroshima, nuclear weapons have never been used again."
But should we be satisfied with this situation? We know the powerful nations of the world have stockpiled enough weapons to annihilate every living thing on earth. Besides those who already had nuclear bomb, more nations have developed it, including the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan; and many more, like Iran, could have it soon. Curiously, some of these nations are far behind meeting the basic needs of their citizens.
In the 1960s, new atomic weapons - hydrogen bombs - were developed that had over a thousand times the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Titan II missile had a warhead with a destructive power of over three times that of all of the bombs dropped in World War II combined, including the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
The 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is a highly symbolic one. Seventy years, after all, is roughly an average human lifespan. It really gives us pain as the existing international law doesn't regulate nuclear weapons properly. Unlike other weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons are not banned in explicit terms. The NPT is the only multilateral treaty that contains a binding commitment to nuclear disarmament-but while preventing most states from acquiring nuclear weapons, it effectively allows five states to possess them. This is just a potential threat to mankind.
The cursed bomb called the "Little Boy" was detonated by the United States over Hiroshima and the same fate visited Nagasaki with "Fat Man". What do these names signify? God knows. But the world knows that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki incidents will be remembered for ages to come with scornful eyes and minds. That single bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed an estimated 140,000 people and destroyed the entire city. Witnessing the destruction, Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the U.S. bomber aircraft Enola Gay, later wrote, "My God! What have we done?" Really, there is no answer to what they had done.
Today, millions of children all over the world go to bed with empty stomachs. Millions of people die without treatment. Still, there is no dearth of spending huge amounts for raising armies, buying destructive weapons, fighter air crafts and what not. In North Korea, two million people reportedly died from starvation but the country is going all out for developing nuclear weapons. Our two neighbours, India and Pakistan, whose millions of people go unfed and half-clad, but both flaunt nuclear bombs as their prized possessions. Iran too has developed the bomb though poverty prevails there. Israel has developed it with the blessings of the United States.
Can the use of the atomic bombs on Japan ever be justified? The debate is an old one. Exponents of the Truman decision claimed that the total death toll of at least 237,000 civilians was a small price to pay as an alternative to the number of lives lost on both sides had the Pacific War dragged on.
Didn't the truth about Nagasaki and Hiroshima nail the lie of the so-called superiority of the nuclear powers? Didn't the suffering they inflicted on humanity expose the heinous hypocrisy behind their most diabolical acts? Let us join the ex-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, "we cannot allow any future use of nuclear weapons. The humanitarian consequences are too great. No more Nagasakis. No more Hiroshimas."
The writer works for BRAC Education Programme.
[email protected]
- Saturday, 23 November 2024 |
- Today's FE |
- e-Paper |
- Beta Website
