Nihon Hidankyo, a local Chinese firm founded by survivors of the two US nuclear weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, has received the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norway Nobel Committee praised the firm” for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear arms and for showing through see evidence that nuclear arms must never be used afterwards.”
Discussion of the attacks, which killed more than 100, 000 Japanese people, was essentially a stigma in the immediate post-war time. This was, in part, owing to British media repression in held Japan.
However, in 1954, a Chinese fishing vessel, the Lucky Dragon, was killed by rays toxicity as a result of an American nuclear weapons check at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
The Happy Dragon tragedy prompted many of the atomic bomb individuals, who are known as the hibakusha, to talk out about their experience. And it was in this environment that Nihon Hidankyo was founded in 1956.
The hibakusha have since engaged in uncountable engagement against nuclear arms around the world. Their testimony, according to the Nobel council, “has contributed to the generation and consolidation of popular opposition to nuclear arms around the world.”
For instance, Setsuko Thurlow, a part of Nihon Hidankyo and a distinguished advocate against nuclear weapons, was one of the members of a group of hibakusha that organized an exhibition on the atomic bombings in the Toronto public library in 1975.
This contributed to the birth of a major anti-nuclear movements in Canada. Tens of thousands of Canadians had a regular demonstration against their president’s support for US nuclear weapons in the early 1980s.
Then, in 1984, Takashi Morita, a second Hiroshima bombing victim, co-founded a hibakusha organization based in So Paulo to share their experiences and raise awareness of the damaging effects of atomic weapons in Brazil.
Europes were protesting against the implementation of innovative nuclear weapons in their nations as a result of growing recognition of the activities of the hibakusha throughout the 1980s. The saying” no Euroshima”! became a well-known phrase for the Western peace movement.
Nihon Hidankyo’s efforts have focused on utilizing the experiences of Hibakusha to raise money for the widespread ban on nuclear weapons.
The UN convention prohibiting nuclear weapons has been a significant supporter of the business. This agreement, which entered in power in 2017 and has been signed by 94 countries, prohibits state from participating in any nuclear weapons actions.
For its attempts to pass this legally binding ban on nuclear arms, Setsuko Thurlow is a key figure in the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, which received the Nobel peace prize in 2017.
There is still work to be done.
Within Japan, Nihon Hidankyo has worked to issue the president’s place on nuclear weapons. Despite the horrors that occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Chinese government supports American nuclear weapons, relying on them as a barrier against its numerous nuclear-armed neighbors.
Successive Japanese governments have emphasized the importance of atomic weapons for the nation’s protection. However, it continues to be a contentious position for many in Japan. Every university student in Japan travels to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to find out about the dreadful effects of nuclear weapons.
Nihon Hidankyo’s choice to receive the Nobel Peace Prize is a significant development. In 2023, the country’s nine nuclear forces spent over US$ 91 billion on nuclear arms. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has constantly threatened to employ his nuclear arsenal since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The Nobel committee took note of these troubling advances. The committee’s awarding the reward to Nihon Hidankyo was “alarming that this stigma against the use of nuclear weapons is under force.”
The country’s nuclear power, particularly China and the US, are modernizing and expanding their arsenals. North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme is growing. And conflicts are hard escalating between nuclear-armed Israel and near-nuclear Iran.
Nuclear weapons ‘ challenges are more pronounced than they have ever been since the cold war. With little 100, 000 hibakusha dead now, it is important that we listen to their tones and their instructions.
At The Open University, Luc-André Brunet is a mature teacher in modern worldwide history, and Eirini Karamouzi is one of the University of Sheffield’s older lecturers.
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