{"id":8283,"date":"2024-09-28T09:28:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T00:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/?p=8283"},"modified":"2024-11-03T17:46:31","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T08:46:31","slug":"activists-call-on-world-to-imagine-peace-end-nuclear-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/news\/activists-call-on-world-to-imagine-peace-end-nuclear-arms\/","title":{"rendered":"Activists Call on World to \u2018Imagine\u2019 Peace, End Nuclear Arms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By AD McKenzie<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PARIS (IPS) \u2013 In any discussion of world peace and the future of humanity, the issue of nuclear arms must be addressed, and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was the message from a range of delegates at the \u201cImaginer la Paix \/ Imagine Peace\u201d conference, held in Paris September 22 to 24, and organized by the Sant\u2019Egidio Community, a Christian organization founded in Rome in 1968 and now based in 70 countries.\uff5c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuclear-abolition.com\/language\/%e0%a4%95%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%b0%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%af%e0%a4%95%e0%a4%b0%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%a4%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%93%e0%a4%82-%e0%a4%a8%e0%a5%87-%e0%a4%a6%e0%a5%81%e0%a4%a8%e0%a4%bf%e0%a4%af%e0%a4%be-%e0%a4%b8\/\">HINDI<\/a>\uff5c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuclear-abolition.com\/language\/es\/activistas-piden-al-mundo-que-imagine-la-paz-y-el-fin-a-las-armas-nucleares\/\">SPANISH<\/a>\uff5c<a href=\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/news\/politic-conflict-peace\/activists-call-on-world-to-imagine-peace-end-nuclear-arms\/\">JAPANESE<\/a>\uff5c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuclear-abolition.com\/language\/%d0%b0%d0%ba%d1%82%d0%b8%d0%b2%d0%b8%d1%81%d1%82%d1%8b-%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b8%d0%b7%d1%8b%d0%b2%d0%b0%d1%8e%d1%82-%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b4%d1%81%d1%82%d0%b0%d0%b2%d0%b8%d1%82%d1%8c-%d0%bc\/\">RUSSIAN<\/a>\uff5c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuclear-abolition.com\/language\/cn\/%e9%9d%9e%e6%a0%b8%e5%80%a1%e5%af%bc%e4%ba%ba%e5%a3%ab%e5%91%bc%e5%90%81%e5%85%a8%e7%90%83%e5%90%91%e5%be%80%e5%92%8c%e5%b9%b3%ef%bc%8c%e7%bb%88%e7%bb%93%e6%a0%b8%e6%ad%a6%e5%99%a8\/\">CHINESE<\/a>\uff5c<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Describing its tenets as \u201cPrayer, service to the Poor and work for Peace,\u201d the community has hosted 38 international, multi-faith peace meetings, bringing together activists from around the world. This is the first time the conference has been held in Paris, with hundreds traveling to France, itself a nuclear-weapon state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Occurring against the backdrop of brutal, on-going conflicts in different regions and a new race by some countries to \u201cupgrade\u201d their arsenal, the gathering had a sense of urgency, with growing fears that nuclear weapons might be used by warlords. Participants highlighted current and past atrocities and called upon world leaders to learn from the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"Dqs6IZR9xJE\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paris 2024 Peace Conference. Organized by Sant\u2019 Egidio 2024.\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Dqs6IZR9xJE?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Filmed and Edited by Katuhiro Asagiri and Kevin Lin, INPS Japan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAfter Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been blessed with many who have said \u2018no\u2019\u2014\u2019no\u2019 a million times, creating movements and treaties, (and) awareness\u2026 that the only reasonable insight to learn from the conception and use of nuclear weapons is to say \u2018no\u2019,\u201d said Andrea Bartoli, president of the Sant\u2019Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, based in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Participating in a conference forum Monday titled \u201cRemembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World Without Nuclear Weapons,\u201d Bartoli and other speakers drew stark pictures of what living in a world with nuclear weapons entails, and they highlighted developments since World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAfter the two bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humans built more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and performed more than 2,000 tests. Still today we have more than 12,500, each of them with power greatly superior to the two used in August 1945,\u201d Bartoli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite awareness of the catastrophic potential of these weapons and despite a UN treaty prohibiting their use, some governments argue that possessing nuclear arms is a deterrent\u2014an argument that is deceptive, according to the forum speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jean-Marie Collin, director of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a movement launched in the early 2000s in Australia and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017), said that leaders who cite deterrence \u201caccept the possibility of violating\u201d international human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities and kill and maim entire populations, which means that all presidents and heads of government who implement a defense policy based on nuclear deterrence and who are therefore responsible for giving this order, are aware of this,\u201d Collin told the forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ICAN campaigned for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was adopted at the United Nations in 2017, entering into force in 2021. The adoption came nearly five decades after the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which entered into force in 1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The terms of the NPT consider five countries to be nuclear weapons states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. Four other countries also possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opening Ceremony. Credit: Kevin Lin, Multimedia Asssistant director, INPS Japan.<br>Opening Ceremony. Credit: Kevin Lin, Multimedia Asssistant director, INPS Japan.<br>According to a 2024 ICAN report, these nine states jointly spent \u20ac85 billion (USD 94,6 billion) on their atomic weapon arsenals last year, an expenditure ICAN has called \u201cobscene\u201d and \u201cunacceptable.\u201d France, whose president Emmanuel Macron spoke about peace in broad, general terms at the opening of the conference, spent around \u20ac5,3 billion (about USD 5,9 billion) in 2023 on its nuclear weapons, said the report.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"673\" src=\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-1024x673.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8286\" style=\"width:415px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-1024x673.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-768x505.jpg 768w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-1536x1010.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-150x99.jpg 150w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-696x457.jpg 696w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-1068x702.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session-1920x1262.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Plenary-Session.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Opening Ceremony. Credit: Kevin Lin, Multimedia Asssistant director, INPS Japan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The policy of \u201cdeterrence\u201d and \u201creciprocity,\u201d which essentially means \u201cwe\u2019ll get rid of our weapons if you get rid of yours,\u201d has been slammed by ICAN and fellow disarmament activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith the constant flow of information, we often tend to lose sight of the reality of figures,\u201d Collin said at the peace conference. \u201cI hope this one will hold your attention: it is estimated that more than 38,000 children were killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All those killed\u2014an estimated 210,000 people by the end of 1945\u2014died in horrific ways, as survivors and others have testified. Delegates said that this knowledge should be the real \u201cdeterrent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie\/IPS<br>At the forum, Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International, a global Buddhist movement, described testimony from a Hiroshima a-bomb survivor, Reiko Yamada, as one she would never forget.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"729\" src=\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_0086-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8287\" style=\"width:270px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_0086-2.jpeg 630w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_0086-2-259x300.jpeg 259w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_0086-2-150x174.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_0086-2-300x347.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie\/IPS<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe (Yamada) stated, \u2018A good friend of mine in the neighbourhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her four brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard,\u201d Ikeda told the audience with emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWho deserves to die such a death? Nobody!\u201d she continued. \u201cYet our world continues to spend billions of dollars to upkeep our nuclear arsenals, and our leaders at times imply readiness to use them. It is utterly unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ikeda said that survivors, known as the \u201chibakusha\u201d in Japan, have a fundamental answer to why nuclear weapons must be abolished\u2014it is that \u201cno one else should ever suffer what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>INPS Japan\/IPS UN Bureau<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This article is brought to you by IPS Noram, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By AD McKenzie PARIS (IPS) \u2013 In any discussion of world peace and the future of humanity, the issue of nuclear arms must be addressed, and now. That was the message from a range of delegates at the \u201cImaginer la Paix \/ Imagine Peace\u201d conference, held in Paris September 22 to 24, and organized by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,16,24,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-europe","8":"category-news","9":"category-politic-conflict-peace","10":"category-regions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8288,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283\/revisions\/8288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}