Nagasaki (repost)

Like last week’s post about Hiroshima, this is a repost of last year’s entry:

Following the memorial event in Hiroshima on the 6th (links in this post), the mayor of Nagasaki, Tomihisa Taue, has also called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. His speech was delivered in the city’s Peace Park surrounded by hundreds of origami cranes, which I’m guessing are connected to the incredibly sad story of Sadako Sasaki. It’s been 64 years since Nagasaki was the victim of the second atomic bomb on the 9th August 1945.

I guess what struck me when looking at the background of this was the way in which a single event can overshadow everything surrounding it. Nagasaki is probably best known today for being bombed, but the city (and its surrounding prefecture) has a significant history – it was a centre for Japanese Catholicism in the 16th and 17th centuries, and was the site of the crucifixions of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan, and was one of the few places to remain open to outsiders when Japan pursued a policy of isolationism during the Edo Period. It’s the setting of Madam Butterfly, and was a centre for the Kakure Kirishtan branch of Christianity.

The shadow of the atomic bombings cast a long shadow, of course they do. But I think it’s worth looking beyond them, to the history that pre-dates them and, I guess for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the future that will outlive them.

Let’s hope and pray that will be the case.

Hiroshima (repost)

I wrote this last year, but thought I’d repost it given it’s the anniversary of Hiroshima being destroyed. This will be the first year the US have sent a representative to the commemorations.

 

I don’t really have anything insightful to add to the subject, but today is the 64th anniversary of the bombing of HIroshima. The mayor of the city, Tadatoshi Akiba, used the occasion to support President Obama in calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which I guess isn’t all that surprising. Given the shadow that the concept of nuclear war cast across the 20th century, it’s important to note that ‘only’ two cities have been the victim of nuclear weapons, two attacks that have, I guess, traumatised humanity (in a good way) to consider nuclear war as the ultimate expression of madness. I think that’s a good thing.

I guess there’s a comparison with Harry Patch, the UK’s oldest surviving WW1 veteren who passed away recently. Having described war as "authorised murder", in 2004, three weeks before Remembrance Sunday, he met with Charles Kuentz, the only German survivor of the First World War, and shook his hand. In the shadow of the Great War, modern civilisation’s shorthand for the futility of senseless conflict, the seeds of reconciliation can flower. Maybe, even if only in small, often un-noticed ways, in the aftermath of war we can learn, even if only for a fleeting moment, to be peaceful.

Nagasaki

Following the memorial event in Hiroshima on the 6th (links in this post), the mayor of Nagasaki, Tomihisa Taue, has also called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. His speech was delivered in the city’s Peace Park surrounded by hundreds of origami cranes, which I’m guessing are connected to the incredibly sad story of Sadako Sasaki. It’s been 64 years since Nagasaki was the victim of the second atomic bomb on the 9th August 1945.

I guess what struck me when looking at the background of this was the way in which a single event can overshadow everything surrounding it. Nagasaki is probably best known today for being bombed, but the city (and its surrounding prefecture) has a significant history – it was a centre for Japanese Catholicism in the 16th and 17th centuries, and was the site of the crucifixions of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan, and was one of the few places to remain open to outsiders when Japan pursued a policy of isolationism during the Edo Period. It’s the setting of Madam Butterfly, and was a centre for the Kakure Kirishtan branch of Christianity.

The shadow of the atomic bombings cast a long shadow, of course they do. But I think it’s worth looking beyond them, to the history that pre-dates them and, I guess for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the future that will outlive them.

Let’s hope and pray that will be the case.

Hiroshima

I don’t really have anything insightful to add to the subject, but today is the 64th anniversary of the bombing of HIroshima. The mayor of the city, Tadatoshi Akiba, used the occasion to support President Obama in calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which I guess isn’t all that surprising. Given the shadow that the concept of nuclear war cast across the 20th century, it’s important to note that ‘only’ two cities have been the victim of nuclear weapons, two attacks that have, I guess, traumatised humanity (in a good way) to consider nuclear war as the ultimate expression of madness. I think that’s a good thing.

I guess there’s a comparison with Harry Patch, the UK’s oldest surviving WW1 veteren who passed away recently. Having described war as "authorised murder", in 2004, three weeks before Remembrance Sunday, he met with Charles Kuentz, the only German survivor of the First World War, and shook his hand. In the shadow of the Great War, modern civilisation’s shorthand for the futility of senseless conflict, the seeds of reconciliation can flower. Maybe, even if only in small, often un-noticed ways, in the aftermath of war we can learn, even if only for a fleeting moment, to be peaceful.