The Abingdon Peace Group had their first lantern-floating this Friday, 9th August, the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. There were messages from the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a group of about 40 people made a community affirmation of peace round the Peace Pole in St Ethelwold’s Garden.
Emiko, the teacher in Hiroshima whose students made and painted the lanterns sent a message: Today is August 6th, which marks the 79th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack. Hiroshima was enveloped in prayer. And we, who wish for a peaceful world, are encouraged with you and your activity.
People then processed to St Helen’s Wharf to light the candles and launch the lanterns.
The lanterns floated and made a peaceful scene and as the sun set they were gathered back by a couple of canoes.
The 1945 atom bombs were a tragedy but sadly necessary to end the war and prevent Stalin committing his troops on Japan’s side and prolonging the war by many more years with even greater loss of life. I find the Peace Group well-meaning, but the reason they and other groups have made so little headway is that they treat the symptom and not the cause. What is needed is to discover the root causes of conflict and how to defuse them before they ever get to the point where weapons, nuclear or other, are used. Sadly entrenched religious and political systems with no empathy for anyone else’s point of view seem to be with us to stay.
I think conflict will always exist unfortunately Michael. . . . the challenge is to find better ways of dealing with/ resolving international conflict, other than war, as we have gradually learned as a society to deal with / resolve conflict between individuals and groups eg through mediation, diplomacy and the enforcement of law.
With regard to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was already sueing for peace before the bombs were dropped so the theory, long – held, that the bombing was necessary to end the war has for some time been discredited. . .
Regretfully it is only the more civilised countries that have learnt these ways, Anne. For others they seem a very long way off. And re Japan, I beg to differ. As I understand it the Japanese army wanted to continue fighting even after Nagasaki and it was only the intervention of the emperor that brought about the surrender. This was actually the turning point for Japanese society – the population heard the emperor’s voice for the first time and that removed the mystique embodied in the system and enabled them to move towards the democracy we have today. Sometimes changes like this can sadly only take place after immense human cost.
Thank you Abingdon Peace Group for an informed and inspiring evening. We need symbols of hope as well as thoughtful debate about history and current events.
Beautiful pictures!
Certainly hearing the human voice of the Emperor for the first time was a real turning point for the Japanese people . .as he was considered up till then as divine rather than human.
I learnt a lot about Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the extraordinarily moving TV programme on BBC last week . It was called Atomic People and would still be available on iPlayer. The I newspaper gave it 5 stars in the review of it the day after.
And who has fished all that plastic out of the river?
There were two canoes to makes sure everything was collected.
Tell me you didnt read the entire blog post without telling me you didnt read the entire blog post…
WHAT IS THE POINT!!
John Hersey, the journalist and writer who wrote the classic Hiroshima said” What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima. ” Remembrance always has value, I think , in helping to prevent future catastrophes and as a warning, especially now that the 13000 nuclear weapons in the world have individually many times the power of the bomb that killed 70,000 instantly and reduced many of them to just shadows on the ground. in Hiroshima
Thanks Anne, so there is no point then…..