DEMOCRACY NOW
(Japan’s Kenzaburo Oe, a Nobel-winning author of poetic fiction, died at the age of 88 on March 3, 2023.)
AMY GOODMAN: Seventy years ago today, at 8:15 in the morning, the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Destruction from the bomb was massive. Shock waves, radiation and heat rays took the lives of some 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 74,000 people. President Harry Truman announced the attack on Hiroshima in a nationally televised address August 6, 1945.
PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN: A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, today, as the sun came up in Hiroshima, tens of thousands began to gather in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park to commemorate the world’s first nuclear attack. At 8:15 a.m., temple bells tolled as the solemn crowd observed a moment of silence.
AMY GOODMAN: Among those gathered for the memorial were the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, as well as survivors known as the hibakusha, or an atomic-bombed person. Their average age now is 80 years old. They listened as Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui called for nuclear weapons to be abolished.
In order for us to live together, we need to end the use of all nuclear weapons—the ultimate in inhumane, pure evil. And the moment to get this done is now.
AMY GOODMAN: This year’s memorial comes just days before the scheduled restart of the first nuclear reactor in southern Japan to go back online since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed some 18,000 people and set off a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has pushed to revive Japan’s nuclear energy program despite major opposition. During his remarks at today’s memorial ceremony, Abe said Japan still had an important mission to promote nuclear disarmament at the U.N. General Assembly and to put it on the agenda for G7 meetings to be held in Hiroshima next year.
Japan intends to renew its efforts to bring about a world without nuclear weapons, with the cooperation of both the nuclear powers and the non-nuclear powers. And that resolve translates to us proposing a new draft resolution at the United Nations in the fall on nuclear disarmament.
AMY GOODMAN: The conservative Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has pushed to change Japan’s pacifist constitution to send troops into conflict for the first time since World War II. The new legislation is under debate in Parliament, was raised by Hiroshima bombing survivors who met with Abe today. Yukio Yoshioka, representative of the Hiroshima A-bomb survivors network, spoke.
The erosion of the constitution will change Japan into a nation that will go to war and bring upon us tragedy once more. We should not allow this nation to become one that repeats the mistakes of its past and does not let the souls of the atomic bomb victims rest in peace.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on this 70th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Japan, we turn to acclaimed Japanese novelist, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, Kenzaburo Oe, who has spoken out in defense of Japan’s pacifist constitution. He is now 80 years old and one of Japan’s most respected intellectuals and humanitarians. Among his books, A Personal Matter, The Silent Cry, A Quiet Life, Hiroshima Notes and A Healing Family. They address political and social issues, including nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
When Democracy Now! was in Japan last year, I sat down with him in the Tokyo offices of Iwanami, his publisher. I started by asking Kenzaburo Oe to explain a comment he made about Hiroshima in which he said, quote, “Hiroshima must be engraved in our memories: It’s a catastrophe even more dramatic than natural disasters, because it’s man-made. To repeat it, by showing the same disregard for human life in nuclear power stations, is the worst betrayal of the memory of the victims of Hiroshima.”
KENZABURO OE: [translated] So, when I was a child at the age of 12 was when Japan was involved in the war, and this was of course at the end of the war, when Japan experienced the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time, what was a great shock to me, myself, but also my mother, our families, all the people at that time, was of course the atomic bomb. And at that time, this was a greater catastrophe than anything we had ever known. And so, the feeling of having to survive this, go beyond this and renew from this was great.
The people in Hiroshima who were forced to suffer the greatest sacrifice was the tens of thousands of people who were killed in an instant. However, there were, of course, many survivors. Following the end of the war and the bombing, for the five years following this, of course, Japan was under occupation, and so at that time it was not possible for the hibakusha, which is what we call the survivors of the atomic bombs, to create any kind of organization of their own. And five years following the bombings was when they were first able to create their own organization. And at that time, their lone slogan was to never allow this to be repeated, never to allow any more hibakusha to be created.
And so, the thing that I feel the most at this time, as we’re suffering from the disaster in Fukushima, is that we must follow the wishes and the will of the hibakusha, and not betray them. Of course, in the following 50 or more years since the end of the war, we have not created any more hibakusha or survivors of nuclear weapons, as such. Despite this fact, it is now after we are experiencing this nuclear power plant disaster, which was created by us, a self-made, man-made disaster, on such a great scale, this has led to so many new hibakusha, or people surviving this nuclear disaster. We have done what we promised following the war to never allow to be repeated, to never allow to happen again. And so, we, the Japanese people, I believe, have been responsible for the greatest betrayal to ourselves, even, betrayal to the Japanese people, by being responsible for this man-made nuclear power plant disaster.
Democracy Now for more