By Rhianna Tyson
Speech delivered at a rally to commemorate Nagasaki Day, organized by the Peace Boat
Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, New York City
August 9, 2007
It is such an honor and a pleasure to speak here today on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. As an American, I feel a profound responsibility to work to ensure that nuclear weapons are never again used and to commemorate this anniversary with our Japanese friends from the Peace Boat. I extend my deepest gratitude to the organizers for inviting me.
We are here today to demand “No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!” The horrors that were experienced that day in 1945 are unimaginable. The lasting effects of that radioactive mushroom cloud are felt to this day. No people, anywhere, ever again should have to endure such indiscriminate suffering, and I thank all of you for working so tirelessly to abolish these genocidal, suicidal and ecocidal weapons.
It is a privilege to be a part of a morally inspired movement that expresses the conscience of humanity and our common quest to eliminate nuclear weapons. To those who say it can’t be done, to those who claim that the genie is out of the bottle, that nuclear weapons are here to say, let them remember how humanity has worked to rid the world of other evils. Who would have thought that civilization would abolish the slave trade hundreds of years ago? Many societies around the northern hemisphere were far more economically dependent on the slave trade than the few nuclear weapon states today are dependent on these instruments of mass destruction. Who, just decades ago, was convinced that we could legally, verifiably ban landmines? Chemical weapons or biological weapons? Yet slowly, slowly but surely, governments responded to the growing demands of a civil society fed up with these evils created of our own design and worked to eliminate them.
I am proud to represent the Global Security Institute, an organization founded by a visionary American Senator from California, Senator Alan Cranston, who had the insight and understanding to recognize that nuclear weapons were immoral and unworthy of civilization. It is with this understanding and the ensuing love for our common humanity that we at the Global Security Institute are working with governments at every level—here at the United Nations, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress, with parliamentarians around the globe and in partnership with grassroots organizations everywhere.
The tide is turning. This is a moment of profound hope. Our colleagues in Washington are increasingly responding to our calls for abolition and the signs of change are everywhere. The US Congress inches closer to ratifying the treaty banning all nuclear tests. They zeroed out the funding for new nuclear weapons here in the US after a laborious fight against the seemingly unending pressure from the Bush administration to develop them. Congress even significantly cut back the funding for the provocative missile defense system. Even stalwart conservatives like Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry and Robert McNamara have come out forcefully and unequivocally for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They are, as these Republicans have acknowledged, militarily useless, economically draining, and increasingly dangerous. The existence of our nuclear weapons directly incites others to develop their own. If we, here in America, really want to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, if we really want North Korea to halt their program and eliminate their arsenal, we must lead by example: the only way to effectively stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons is by their global elimination.
The time for nuclear abolition is now. We must work together, all peoples, all governments, to build the cooperative governance needed to eliminate these weapons before these weapons eliminate us.
So I thank you again for coming out today, and for joining with me as we demand “No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!” |
