Assisi: In a world threatened by nuclear arms we choose life

Source: Vatican Media

On the second day of the International Meeting for Peace in Assisi, one of the morning forums focused on nuclear weapons, disarmament, and proliferation. The panel was full of researchers, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the Catholic archbishop of Nagasaki, Japan, and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

While the threat of nuclear attacks, to some, may seem a distant possibility, Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura brought a concrete example of the lasting effects and reality of the use of these weapons.

In Assisi, the archbishop brought a piece of history and Catholic devotion from the heart of Nagasaki. The head of a wooden Marian statue - the only surviving part found in the city's Urakami Cathedral Church - was found among the rubble. Sixty years after the bombing, a new memorial chapel was dedicated to the bombed remains of the statue.

Speaking of her memory as a six-year-old walking to school on that August day in 1945, Katsuko Tanaka recalled a tremendous flash, her hair, neck, and arm being burnt before everything went dark.

Her house was badly damaged, and her body was so burned that her mother did not recognize her. That night, Tanaka explained she came close to dying. But she survived. Why? This was a question that remained in her mind for years.

The memory was so difficult that she never spoke of her experience until her 70th birthday. Then, she began to share her story.

In her speech, Tanaka stressed the importance of continued conversation on disarmament and non-proliferation amongst countries. "As long as one exists, it must be used," she argued.

She invited leaders of countries at war to imagine looking down at the world from a spaceship. From space, Tanaka highlighted, "you cannot see national borders. You see oceans and land. We all live on this earth. To me, it is one spaceship."

Reflecting on the immediate aftermath of the bomb, she remembered seeing the blue sky-the same one as the day before. "That blue sky I saw that day is still in my heart. There are no borders from the sky," Tanaka reiterated.

The topic of disarmament and non-proliferation must never fall off the list of topics to discuss. If these discussions become concrete actions, then Tanaka's closing wish can be fulfilled: Never create another Hiroshima.

On the other side of the coin are the numerous people around the world who have dedicated their lives to promoting nuclear disarmament.

One of these activists is Susi Snyder, who works with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and to get an international treaty negotiated and adopted to ban those weapons.

Snyder explained that nuclear deterrence was invented by people to justify having nuclear weapons in the 1950s. Nuclear weapons were seen as the answer to the power of conflict. But the world of 2026 is very different. "We don't have just two superpowers battling it out. What we have instead are multiple countries that have nuclear weapons, and that is a huge risk because everybody is unpredictable," she stressed.

Today, 191 countries have signed and are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The goal is to prevent the spread of these weapons, achieve disarmament, and promote cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The root of the danger of having and using these weapons comes from the fact that they eliminate the human aspect of war and killing. "Nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence relies on the dehumanization of the other. It strips us of human dignity, and it takes away the brotherhood of all," Snyder highlighted.

For this reason, organizations, activists, and survivors of the atomic bombs in Japan have been calling for an end to nuclear weapons. Currently, there are about 12,500 nuclear weapons in the world, and more have become available over the last few years. Moreover, the systems tied to these weapons are becoming more autonomous.

Machines are analyzing the situations in which to use nuclear weapons. Snyder cited a study released by King's College in London that revealed that "when artificial intelligence was applied to nuclear weapon command, control, and communications, the artificial intelligence chose for nuclear war every single time without fail." It removes human life from consideration.

Is there hope for the future? What hope is there? This is where faith-based organizations can play a role, Snyder said. They "remind people of our common humanity, of our shared dignity, they remind each other that we have a choice in who we want to be in the world."

Alessja Trama with the "Be the Hope Foundation" shared Snyder's hope for the future. She highlighted that young people have an important role to play in promoting nuclear disarmament.

"It is important to know that we don't have to be something special or different," Trama shared. "You can build peace pursuing whatever you are passionate about with your art or music. This is creating peace."

Moreover, she argued that people need to realize they are not alone in fighting for a truly unarmed and disarming peace. Trama noted the importance of building a strong network, so that young people, especially, can be aware of the fact that their voices can make a change.

"The youth are not the future. They are the present. They are the protagonists of today," she said.

Snyder stressed, "There is hope for something better, even on this planet, in our lifetimes." We have the choice. We can decide whether "nuclear weapons will end us, or we will end nuclear weapons. So, I look forward to choosing life with everyone else."