Hiroshima Day Commemoration 2023

Sunday 6 August saw the annual Hastings’ Hiroshima Day commemoration in Alexandra Park. Hiroshima Day is marked round the world each year as people remember those who perished due to the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. The event has been held each year by local peace group Hastings Against War (HAW) since 2007.  John Enefer writes.

An estimated 185,00 people died as a result of the bomb dropped by the US air force on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and on the port city of Nagasaki 3 days later in August 1945. (1) People died due to fire, falling buildings, untreated burns and as a result of radiation sickness caused by the bombs. All that remained of some people was their shadow seared into rock and walls after the intense heat of the bomb had vapourised their bodies.

At the gathering in Alexandra Park, Fiona MacGregor of HAW spoke about current attempts to rid the world of nuclear weapons through the United Nations (UN). The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)was adopted in 2017 and entered into force in 2021 making nuclear weapons illegal under international law.(2) Though states which possess nuclear weapons, like Britain, choose to ignore the treaty they are still affected by the reality the treaty has created, with many financial institutions not wanting to invest in weapons outlawed across the world. ABP, Europe’s largest pension fund, has already committed to scrapping its investments in nuclear weapons’ producers.(3)

Speaking at the gathering, Councillor for Silverhill, Nigel Sinden said he regretted the fact he had to make the same speech against nuclear weapons that he’d made so many times previously. A committed Pacifist, he asked if enough people haven’t already died as a result of war. During his time as Hastings Mayor from 2018 to 2021 Nigel also served as a ‘Mayor for Peace’, joining an international group of civic representatives seeking an end to nuclear weapons. Mayors for Peace currently has over 8,000 members. It was initiated in 1982 by the Mayor of Hiroshima.(4)

Current Hastings Mayor and Councillor for Braybrooke Margi O’Callaghan spoke about how she seconded a Council motion which supported the TPNW. The motion passed by a comfortable majority in 2020 and meant that Hastings joined cities including Paris, Berlin, Edinburgh and Philadelphia in backing a complete ban on nuclear weapons.(5)

Margi talked about how the money Britain is spending on the Trident nuclear weapons system could be used instead to eradicate poverty and end the need for food banks. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has estimated the total cost of Trident to be £205 billion, including the manufacture of the warheads and the submarines to carry them, as well as ‘decommissioning’ the system at the end of its lifetime. (6)

In Alexandra Park lanterns were lit around the pond in memory of the victims of the ‘A’ bombs, while Buddhists fromSoka Gakkai International (SGI) chanted. SGI is a global community-based organisation that, in its own words, ‘promotes peace, culture and education centred on respect for the dignity of life’. (7)

Hastings Against War has been active since 2003. Its web address is hastingsagainstwar.org. More information on their website, Hastings Against War.

 

(1)https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6652262.shtml

(2)https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXVI-9&chapter=26

(3)https://www.ft.com/content/8da29bd5-af91-308f-87cc-c685d81103e8

(4)https://www.mayorsforpeace.org/en/about-us/outline-m4p/

(5)https://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/articles/community/nuclear-ban-comes-into-force/

(6)https://cnduk.org/resources/205-billion-cost-trident/

(7)https://sgi-peace.org/who-we-are

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