NPT PrepCom- A Very Personal Reflection
As I am getting more familiar with various aspects of the NPT, one thing is becoming clear to me: there is a big gap between the governments (and government representatives) and the people. One could listen to the diplomats talk for hours about their stances on nuclear weapons and maybe think rationally about reasons for and against them, but it takes only one look at the rags that hibakushas (the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) are showing as a part of their exhibition “Under the Mushroom Cloud” to realize that nuclear weapons, and furthermore, nuclear energy should be banned once and for all. The most powerful statement for me was not the statement of lukewarm support for the nuclear disarmament and promise of financial support stated by the U.S. representative; it was none of the more defined statements of the non-nuclear weapon states, and it was not even the statement of the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran saying that Iran supports a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East. No. The most powerful statement for me was the message of Mikiso Iwasa, one of the hibakushas, during the “NGO Day”. Iwasa talked about his personal experience, as a survivor of the atomic bomb. Seeing the direct and personal effects of the nuclear bomb was the force that moved me the most, that made me propagate the message of the world free of nuclear weapons to whomever I saw that day. It was a very powerful statement, one that made the listeners relate it to their own life and the one that made me think about how no one is safe from the effects of the atomic bombs.
NGOs in general presented more determined attitudes to achieve the world without nuclear weapons, which is understandable because for them the stakes are lower; they have a lot less responsibility to represent a certain population than the states representatives, who actually stopped being the people’s representatives a long time ago. However, this is exactly what this whole thing is about. Responsibility. Whether we have the responsibility to perpetuate the myth of nuclear deterrence to justify the whole arsenal of nukes in our home country or to tell the world our own personal story about nuclear weapons, we all are connected to the issue of nuclear power. We have the responsibility to get involved. Responsibility not only to the others, but also to ourselves. Hearing the hibakushas stories about long-term effects of radiation made me think about all the possible effects that might have been concealed from us, the common people. Such high rates of cancer everywhere in the world? So many new conditions that have been attributed to factors other than nuclear weapons? And what about the money spent on the nuclear weapons? Couldn’t it be used for other purposes? Couldn’t it feed the starving children, improve everyone’s life conditions? Build the world based on trust instead of contributing to the state of general anxiety?
The fact that so much nuclear power is being piled up in the name of nuclear deterrence shows that we live in the world full of distrust, in the world that is still a lot more prepared for wars than for peace. We are looking at the wars of the past, projecting the fears and distrust onto the future. Instead of preparing to create, we are preparing to destroy. We cannot believe that humankind is capable of life with no war. And right now it doesn’t seem like it is. Not with so much nuclear weapons lying around.
It’s the time that we, the common people, take the responsibility for ourselves and each other and demand loudly what we want. It’s the time that we took our own destiny in our own hands. Because, remember, no government will do it for you. Although our societies can be called democratic, under careful examination most of them would fail to justify using that name. So, turn to the civil society sector and protect your rights! Because, after all, all of us have the right not to be the next hibakusha.
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