Translation of my article appearing in Die Bunte Zeitung, Vienna, October 2000
The Historical Truth
Japanese immigrants remember the victims of the Hiroshima attack and point to the ongoing nuclear threat
In 1982 millions of people protested in Tokyo, New York, and major European cities; in Europe, Japan, and the US, concern over the danger of nuclear weapons was much more apparent than it is today. The very first Austrian NGOs for this issue formed around this time – among them the “Initiative Oesterreichischer Atomkraftgegner,” which fought against starting up the nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf [along the Danube in Lower Austria; the building still stands today, although it was never put in operation]. During the Cold War, demonstrations took place throughout the world against nuclear weapons and the arms race; one made a connection between nuclear energy and military alliances: nuclear technology as a secret of the superpowers.
At that time a Japanese academic lived in Vienna; she made it her life’s mission to show Austrians [and the world] what the first atomic bombs meant for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yukiko Kuwano-Ichimura founded the Hiroshima Group in 1981 in Vienna, which still exists today and every year, on the 6th and 9th of August, remembers the victims of the attacks who were stigmatized and faced alienation in their own country. Dr. Ichimura translated into German the experiences of the “hibakuscha,” the victims of the atomic bombs, whom the US military analyzed and studied but did not treat. The Hiroshima Group showed in films and graphic material the actual horror. “It was a great success that the Austrian government allowed the truth about Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be taken into the school books,” Ichimura says today. The US has not come as far; this chapter of history is either repressed or justified. In Vienna these days have been commemorated for twenty years [thirty-five years now]. The Hiroshima Group organizes the traditional light ceremony together with the Wiener Friedensbuero [Vienna Peace Office] at the Peace Pagoda of the Buddhist Niponzan Myohoji. Ichimura remains active for peace today in Japan and brings Japanese tourists to Austria; she includes a stop at the former Nazi death camp, Mauthausen.
Hibakusha
At the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day events, hibakusha express their desires for peace. Kazou Soda of Nagasaki was in Vienna on August 9th 2000. He was fifteen years old when the bomb impacted his life; he became a hibakusha victim and survivor, later a missionary for peace. What is difficult, he says, is that there are fewer and fewer hibakusha [and we can assume 15 years after this article was written that they have all died]. Soda, who at 70 years old is very humorous, was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. When the bomb exploded he was only 2.5 kilometers from the epicenter. Everyone who was within 500 meters of the epicenter died torturously within a short time. Others lived somewhat longer and, between the funerals of friends and family, traveled the world advocating peace as individuals, activists, and members of NGOs in protest of atomic weapons, nuclear tests, and nuclear power plants. After the first demonstrations post 1950 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the “Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” was achieved in 1963, making atomic bombs a violation of international law. Since 1968, nuclear weapons are regulated by the so-called non-proliferation treaty. Above-ground testing has been banned, yet testing still occurs underground in many countries. In 1998 media reports concentrated on the Indian and Pakistani testing, until these countries rejected the critique as hypocrisy. A moratorium could not be achieved in 1999 via a “Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty”; in the US, the Republican-dominated Senate rejected this measure that had been important to the Clinton administration. Advancement of this goal now lies in the hands of NGOs; many support the international campaign “Abolition 2000.”
War as Means
Andreas Pecha of the Wiener Friedensbuero reminds us that a sympathetic ear is needed to sensitize politics to the peace demands of the population. He points to the recent achievement of the international “Anti-Personnel Mine Ban.” Former Austrian Defense Minister Hajinoczi communicated with the NGOs and was involved in writing the “Ottowa Treaty.” Before their goals become known, NGOs and citizens’ initiatives have usually waged campaigns over many years. In the ideological view of realpolitcs, peaceful solutions are not considered. The political scientists Eva Kreisky and Birgit Sauer recall Hannah Arendt’s words, that “between sovereign states there is only a logic of war as the last resort to a conflict. Sovereignty precisely excludes that the last means resorted to would be an international [ueberstaatlich, actually meta-state] solution.” Even more important, therefore, is the work of non-governmental organizations for the infrastructure of international cooperation in light of the “meta” problem [“ueberstaatlichkeit”] of environmental issues.
Immediately after the melt-down of Chernobyl in 1986, the “Plattform fuer eine Atomfreie Zukunft” was created. Because of the fallout of radioactive matter on Austrian soil, Maria Urban was “consciously and seriously” confronted with nuclear danger. To this day one should avoid picking wild mushrooms, since not even a fourth of the radioactive halflife are past, reminds Urban. In Vienna this platform meets every Wednesday with an information table at the Schottenpassage.
A further danger is presented by the black-blue coalition government [in 2000 the far-right/ right-center government of the so-called Freedom Party, and the Austrian People’s Party, OeVP] whose attempts to privatize all aspects of the economy would allow the import of energy, including from nuclear power plants, which presents a violation of the citizen’s initiative of 1978 against nuclear energy.
