A 92-year-old Japanese man who lived through the American atomic bombing of Nagasaki called for an abolition of all nuclear weapons, as he accepted this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday.
“Imagine this: there are 4,000 nuclear warheads that could be launched immediately. This means that the damage that occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be multiplied by hundreds or even thousands,” said Terumi Tanaka.
“Let us all strive together to ensure that humanity is not destroyed by nuclear weapons, and to create a human society where there are no nuclear weapons and no war,” he urged.
This year’s prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Japanese atomic bombing survivors who have worked for nearly 70 years to maintain a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons, which have grown exponentially in power and numbers since being used by the United States on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
As the elderly survivors reach the twilight of their lives, they are grappling with the fear that the taboo appears to be weakening. It was a concern expressed by the 92-year-old-survivor, Tanaka, who delivered the acceptance lecture in Oslo’s City Hall.
“The nuclear superpower Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine and a cabinet member of Israel, in the midst of its unrelenting attacks on Gaza in Palestine, even spoke of the possible use of nuclear arms,” Tanaka said through a translator. “I am infinitely saddened and angered that the nuclear taboo threatens to be broken.”
It is also the great concern that drove the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award this year’s prize to the Japanese organization.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the committee, said in introducing the laureates that it was important to learn from their testimony now that the nuclear dangers in the world grow.
“None of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — appear interested in nuclear disarmament and arms control at present,” he said. “On the contrary, they are modernizing and building up their nuclear arsenals.”
He said the Norwegian Nobel Committee was calling upon the five nuclear weapon states that have signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapon to take seriously their obligations under this treaty and said others must ratify it.
