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Japan commemorates the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. (local time) the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in the war over Hiroshima. photo
© Uncredited/Kyodo News/AP
78 years ago, the United States turned Hiroshima into a blazing hell with the first atomic bomb in a war. In view of the Ukraine war, the commemoration in Hiroshima is an urgent appeal to the world.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in the Japanese city Hiroshima commemorates the victims of the atomic bombing 78 years ago. Amid global concerns about the rising risk of nuclear war, Mayor Kazumi Matsui called on world policymakers to abandon the nuclear deterrent theory. “You must take concrete steps immediately to take us from the dangerous present to our ideal world,” Matsui said at a central commemoration ceremony marking the anniversary of the US atomic bomb drop.
At 8:15 a.m. (local time), the time when the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the participants in the ceremony in the city observed a minute’s silence a. Tens of thousands of Hiroshima residents died instantly, and an estimated 140,000 people died by the end of 1945. Three days after dropping Hiroshima, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Shortly thereafter, the Japanese Empire capitulated. Today, Hiroshima is a symbol of war – and of peace.
“Revive the Realization of a World Without Nuclear Weapons”
“The only way to eliminate the nuclear risk is to abolish nuclear weapons,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement read at the Hiroshima commemoration. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is from Hiroshima and attended the ceremony, said in his speech: “At present, the road to nuclear disarmament has become even more difficult as the division of the international community over nuclear disarmament and nuclear threats from Russia deepened”.
“But especially under these circumstances, it is important to revive the international momentum for the realization of a world without nuclear weapons,” said Kishida. He hosted the summit of the heads of state and government of the leading democratic economic powers (G7) in May. For the first time, they had committed themselves to nuclear disarmament in a joint declaration. In their “Hiroshima Vision,” the heads of state and government sharply criticized Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine and expressed concern about China’s nuclear build-up.
Mayor Matsui hailed the visit of G7 leaders to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park for their summit as evidence that the “spirit” of Hiroshima has reached them. More people should follow their example and visit Hiroshima “because the drums of nuclear war are beating again,” Guterres said.
Record attendance for memorial ceremony
Representatives from 111 countries and the European Union attended the commemoration ceremony in Hiroshima this year, more than ever before. Like last year, Russia and Belarus were not invited to the memorial ceremony because of the war against Ukraine. Around 50,000 people took part. Shortly before the commemoration day in Hiroshima, jokes on the Internet about the simultaneous release of the blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in the USA, Germany and other countries in Japan caused outrage.
Responding to social media images of Barbie with a cloud of atomic bombs as her hairstyle and other quips under the hashtag “Barbenheimer,” young activists have launched a petition calling on the films’ distributors to take action. “Please do not downplay the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the suffering of the victims and survivors,” the activists wrote on the campaign website change.org, adding the hashtag #NoBarbenheimer.
“Barbie” by Greta Gerwig is a satire on the famous toy doll. “Oppenheimer” is a historical thriller about an American astrophysicist who went down in history as one of the fathers of the American atomic bomb. The atomic bombs dropped by the USA on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first and so far only nuclear attacks in the history of war. “Barbie” hits theaters in Japan on August 11th. A theatrical release date for “Oppenheimer” has not yet been set there.