Kenzaburo Oe, Japanese Nobel laureate, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary. American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
http://democracynow.org – Seventy years ago today, at 8:15 a.m., the United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The destruction caused by the bomb was massive. Shock waves, radiation and heat rays claimed the lives of some 140,000 people. Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people. President Harry Truman announced the attack on Hiroshima in a nationally televised speech on August 6, 1945. Today, as the sun rose in Hiroshima, tens of thousands of people began to gather in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to commemorate the world's first nuclear attack. We are joined by renowned Japanese novelist and 1994 Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe, whose books address political and social issues, including nuclear weapons and energy. /"If Mr. Obama came to the memorial ceremonies in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, for example, what he could do is get together with the hibakusha, the survivors, and share this moment of silence, and also express his thoughts on the nuclear issue. "Nuclear weapons from the point of view of all humanity and the importance of nuclear abolition from that point of view – I think that would be the most important thing, and the most important thing. "what any politician or representative can do right now," says Oe, who has also spoken out in favor of Japan's pacifist constitution, which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed to change to allow the country to sending troops into conflict for the first time since World War II.
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