Maroc - EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 06/Aug 18:57

Trauma Of Bombing In Hiroshima Revisted – OpEd

August 6, 2024 marked the 79 years since the United States dropped the world’s first atom bomb in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second atom bomb was dropped in another city Nagasaki. An estimated 90,000 to 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki perished in the bombing. Japan soon capitulated and then Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender, bringing the World War II to an end. Since then, every year citizens of Hiroshima place flowers at the Cenotaph, commemorating those lost in the bombing. Since then the movement gathered steam around the world to eliminate this destructive arsenal from the globe. Former US President Barack Obama even took initiative to hold nuclear summit at Prague, where his speech underlined the need to get the world rid of nuclear weapons. By this time, many more countries have acquired the nuclear weapons and there are some near-nuclear countries as well. The security situation around the world has deteriorated to such an extent that no country in possession of nuclear weapons is ready to give up for fear of weakening its position, as the Ukraine crisis clearly demonstrated. In the light of raging conflicts around the world, opinions have been of greater relevance that both military force and nuclear deterrence are needed to solve global crisis, a view successive leaders in Hiroshima articulate every year on the anniversary days. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former US President Ronald Reagan succeeded in ending the Cold War but the larger threat remained unaddressed. North Korea’s nuclear threat, Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war and many more around the world keep the world in the precipice, which is why the world must take collective action and take dialogue route seriously to overcome conflict. Such a policy choice shall motivate nuclear and near-nuclear powers to rethink if nuclear deterrence is the only choice to address to world’s conflicts. Unfortunately, such an approach remains more theoretical than practical. Even in East Asia now, because of North Korean threat, China’s aggressive and muscular posture and doubts on reliance on the US as the security guarantor to its two important Asian allies – Japan and South Korea – the US itself has promised extended nuclear deterrence to both. So, the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons is a mere utopian idea and destined to be unachievable. The big question is: did the American people approve of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, despite that the Japanese military was on a colonisation spree and had adopted brutal means? In an opinion poll held in the US in mid-August 1945, an overwhelmingly high percentage of Americans – 85 per cent – approved the US decision to the dropping of atomic bomb. This reflected the anger prevailing then against Japan among the American people. That level of approval has dramatically come down in subsequent years as the destructive potentials of the nuclear bomb dawned on the American people. This came down to 57 per cent in 2005 and 46 per cent in 2015. This reduction in the approval rating reflected a change in public ethical consciousness and implied as the general delegitimation of nuclear weapons in public discourse. This means that support for alternative routes has increased. This however does not imply that the American people would hesitate not to use nuclear weapons if the larger objective is to win a war for the country and save American lives. The element of strong retributive instincts and anti-Japanese sentiments in the hearts and minds of most American people prevailed in 1945 and even now to some extent. Even in another survey in November 1945, it was revealed that less than 5 per cent of the public opposed the bombing, while 14 per cent supported “demonstration strike”, which means an initial use of the atomic bomb on an isolated target in an unpopulated area to warn Japan about the destructive power of the new weapon and only attack cities if Japan then refused to surrender. Surprisingly, 22.7 per cent of the public said the US should have used many more such weapons before Japan had a chance to surrender. This reflected the vengeful and aggressive impulse that the American people had at that time. Reading the mood of the people, then US President Harry Truman wrote that “the only language they (the Japanese) seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast”. The mood in the US was so hostile that Truman was prepared to drop 1,000 nuclear weapons in each of the five areas of Japan virtually destroying all life and property in the enemy homeland. So, when the US dropped the atomic bomb in Hiroshima after deciding the target on 6 August 1945, the Japanese did not surrender immediately. Truman was provoked to drop a second bomb three days later in Nagasaki. That prompted the Emperor Hirohito who had the foresight on the gravity for Japan’s future if it decides to continue the war. The lives of the Japanese people could not have been saved without the announcement of surrender. Two more factors also weighed in Hirohito’s decision: Soviet Union’s entry into the war and that he was told not to be subject to war crimes trials. There are few survivors living now and their perceptions and feeling at tender age at the time of bombing reflects the pains of the generation of Japanese people then and even now. Some of those surviving ones who had seen the misery of nuclear weapons are now opening up and speaking up. They feel obliged to inform the current generation as they feel that spreading the reality of the bombing will bring the world closer to the abolition of nuclear weapons and a world without war. That is not easy as the world is more complex now than at the time of the World War II days. As it transpires, banishing the nuclear weapons from the world is an unrealisable dream as the world has become more complex. Possession of nuclear weapons by nations has become an essential national security issue, which is why any move to eliminate this from earth will never be achieved. The alternative option to deal with this is to remain engaged in a conflict situation where a nation in possession of the nuclear weapon is a combatant. In a war situation, the question of ethicality, humanity, human rights, morality, etc have no place when defending national sovereignty. Diplomacy and dialogue must never be abjured to seek peace.