You can see a large (54 MB), but high quality, broadband encoded version of this clip at:

 http://tv.oneworld.net/tapestry?story=878&window=full

It takes less than 10 minutes to download with a broadband connection. For a dial-up modem version see the link above the photo.

Correction: the above link I gave for the broadband clip is wrong. The correct link is:

 http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=35293&group=webcast

Apologies for the confusion.

Draft transcipt of Mayor Akiba's speech to Greater Manchester and District Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Meeting

Time: 16:30 – 16:45, October 18 (Sat), 2003

Place: Manchester, England

Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons

[Greeting]

First, I want to express my profound gratitude for this opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the people of Hiroshima, the city that experienced the horror of the world’s first atomic bombing.

[A-bomb damage]

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped a single atomic bomb over the center of my city. Approximately 350 thousand people were in the city when the bomb exploded. Approximately 140 thousand were dead by the end of December 1945.

The combined effects of heat, blast, and radiation instantaneously slaughtered a hundred thousand human beings and reduced Hiroshima to rubble - an experience that was, to those who witnessed it, the "end of the world." Even now, a half-century later, thousands still suffer from physical and emotional aftereffects. A-bomb survivors, or hibakusha as we call them, know in their bones the devastating inhumanity of the atomic bomb. They are convinced that nuclear weapons are an “absolute evil,” they are determined “never to allow anyone else to experience such horror.” Having glimpsed a preview of the end of the world, they have worked for five decades to prevent it.

[Three achievements of the survivors]

I believe that understanding the experience of the A-bomb survivors is among the most important tasks we face if we hope to survive the 21st century.

In my 1999 Peace Declaration, I mentioned what I believe to be the three primary achievements of the survivors. The first is that they transcended the infernal pain and despair the bombings inflicted to opt for life.

In Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, atomic bombs created living hells in which no one could be criticized for choosing death. In fact, we know from eyewitness accounts that many victims took their own lives as soon as they were fully conscious of having survived.

Even under those conditions, our hibakusha chose to live. More importantly, they chose to live not as desperate animals but as decent human beings. Very early on they began rejecting hatred and revenge in favor of reconciliation. This superhuman effort to remain human has proven extremely important.

The second accomplishment of the hibakusha lies in their willingness to tell the world what happened to them. To talk about an experience burned so intensely into one’s unconscious is to re-experience the unspeakable pain of that day. Nevertheless, our hibakusha tell us over and over about an experience they would much prefer to forget. In doing so, they may very well have prevented a third use of a nuclear weapon, so far.

The third achievement of the hibakusha is their rejection of revenge and pursuit of reconciliation. They do not see the human race as a collection of enemies. They refuse to view international society as a tense standoff among selfish entities inevitably battling over territory and resources. Rather, they see all human individuals as members of one big human family, a single unit. They have adopted a revolutionary worldview that considers the human race as a single whole and works toward reconciliation.

The point of departure is deceptively simple. When the hibakusha tell their stories, one of the most commonly heard phrases is, “I want no one else to suffer the way I suffered.” This statement is revolutionary because it truly means “no one.” Not President Truman, who ordered the bomb dropped. Not the scientists who developed the bomb. Not even the military personnel who actually delivered it. This inclusiveness is the essence of the hibakusha world view.

Slowly but surely, they grew determined to turn away from revenge and toward reconciliation. The idea of co-creating a collective future embedded itself in their hearts. Every day it becomes more obvious to me that this message carries our only hope.

[Nuclear weapons today]

Despite the efforts of the hibakusha, the world is rapidly heading toward a nuclear weapons crisis. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the primary international agreement for the abolition of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse.

The United States, the nuclear superpower, has publicly stated its willingness to launch a preemptive first strike with nuclear weapons. It has openly stated its intention to develop small “useable” nuclear weapons and is seeking to resume production of plutonium pits, the atomic bomb triggers for hydrogen bombs. All of these efforts are clear violations of the NPT. In addition, North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT and has told the US it plans to build and possess nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan, and Israel still refuse to sign the NPT.

However, the problem goes beyond nuclear weapons. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 two years ago, the world appears enthralled by the concept of retaliation. Somehow it has become acceptable to claim, as President Bush did in his September appearance at the UN, that he started a war to preserve the peace. We have finally entered that Orwellian realm in which politicians say, “War is peace,” and people believe them.

This situation is symbolized most powerfully by the US-UK war on Iraq. Those who started that war discounted millions of people around the world who were calling desperately for continued UN inspections and a peaceful resolution. As a result, thousands upon thousands of innocent women and children and elderly have been needlessly slaughtered, and the natural environment has been contaminated with substances that will be dangerously radioactive for billions of years. Meanwhile, the weapons of mass destruction that were the original excuse for the war have yet to be found.

It is no exaggeration to say that by ignoring UN inspections and resolutions representing the “rule of law,” we are returning to an age in which the “rule of power” based on violence determines the fate of the world. The planetary symbol of the rule of law is the United Nations. The UN is a light illuminating a future of peace for the human race. We must make every effort to ensure that this light is not extinguished. We must help it shine ever more brightly.

[NPT prepcom in Geneva]

I will speak now about an action we are taking to help keep that light shining.

Last April, as president of the Mayors for Peace, which now has 554 city members in 107 countries and regions, I attended the NPT preparatory committee meeting held last April in Geneva, Switzerland. At this meeting, I had the opportunity to speak to the delegates and express the intense desire of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I requested that when the States Parties review the NPT in 2005, they take that opportunity to pass by majority vote, regardless of any nations that may oppose it, a final document that stipulates the following: first, the immediate de-alerting of all nuclear weapons; second, unequivocal action toward dismantling and destroying all nuclear weapons in accordance with a clearly stipulated timetable; and third, negotiations on a universal Nuclear Weapons Convention establishing a verifiable and irreversible regime for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

"Impossible," some will say, "The nuclear powers will never agree." But just as plants can get along fine without human beings, people are ultimately the power behind their leaders. The time has come for the people to arise and let our militarist, competitivist leaders know where the real power lies. The time has come to go beyond words, reason and non-binding treaties. The time has come to impose economic sanctions on any nation that insists on maintaining nuclear weapons. The time has come to use demonstrations, marches, strikes, boycotts, and every nonviolent means at our disposal to oppose the destruction of millions of our brothers and sisters, the destruction of our habitat and the extermination of our species. The time has come to fight, nonviolently,for our lives.

When I finished this speech, I was rewarded by a standing ovation from the delegates and the NGO representatives present. I was surprised at first by this reaction, but I soon realized its meaning. Most of the world feels the threat and sincerely wishes to abolish nuclear weapons. At the same time, I was more keenly aware than that Hiroshima is expected to lead the struggle to achieve this shared goal.

[Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons]

In 2005, which happens to be the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings, the Mayors for Peace are going to help our people raise their voices and lobby their government leaders to end the nuclear crisis. Yesterday, at our Executive Meeting in Manchester, the Secretariat proposed an Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons. We received absolute support, and it has now been decided that we are going to work with other NGOs around the world to promote a worldwide grassroots campaign.

First, we will mobilize a dozen or more members of the Mayors for Peace and hundreds of NGO representatives to attend the NPT Prepcom next year. This will lead to mobilizing hundreds of mayors and thousands of NGO reps to attend the Review Conference in 2005. To be effective, we need to increase membership in Mayors for Peace, and we must have significant participation by our members in the Emergency Campaign. We need our mayors to work actively to help their people place their demands before the national delegates.

At the 2005 NPT Review Conference, our member mayors will attend the opening ceremony and will make speeches during the time allotted for NGO presentations. They will use the techniques of nonviolent conflict to put pressure on their national delegates. They will coordinate their efforts with those of the NGOs to hold meetings, symposia, concerts, and other grassroots events to ensure that governments know where the people stand on this issue.

Between the 2004 prepcom and the 2005 review conference, we will call on member cities to raise the profile of the anti-nuclear movement on Hiroshima and Nagasaki days (August 6 and 9) in 2004. Turning these days into major events will arouse public interest leading toward the 2005 Review Conference. Each city will be expected to implement its own citizen-oriented program, but we are also hoping to find a way to link them, perhaps through television or Internet simulcasts.

I have no illusions about the task before us. It took a hundred years and a terribly bloody war to free the slaves in the US. It took 30 years for Gandhi to free India from British rule. It took 15 years to stop the Vietnam War. Nelson Mandela was in prison for 28 years. Bottom-up change takes time and great sacrifice, but, unfortunately, people of moral and spiritual vision must again take up the struggle. The abolition of nuclear weapons is no less important and no less just than the abolition of slavery. We are not just fighting a technology or a weapon. We are fighting the very idea that anyone could, for any reason, unleash a nuclear holocaust. We are fighting the idea that a small group of powerful men should have the capacity to launch Armageddon. We are fighting the idea that we should spend trillions of dollars on military overkill while billions of us live in dire, life-threatening poverty.

Our immediate objective is the elimination of nuclear weapons, but our long-term goal is to make this planet a “spiritual home for all people.” We need our planet home to be filled with compassion, to be a source of creativity and energy for our children and youth, a personal place of rest and comfort for all, young or old, male and female. In that “spiritual home for all people” grows an abundant Forest of Memory, and the River of Reconciliation and Humanity flowing from that forest is plied by Reason, Conscience and Compassion, ships that sail ultimately to the Sea of Hope and the Future.

I want my children and grandchildren to gaze with yours at the sun setting over that Sea of Hope and know that, despite our conflicts and other serious problems, their world will not explode in terminal, radioactive violence. To achieve this simple and obvious objective, we must all do everything in our power to eliminate nuclear weapons and eliminate war altogether. Let all of us here commit ourselves wholeheartedly to accomplishing this by the time we turn this world over to our children.

Thank you for your attention.