The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

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'Shikata ga nai'

Please join me in an asynchronous moment of silence commemorating the 58th anniversary of the use of the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.

Nobody knows how many people were killed by that bomb. Whole families, and all records of them, were wiped out. Some people were vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing behind but their shadows on the sidewalks. At the epicenter, where temperatures reached 7000 degrees Fahrenheit, the sidewalks just melted along with everything else. At least 70,000 died that day, and an equal number had obvious injuries. Hundreds of thousands more died later from radiation, and subsequent generations suffered leukemia and other problems as well.

Those who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were called the hibakusha, and many years ago, one of them taught me an important lesson. The Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, was helping a parishioner move some furniture that morning when there was a tremendously bright flash and then the house in front of him collapsed as dust and debris rose everywhere. Mr. Tanimoto ran into the street, then immediately began helping the injured. From that point on, he dedicated his life to helping the hibakusha, telling his (and their) story, and working for peace so that there would be "no more Hiroshimas." He and his wife, also a hibakusha, told me their story when I interviewed them more than 20 years ago, and they taught me an important Japanese phrase: shikata ga nai. "That's how we feel about it," he said: "Shikata ga nai. It means, 'it couldn't be helped' or 'unfortunate thing happened; we must go on' or even 'we can't go back in time.' "

Mr. Tanimoto's story is featured in John Hersey's book, Hiroshima. If you haven't read it, you should:

Mr. Tanimoto died in 1986, and today there are very, very few hibakusha left. Those still alive commemorated the occasion today by issuing a special invitation, via Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba. Here's an excerpt:

"The world without nuclear weapons and beyond war that our hibakusha (atomic bomb victims) have sought for so long appears to be slipping deeper into a thick cover of dark clouds that they fear at any minute could become mushroom clouds spilling black rain.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse. The chief cause is U.S. nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the possibility of a preemptive nuclear first strike and calling for resumed research into mini nuclear weapons and other so-called "usable nuclear weapons," appears to worship nuclear weapons as God...."

and another excerpt:

"As the U.S.-British led war on Iraq made clear, the assertion that war is peace is being trumpeted as truth. Conducted with disregard for the multitudes around the world demanding a peaceful solution through continued U.N. inspections, this war slaughtered innocent women, children, and the elderly. It destroyed the environment, most notably through radioactive contamination that will be with us for billions of years. And the weapons of mass destruction that served as the excuse for the war have yet to be found.

However, as President Abraham Lincoln once said, 'You can't fool all the people all the time.' Now is the time for us to focus once again on the truth that 'Darkness can never be dispelled by darkness, only by light.' The rule of power is darkness. The rule of law is light. In the darkness of retaliation, the proper path for human civilization is illumined by the spirit of reconciliation born of the hibakusha's determination that "no one else should ever suffer as we did."

Lifting up that light, the aging hibakusha are calling for U.S. President George W. Bush to visit Hiroshima. We all support that call and hereby demand that President Bush, Chairman Kim Jong Il of North Korea, and the leaders of all nuclear-weapon states come to Hiroshima and confront the reality of nuclear war. We must somehow convey to them that nuclear weapons are utterly evil, inhumane and illegal under international law."

Years earlier, another Hiroshima mayor, Shizo Hamai, marked the day with a prayer, now inscribed on the Hiroshima memorial: "We pray in sincerity that there may never be another Hiroshima in any part of the world."

Amen.

(I wrote a better, longer version of this post, but stupidly forgot to make a backup and it disappeared when I tried to post it. Shikata ga nai.)

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:30 PM

6.8.03