The News International
August 06, 2005

THE TIME OF THE BOMB

by Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar

When he was told on August 6, 1945, that America's new atom bomb had
destroyed its first target, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, U.S.
President Harry Truman declared "This is the greatest thing in history."
Three days later, on August 9, another atom bomb destroyed the city of
Nagasaki.

The coming of the bomb brought pain and death. A 1946 survey by the
Hiroshima City Council found that from a civilian population of about
320,000 on the day of the explosion: over 118,000 were killed, over
30,000 seriously injured, with almost 49,000 slightly injured, and
nearly 4,000 people were missing. In December 1945, the Nagasaki City
Commission determined that because of the bombing there, almost 74,000
people had been killed and 75,000 injured. The injured continued to die
for months and years later, one of the reasons being radiation sickness.
Pregnant women who were affected produced children who were severely
physically and mentally retarded. The Japanese created a new word --
hibakusha, -- a survivor of the atom bomb.

In the sixty years since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we
have been spared the horror of a nuclear weapon attack on another city.
But nuclear weapons have grown in their destructive power; each can now
be tens of times, or even hundreds of times, more powerful that those
used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The number of nuclear weapons
has grown; there are now tens of thousands. Where there was one country
with the bomb, there are now perhaps nine (US, Russia, UK, France,
China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). There are many more
political and military leaders who, like Truman in 1945, see the bomb as
"the greatest thing in history".

>From the very beginning, there has also been opposition to the bomb. The
French writer and activist Albert Camus wrote on August 6, 1945:
"technological civilization has just reached its final degree of
savagery... Faced with the terrifying perspectives which are opening up
to humanity, we can perceive even better that peace is the only battle
worth waging."

The American sociologist and critic Lewis Mumford wrote: "We in America
are living among madmen. Madmen govern our affairs in the name of order
and security. The chief madmen claim the titles of general, admiral,
senator, scientist, administrator, Secretary of State, even President."
There are many more of these madmen now. They all mumble the same
nonsense about "threats," and "national security," and "nuclear
deterrence," and try to scare everyone around them.

Protest and resistance against the madness of nuclear weapons has
brought together some of the greatest figures of our times with millions
of ordinary men and women around the world. Albert Einstein and the
philosopher Bertrand Russell gave the reason most simply and clearly.
They published a manifesto in 1955 in which they identified the stark
challenge created by nuclear weapons: "Shall we put an end to the human
race; or shall mankind renounce war?"

The only way forward for humanity, Einstein and Russell said, was that
"We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask
ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give a military victory to
whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the
question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent
a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all
parties?" Their 1955 manifesto led to the formation of the Pugwash
movement of scientists. It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its
work against nuclear weapons in 1995. There are now Pugwash groups in 50
countries, including in India and Pakistan.

Global protests eventually forced an end to nuclear weapons testing in
the atmosphere and under water. These explosions had been spewing
radioactivity in the air, where it was blown around the world, poisoning
land, water, food and people. But the "madmen" were blinded by the power
of the ultimate weapon. They kept building more and bigger bombs and
threatening to use them. They have been stopped from using them only by
the determined efforts of peace movements and public pressure.

The bomb and the madmen came to South Asia too. India tested a bomb in
1974 and Pakistan set about trying to make one. There was protest too.
In 1985, a small group of people in Islamabad organised an event for
Hiroshima Day, August 6, at the Rawalpindi Press Club. There was a slide
show and talk about nuclear weapons and their terrible effects, with
pictures of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Every picture brought gasps of horror and revulsion from the packed
audience. The posters and placards and banners on the walls carried
messages about the need to end war, to reduce military spending and
increase spending on education and health, and to make peace between
India and Pakistan. A small, short-lived peace group was born, the
Movement for Nuclear Disarmament.

That was twenty years ago. The Cold War is long over, the Soviet Union
long gone, but there has been little relief. The United States still has
five thousand weapons deployed, 2000 of which are ready to use within 15
minutes, and there are another five thousand in reserve. Russia has over
7000 weapons deployed and 9000 in reserve.

The UK, France, and China are estimated each to have several hundred
warheads, Israel may have almost as many, and India and Pakistan have a
hundred or fewer. North Korea may have a handful. And, leaders are still
mad; they send armies to attack and occupy other countries, and kill and
maim tens of thousands. In America, they plan for newer and more useable
nuclear weapons.

In the meantime, India and Pakistan have also tested their nuclear
weapons -- which are about as powerful as the bombs that destroyed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have threatened to use their weapons in
every crisis since then. They are making more weapons and missiles as
fast as they can. A nuclear war between Pakistan and India, in which
they each used only five of their nuclear weapons, would likely kill
about three million people and severely injure another one and a half
million. What more proof is needed that we are ruled by madmen?

If South Asia is to survive its own nuclear age, we shall need to have
strong peace movements in both Pakistan and India. A beginning has been
made. The Pakistan Peace Coalition was founded in 1999; it is a national
network of groups working for peace and justice. In 2000, Indian
activists established the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.
These movements will need all the help and support they can get to keep
the generals and Prime Ministers in both countries in check. The leaders
in both countries must be taught, over and over again, that the people
will not allow a nuclear war to be fought. There should never be a word
in any other language for hibakusha.

Zia Mian, peace activist, is a physicist at Princeton University.

A.H. Nayyar is a physicist, co-convener of Pugwash Pakistan, and
president of the Pakistan Peace Coalition.