NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Last month we organized a forum at the University of Guam on nuclear dangers to Guam, both from the nuclear weapons of others, but also accidents involving the nuclear weapons kept on Guam by the US military or the nuclear-powered vehicles that are docked here. It was somewhat disappointing when in a room meant for close to 200 people at the UOG CLASS Lecture Hall, we only had about 40 people in attendance. As one of the speakers on the panel remarked, this is a critical issue, which few people seem to care about. That is one reason why it is so critical. It looms around us, as threats from others or dangers from within, but we don't seem to take it very seriously at all. Robert Underwood once said that living in a colony and not taking decolonization or colonialism seriously is like running a hospital without taking seriously issues of illness and treatment. I would argue a similar thing on Guam in terms of the dangers our heavily militarized existence presents.

In 2010 I travel…

2016 World Conference against A & H Bombs
Declaration of the International Meeting


Seventy one years ago, the USA used nuclear bombs for the first time against humanity by releasing atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With tremendous destructive power and radiation, the two bombs burned out the cities and claimed the lives of about 210,000 people by the end of the year. It was a hell on earth. The Hibakusha who survived then had to suffer from latent effects and social discrimination for many subsequent years. Such inhumane weapons should not be used again in any circumstances whatsoever.

The nuclear powers still maintain more than 15,000 nuclear warheads. Not a small number of them are on alert for launch. The concern for the outbreak of nuclear war due to deteriorating regional tensions is real. A recent study shows that even if only a small percentage of existing nuclear weapons are used, it would cause serious climate change and would bring the human race to…

Three years ago I was fortunate enough to travel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan to represent Guam at the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. This meeting is held annually at either of the two cities where atomic bombs fell during World War II. The meetings are attended by thousands of peace and anti-nuclear activists across Japan and across the world. Here is the statement below from this year's conference, held last week. 

**************

Declaration of the International Meeting
        Sixty-eight years have passed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered the atomic bombings.  The bombs instantly devastated the two cities and took lives of over 200,000 citizens by the end of 1945.  They created a “hell on earth,” which denied humans either to live or die as humans.  The Hibakusha, who survived the days have continued to suffer from wounds in both mind and body.  The tragedy like this should never be repeated anywhere in the world.
        Nuclear weapons are the wors…

I am not a journalist, and for anyone who has read this blog before, that should be obvious. Even though I do try to capture as many details as I can when I attend an event, or analyze something, too often the analysis is far more important to me than the communication of the basic facts of something. So for example, the majority of the blog posts which I've written for this trip to Japan thus far, weren't written in such a way that you would know the ins and outs of what's being going on here, or understand all the issues that have been brought up, or what the conversations are like. Instead, I often focus on a single thing or set of things and then interrogate them in such a way, that its easy to think that I'm talking about massive huge things, when in truth from the event itself I'm drawing evidence or inspiration from, I was only analyzing a single thing said, or a single exchange.

Most of the time I'm perfectly fine with this. I had once wanted to be a jo…

One of the speakers on the first day, Hiroshi Taka, the Secretary General of the group Gensuikyo, which is the main group who organized this conference, made a remark which has been a running theme throughout this conference, but the way that he said it ended up staying with me. Part of the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs is solidarity with hibakusha or those affected by nuclear radiation, primarily in Japan, but also people the Marshall Islands, Tahiti, Christmas Island or even the Western United States.


…with the passing of 65 years since the A-bombings, it is as especially important task for us to share the experiences and struggles of the Hibakusha as a common knowledge of the human race. Here, in Hiroshima, hundreds of young people participating in this conference will visit Hibakusha and listen to their messages, to inherit their struggle for the survival of humanity. Their testimonies of the tragedies are themselves a powerful refutation of the “nuclear deter…

At the 2010 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, everything is conducted in English and Japanese. Since most of the people attending the conference are from Japan and do not speak English, all the overseas delegates have headsets and during the proceedings off to the side there is an interpreter who is telling us what people are saying. While I was in South Korea I had the experience of attending a conference where I did not understand a single word, and while I did get a lot of other work done during that time, it was disappointing to not be able to follow what was being said.

One thing that the organizers of the conference request in order to make their job easier is that we turn in our speeches ahead of time so that it can be translated into Japanese ahead of time, or so the interpreter can have it in front of them while you speak to help guide them. I submitted my speech a week ahead of time, but was told the day I arrived to make some changes and cut its length. Ins…

Kana' tumanges annai hu taitai este na betsu. Gi i tiempo-ku guini giya Hapon, meggai na estoria hu hungok put i pinadesin i maninafekta ni' i hinatmen atomic. Siempre bula na aniti gi este na lugat, sa:' siempre Siha chumochonnek i taotao guini mo'na gi i kinalamten kontra atmas nuclear.
Un hibakusha na palao'an tumuge' este gi 1973. Estaba gui giya Hiroshima annai hinatme ni' i atmas atomic, lao ti matai gui'. Lao annai mumapotge gui' duru chathinasso-na na sina nina'dano' i patgon-na ni' i radiation. Ha tuge'i i patgon-na este annai gaigaige ha' gi halom i tiyan-na. Para este na klasin taotao (i mannina'ye radiation), guaha racism kontra siha, sa' nu i otro na taotao Hapon, kalang kalaskas, but manamatatse este siha. Ti debi di un asagua este na klasin taotao siha sa' attelong i haga'-niha, madano' i tahtaotao-niha. Achokka' esta 65 na sakkan desde ayu na baba na ogga'an, sigi ha' ma susedi gui&#…

The week during which the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings fall is a time during which the battle over Japanese national identity reaches its peak. For it is during this time that the discourse on Japan being a victim from World War II is thickest and most vibrant.

As the stories of hundreds of thousands who died in the atomic blasts are recounted, it is very easy to forget the prologue to that moment, where Japan had spent decades sometimes violently building an empire, which at its peak, during World War II consisted of colonies in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam and Guam. As Japan is utterly defeated and destroyed by the United States after World War II (and bares the radiation scars to prove it) and forced to unconditionally surrender and accept numerous US military bases there as part of their new relationship, it emerges as newly humbled, bearing the shameful mark of defeat. As the nation seeks to move on, it resorts to victimization in order…

While driving around Hiroshima in a cab this morning I learned that the driver was the son of a hibakusha, or someone who had been hit in the atomic blast in Hiroshima but had survived. I along with delegates from Nigeria and Vietnam were in the car and when our guide told him that we were all in town for the 2010 World Conference Against Atom and Hydrogen Bombs, he enthusiastically welcomed us all. He went on to talk a little bit about himself and his mother and then summed up his story with an obvious but important point. He said that he could not understand, even after people have seen the horrible damage that they cause, why anyone in this world would want nuclear weapons to continue to be in this world. Para Guiya, ti hongge’on na manggaigaige ha’ gi este na mundo, este na klasin “weapons.”

Earlier this year, activists groups from around the world, but activists in particular in Japan had worked to gather signatures worldwide calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which was…