The Norwegian Nobel Committee is to be commended for awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese grass-roots organisation
Nihon Hidankyo for its quiet but tenacious anti-nuclear advocacy. The organisation was set up in 1956 by those who survived the August 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These survivors are known in Japanese as hibakusha; the term refers to people affected by exposure to radiation from the atomic bombs. They are among the most unfortunate victims of the atomic age, having been plagued by serious health issues and social ostracism. Japanese government figures put the number of surviving hibakusha at just under 107,000 with an average age of more than 85.
Nihon Hidankyo received the Nobel Prize for its “efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”. The official statement from Oslo adds that the hibakusha “help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.”
The
hibakusha and Nihon Hidankyo have contributed to the larger global endeavour of establishing a “
nuclear taboo”. It is an unwritten rule that the major powers which had acquired nuclear weapons would never use them again and that Nagasaki would be the last time a nuclear weapon would ever be detonated.
However, an objective review of the prevailing global security situation suggests that despite the earnest efforts of Nihon Hidankyo, the goal of achieving a nuclear weapon-free world is even more elusive now than it was a few years ago. Major nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia continue to enhance the quality of
their nuclear arsenals, China is boosting the quantity as well, and the world’s smaller nuclear powers are also modernising their inventory on a lower scale.
While the nuclear taboo has not been violated so far, there is no certainty that it will continue to be respected through the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 2025.
Nuclear sabre-rattling has been on the rise in recent years. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the current turmoil in the Middle East after the Hamas attack on Israel have added to global fears that the chances of nuclear weapons actually being used are steadily increasing.
