Jim McIlroy, Brisbane
"What we need is action, not just commemorations. We need to stop future Hiroshimas by stopping today's Hiroshima: the war in Iraq", US peace activist Phyllis Bennis told a rally of 200 people in King George Square, held to mark the 60th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6. The rally, and candlelight march through city streets that followed, was organised by the Rally for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament.
"Today we have a global enemy, centred around the US drive for empire", said Bennis. "To combat this enemy we need a global movement, just like the people's movement of February 2003 that swept 700 cities around the world before the Iraq war. That was the real commemoration of Hiroshima.
"It matters that Australian troops are in Iraq. George Bush needs Australia in Iraq to prove he has a 'coalition of the willing'. We need a big movement in Australia to say 'Bring the troops home!' You must mobilise against John Howard to demand the troops come home now.
"The US is now talking about 'usable nuclear weapons'. It claims it is bringing democracy to the Middle East, when it is really bringing devastation to the region. We fight to say no to George Bush and other 'rogue state' leaders like John Howard."
Other speakers at the rally included Jeff Brunne from Just Rights Queensland; Misha Byrne from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War; and Adele Goldie and Phoebe Clark, both from the Anti-Bases Peace Convergence. The Combined Unions Choir performed several progressive and peace songs.
"The atomic bombing of Hiroshima 60 years ago was an act of imperialism: that was the real reason the A-bomb was dropped", Carah Ong, advocacy and research director for the US Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told a forum sponsored by the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission held two days after the Hiroshima Day rally.
"The US used the nuclear bomb as a loaded gun, which they threatened to use many times during the Cold War", Ong told the forum. Nuclear weapons are the modern "backbone of imperialism".
There are 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, she said. The US has by far the most powerful nuclear arsenal, and is now "spending one-and-a-half times the amount it spent at the height of the Cold War on nuclear research" into advanced nuclear weapons technology.
But, on the other side, there is now a groundswell of public demand to get nuclear weapons out of Europe. And a recent poll showed 76% of US citizens want to abolish nuclear weapons, Ong said.
"We need to organise on the community level to educate people about the real nuclear threat", she said, adding that the US rulers are using the threat of 'nuclear terrorism' to justify their war in Iraq, and to pressure Iran and North Korea. The main political problem in the US is the two-party system — there are no basic differences between the Republican and Democratic parties on these issues, Ong concluded.
From Green Left Weekly, August 17, 2005.
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