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As more information leaks out about the farce that is the US handling of suspected 'terrorists' and while David Hicks continues to languish while our servile and lickspittle government does nothing to assist an Australian Son, it is timely that we return to the brutality that is atomic war. History will forever record that the US government was the first to authorise the use of atomic weapons. On August 6 and 9 we remember the death of innocence and the war crimes that were the dawn of the nuclear threat.
The Sunday Age newspaper last week took up the story of 67 year old Masaaki Tanabe and how, on August 6, 1945 his family were obliterated. The article describes the death of over 200,000 men, women and children like this. "Housewives and children were incinerated instantly or paralysed in their daily routines like the victims of Pompeii, their internal organs boiled and their bones charred into brittle charcoal." Masaaki Tanabe's mother and baby brother died in the firestorm that was unleashed by the cowardly US military.
The Sunday Age article goes on to describe the exhibits in the memorial peace park in Hiroshima. Along with a lunchbox containing the carbonated remains of someone's food it contains photographs of a woman whose skin was branded with the pattern of her kimono. Not far from the photo is a glass case containing the steps of a bank upon which is a stain that was once a human being – forever burned into the concrete.
These memorials to horror should be enough. Alas, I fear they hold no sway in the minds of those who currently hold the reins of power. The victims of the US aggression are, in their minds, devoid of humanity and therefore not worthy of their pathos. The men and women who claim to rule "in our name" have no time for the details that are real, live, breathing humans. To these rulers of the world, both elected and unelected, your value as a human being is measured by your proximity to being "with us or with the enemy".
For the babies of the enemy, it is quite OK to be born with massive deformity caused by the effects of radiation. Its OK for your father to be summarily executed because he looked suspicious. It's quite OK for the brothers and sisters of your enemy to be slaughtered in a firestorm simply because they resided in a city with some military 'value'. Funny that isn't it, how a city can be of military value while its citizens and the victims of our army’s onslaught are referred to as 'collateral damage'.
As a wise philosopher once said, 'the wheel eventually turns'. The more we demonise the enemy without trying to understand them the more like them we become. The "yellow peril" as our northern neighbours were once referred to has now invaded our hearts and souls. Wasn't it they that butchered babies and raped their mothers? Wasn't it they who carried out unspeakable acts against “our boys”? Wasn’t it they who murdered whole cities and villages in the name of their devil gods? Wasn't it they who spoke unspeakable tongues and carried out wicked rituals before enacting death?
The wheel has turned full circle. Now it us who allow others to butcher babies and kill their mothers. It is now we who allow others, in our name, to authorise the unspeakable acts carried out on other's boys. It is now we who allow others to destroy whole cities and villages in the name of our gods. It is not us who now whisper in unspeakable tongues of the otherness of 'them'?
The terror and murder that was Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot be forgotten. The story of Masaaki Tanabe cannot be allowed to fade from our memory or the memory of our children. The horror of war is as foreign to me personally as is the ideology of those who would allow, in my name, the killing of innocent men, women and children half a world away.
Here at home we are now each others enemies. We are being encouraged to use our personal technology to spy on each other. We are being encouraged to use our video and photo phones to send pictures of 'suspicious' activities to the police. We are encouraged to spy on our neighbours and report any activity we think might be linked to supposed 'terrorist activities'. We are encouraged to dob on our mates as much as strangers. Surely our forebears didn’t die in two world wars to see this behaviour of our enemies become our own? And while we are turning one on the other no-one is watching those who laud it over us.
In the early 1940's as Robert Oppenheimer worked on harnessing nuclear energy, he knew full well that the power of the beast he was awakening could be used to destroy human life. He was fully aware that the war effort was the sole reason he had the limitless budget he did. He also knew that one day he and his peers would have to answer for their acts. Hiroshima and Nagasaki became their legacy. One which Oppenheimer and others dreaded.
As we remember the atrocities of 60 years ago, caused by the first use of weapons of mass destruction, it is timely to remember those who continue to die in the unending war being waged against imaginary enemies. Sakue Shimohira was, like the 7 year old Masaaki Tanabe, another of our enemies in 1945. She was a girl of 10 when the bomb exploded above her home. When she awoke after the blast she recalled seeing bodies in the bomb shelter with the eyes hanging out of their heads. She saw the bodies of living people ripped open and their guts spilling onto the floor. She heard voices crying, "kill me. Kill me" and then she found her sister's and her mother's bodies. She recognised her sister after pulling away the charred hand that covered her sister’s dead eyes. She knew she had found her mother only because of the gold fillings in the charred skull.
Are these the legacies we wish to leave our children? Are these the images we want any young child to see? We have continuous arguments about the dangers inherent in allowing young people to watch violent television but there is no public outcry over the children who are on the other side of the camera lens as we voyeuristically watch the footage on the evening news of the latest slaughter in Iraq or Afghanistan or Niger or Sudan or Burma.
Are the images of the injustice that is meted out to the David Hicks and Charles Menezes justifiable in our world? I suggest that anyone who answers yes is potentially the enemy of freedom not a purveyor of hope. Are those who would deny the atrocity that was Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be trusted with ushering in a new world order? I don’t think so. For the only order they know is chaos and terror.
The time has arrived when right thinking people need to walk the extra mile. While a well used cliche, it is apt. A choice confronts us. We can revel in the wonders of modern warfare or we can begin a march to dismantle the machine. We cannot do both. No doubt some politicians will offer platitudes about the horror of war and the terrible memories some might carry as we remember the events of 60 years ago. However, until they, forced by us, choose to tear down the alters of destruction upon which they worship we must keep the memory of what really happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki alive.