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| August 6, 2005 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 29, 1426 |
Hiroshima Day: children for peaceful world
ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: Scores of children, joined by adults, staged a peace rally here on Friday to express their revulsion at the events of August 1945 when the US dropped history’s first and only atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The children carried placards asking nuclear weapons states to abandon weapons of mass destruction and spare future generations of children the death and destruction that visited upon the people of the two Japanese cities.
“Let us live in a peaceful world without fear of atom bombs” was their rallying cry.
One banner in the peace rally pictured ethnic children from all parts of globe holding their hands together in a symbolism for uniting for building a bold new world of love, free of anger and recrimination.
The rally was organized by the Islamabad Cultural Forum and the Communication Network at the NIC building on Jinnah Avenue.
A cartoon film was screened on the occasion to tell the story of two children who survived the inferno return to Hiroshima to see hideous effects of the atom bomb. One of them later died of cancer.
A children’s band regaled the rally with songs of love and peace. One song in English had the refrain Your love is in me whenever I cry in darkness - a throw back of the sufferings of Japanese children who evaporated in the dark atomic clouds and the few who survived only to die of leukemia later.
Their Urdu song sent the message that children of the world should come together in spreading love and peace.
Seven-year-old Sara Khan gave a speech wishing for a world of peace. “Every religion is for peace then why should there be wars in the world?” she asked.
Twelve-year-old Salar Khan, designated Ambassador for Peace, gave a presentation in which he dreamed of a world at harmony bereft of hatred.
There were also echoes of the ignominy suffered by two courageous women in Shazia and Mukhtaran Mai. Teenager Sandas Chaudhry referred to them and regretted the lot of women who have to face violence in the society, including horrors of war. She called for restoring trust and balance in the society.
Writer and social activist Kishwar Naheed, who was present in the peace rally, said instead of spending money on weapons, the country needs to spend on creating more schools, and better health care for women.
About 30,000 schools could be built with the money needed to make one atom bomb, she said.
Asked why the Americans had to use atom bombs, she said the Americans wanted to prove their superiority over the Soviets. However, that did not explain the need to deface Nagasaki with another atom bomb when Japan had already capitulated, as disclosed in the intelligence documents titled ‘Ultra Secrets of World War II,’ published in the US in 1975.
What hope to entertain for future when American Marlene Davis says in Lexington Herald of July 31: “We have sent our soldiers to the Middle East but left our best weapons (nuclear bombs) at home”.
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