Lest we forget

As I begin to write this piece it is a little past the time of one of the gravest moments in our history.

At 08:15 on the 6th August 1945, Hiroshima witnessed a destructive power the likes of which had never been seen before. Three days later Nagasaki would be witness to the horror.
President Truman wrote about the atomic bomb in his diary:

"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark." (1)

Many things have been written concerning whose fault it was, the necessity of dropping the bombs and criticism aimed at various parties for not trying harder with other methods and it'll be a debate that will rage on.

My concern is did we actually learn lessons from the events? And if so, do we still remember?

With all the advances in technology we have had, our destructive power has grown, the world is compact yet there is conflict around. Reading the accounts of the Hibakusha (survivors of the bombings) and then seeing the reality, the difference is astounding. They have seen the effects, they lived through what went on and see the futility yet day in and day out we have some sort of war ongoing.

In school we are taught about the events but I'm not sure the actual impact of it is conveyed. It was not until I decided to read more about the events leading upto the marking of the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII that I learnt about the harrowing events and the extent of damage. More should be made to record the experiences and show them to people that this is what happened. In Japan, survivors go out and talk in schools and speak of what it was like (2). This is not something that should be confined to Japan, every person in every nation should be educated in this manner, so that they can learn and build towards a better future for all.

At the start I had a quote from Truman and his comparison of the bombs to biblical proportions and we have hibakusha talk of it being like a living hell.

The lessons we should learn/have learnt from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not that we should never use atomic bombs again, it's that we should not take any arms up against others. As long as we do, then we've not learnt anything.


1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4724793.stm
2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4735163.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/4729407.stm