The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) partners from Scotland are absolutely delighted to see that Nihon Hidankyo, the group made up of survivors of the 1945 attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has deservedly won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its powerful work towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.
ICAN partners from Scotland and around the world have all learned so much from Hibakusha (survivors of the 1945 attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), from veterans impacted by the tests and from indigenous people around the world about the effects on their environment and their peoples.
I’ve been involved with ICAN since its early days, campaigning in Scotland since before the official Scottish Parliament 2009 ICAN launch with Bill Kidd MSP and have been lucky enough to meet some truly amazing people, working together towards a lasting and permanent treaty that could eliminate these most inhumane and indiscriminate weapons from the world.
They included academics, diplomats and even military experts, but the key voices have always been from those directly affected by the catastrophic effects of the weapons.
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Toshiyuki Mimaki, co-head of Nihon Hidankyo, is the ultimate approachable campaigner, known for attending international meetings wearing a tabard printed with “ask me anything about nuclear weapons” and always quick to smile but also to cry, and always ready to explain what he had experienced from his exposure at age three to nuclear attack and everything that had happened since.
When ICAN received the Nobel prize in 2017 it was Setsuko Thurlow, Hiroshima survivor and the dearly beloved and dignified septuagenarian who personified ICAN on the international stage, representing all of us and expressing our shared hope for the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.
My experience of Mimaki and Suechi Kido, general secretary of Nihon Hidankyo, was similar, they were always accessible always polite and fun but absolutely unwavering in understanding that nothing short of elimination would do.
The hope is that this recognition of the tireless efforts of the first, but sadly not the last, generation of those directly affected in Japan will add to that attention. The attached picture is typical of the approach and the cooperation.
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At the December 2023 meeting of the states who have joined the treaty, the Scottish delegation was organising a photo at the iconic UN broken gun, when Kido was passing. He greeted us in friendship, and offered to be in our picture as a message to the people in Scotland from the people of Japan.
This award to Nihon Hidankyo will increase the group’s media reach and capacity and it is our hope that it will also focus global attention on the threat of nuclear conflict which is heightened by the fighting in both Ukraine and the Middle East.
It is time now to awaken the world to the urgent need to eliminate all nuclear weapons and address climate disaster.
Janet Fenton is an organiser with Secure Scotland and the secretary of the Scottish CND cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament.
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