58 years ago today, the people of the Japanese city of Hiroshima
and
their city were obliterated by the first atom bomb ever used.
It was
launched by the war leaders of the United States allegedly to
hasten the
end of Japanese resistance, already about to crumble, but in reality
to
show the world which state was from now on the world's most powerful.
A number of states now also have nuclear weapons and the whole
world
is in danger - in stark peril indeed - of an appallingly gruesome
death
by a nuclear weapon, if some arrogant national leader decides
to settle
his country's differences with another by using a weapon of
obliteration.
Two very much praised films recently revealed the ghastly massacres
perpetrated by both sides in the American War for Independence
and in
the German campaign against Russia in the second World War. They
did
not however inform viewers that had the leaders involved had nuclear
weapons, they would certainly have used them : Europe would have
been a
desert and Ireland itself full of disease-ridden inhabitants.
I am sure that if the majority of Irish people were fully informed
about
the deadly danger humanity would be in if one of its numerous
disagreements were allowed to lead into the horrors of nuclear
war they
would take action. They would quickly and efficiently take steps
to get
an international front against nuclear weapons going. Without
such a
front, we are in deadly danger of the next international crisis
turning
into a nuclear war.
Fortunately history has shown time and time again that when
devoted
human beings are moved to action, they can take dramatically effective
steps to deal with disaster.
Before the 18th century shipwrecks were common in all oceans
and seas
and there was no organisation anywhere to help the shipwrecked
. Their
usually inevitable death was supposed to be an incurable act of
Fate.
Then in various parts of the world, chiefly in Europe, in the
18th
century, intelligent groups in seaside communities got together
and
built or bought a lifeboat to be launched by volunteers to go
to the
rescue of local shipwrecks. Some of the most famous seamen of
the time
said that in certain conditions Dublin port was the most dangerous
in
the whole world to enter or leave because of the destructive power
of
the Irish Sea.
The last action of the parliament abolished by the infamous
Act of Union
of 1800, was to instruct the port of Dublin to set up one of the
very
first coordinated lifeboat services in the world, under pressure
from
voters along the coast from Bray to Howth, horrified at the number
of
corpses they were expected to salve from Dublin Bay's seashore
after
every easterly gale.
In 1803, 2 centuries ago exactly, the first Dublin Bay lifeboat
station
was opened in what is now Dun Laoghaire, organised and manned
by local
volunteers willing to take on one of the greatest crises of their
time.
The same spirit could and must take on a danger greater than
unrelieved
shipwreck - that of merciless, atomic nuclear weapons and politicians
willing to use them.
Back to Irish CND page on nuclear weapons