Obamajority
By Kim Mi-kyoung
There are few words needed to describe what the city of Hiroshima stands for. It testifies to the ironic role that science and technology play in becoming part of our own self-annihilation.
Considering the chasm between the city's anti-nuclear message and the nation's nuclear reality, it often feels as if Hiroshima is not an integral part of Japan.
This has become increasingly apparent with the advent of Hiroshima's ``Obamajority'' campaign and Hatoyama's East Asian Community vision.
The amount of human casualties following the Hiroshima atomic bombing was a major impetus behind Japan's unconditional surrender in the Asia-Pacific War.
Following the war, the U.S. military government, controlled largely by General MacArthur, strictly censored information regarding what had actually happened to the city.
The postwar Tokyo government similarly put a tight seal on what the people had seen (e.g. one more sun in the sky, the black rain and human deformities).
The city remained in oblivion until the 1950s when a Japanese tuna fisherman died from radiation exposure to a hydrogen bomb within U.S. territory. Since then, Hiroshima commands the authoritative symbol for antinuclear pacifism.
Hiroshima's latest slogan, ``Obamajority,'' combines (the U.S. President Barack) ``Obama'' and (global) "majority.'' Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba invoked the term at the United Nations and the Mayors for Peace Conference, reiterating Hiroshima's commitment to a nuclear-free world.
This sales pitch, however, is causing some discomfort in Japan that primarily stems from the nation's complicated relationship with Washington.
President Obama's pledge to nuclear non-proliferation, as enunciated in Prague during a visit in April, was well received by the international community.
Nobody can disagree with the idea that a world free of nuclear stockpiles would be a far better place. When the Hiroshima leadership rode the idea's momentum, however, perspectives seemingly shifted the focus, at least in domestic Japanese affairs.
For the past 60 years, Japan has been under the protection of a U.S. security umbrella. The nuclear facilities housed in the U.S. military bases on the Japanese territory indicate the powerful effects of the binding bilateral security treaty.
Interestingly, a recent declassified document indicates that former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato specifically entreated Secretary McNamara to use nuclear weapons against China in the event of a war between Beijing and Tokyo in 1965.
Sato later won the Nobel Peace Prize for introducing Japan's three nonnuclear principles in 1974.
This stark contrast in Sato's behavior displays two ostensible moral deficiencies, still rampant in Japan's domestic political arena: a lack of justice and empathy.
Instead, his message for Japan was one of entitlement forged in its own experiences with nuclear atrocity; namely ``you have done this me, and you can do it again to our common enemy.''
The pacifist spirit of ``No More Hiroshima'' was virtually absent in Sato's stance and continues to pervade Japan's domestic front.
This continued double standard is apparent within the ``Obamajority'' appeal to the current Washington administration for nuclear abolishment, while Japan as a nation simultaneously relies on the same counterpart for nuclear protection.
With or without an ``Obamajority,'' Japan has sufficient capacity to independently become a nuclear power. The amount of plutonium produced at the 53 nuclear power plants using light water reactors can be processed into hundreds of nuclear warheads in about two weeks.
Additionally, the private sector has an advanced level of nuclear dual technology. This was perhaps most obvious when a precision tool manufacturing company located in the Hiroshima Prefecture was indicted for exporting banned materials to North Korea and China.
A transportation company in the Kyoto Prefecture is also facing similar charges for allegedly selling a special vehicle for transporting a missile launch pad to Pyongyang.
Through such blatant counterexamples can be nothing more than theoretical claims.
Hiroshima's irony of the 21st century lies with its divorce from the Japanese nuclear reality. Amid this confusion, piecing together Hiroshima's Spirit, Obama's NPT pledge, a quasi-nuclear Japan and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's idea for an East Asian Community presents a big challenge.
The road to a nuclear free world is very bumpy ― ``it takes a village.''
Kim Mi-kyoung is associate professor at Hiroshima City University's Hiroshima Peace Institute. She can be reached at mkkim_33@hotmail.com.