Watch: Nagasaki Day commemorations

London CND supported the London Peace Pagoda’s annual event, held this year via Zoom.

Programme

Welcome & Introduction - Shigeo Kobayashi (MC), JAN UK 

Water Sprinkling & Blessing - Rev. Nagase Shonin, London Peace Pagoda 

Chanting - Rev. Nagase Shonin

Chapter 16 Lotus Sutra - Rev. Nagase Shonin

Tibetan Traditional Chanting  - Jamyang Buddhist Sangha －Geshe Tenzin Namdak  

Christian Prayer  - Rev. Alan Gadd, South London Interfaith Group 

Speech - Bruce Kent, Vice-President of CND

Speech - Shigeo Kobayashi

Speech on Bradwell -  Yuko Moriyama-Wiffen 

Song for Peace - Brigette Bennett

Conclusion & Thanks - Shigeo Kobayashi

The ceremony ended with the live image of lanterns at the London Peace Pagoda. 

Watch: Hiroshima Day commemorations

This year, we held our annual Hiroshima Day commemorations online, as we were unable to meet in Tavistock Square. The event was recorded and can be viewed below.

Download the event programme here.

Feedback from our guests:

Sonoda : I am a Fukushima nuclear victim. Thank you to all.

Syeda : Thank you all, 本当にありがとうございます。Great songs!

Frank: Thanks to all, from Leicester.

Min O'R: Thanks to all, from Belfast

Iliyana: Thanks from Scotland and our Peace Cranes exhibition at the Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre

Symon, Peace Pledge Union: Many thanks to all organisers and participants.

Ziba, Raised Voices Choir in London : Thank you Hugh for all these excellent songs.

Katrina A: Thank you everyone who organised and contributed to this great event.

Tim O: Thanks very much to everyone involved.

Cordelia: Thank you to everyone who organised this important event

Gerri: Today is so important to me and this has been a wonderful, spiritual way to remember. With love

Mahzad : Thank you for commemorating this very important historical and humanitarian event

Julie S: Thank you everyone for this event!

Mariette and Jai : Thank you London CND for this event.

Paula S: Thank you for an excellent Zoom x

Ivan R: Thank you for holding this !

Time, Memory and Nuclear Weapons

To commemorate Nagasaki day, we have launched an online exhibition 08:15 - 11.02, Time, Memory and Nuclear Weapons.

The exhibition will be live from 9am on 9th August 2020, with works by Graham Ashton, Peter Barton, Steven Feld, Hannah Kemp-Welch, Peter Kennard, Martyl Langsdorf, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti.

This exhibition considers our relationship to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, as we mark the 75th anniversary. Drawing together artists’ responses that hold time and remembrance as central themes, works in film, photography, sound and performance invite the visitor to pause for reflection and connect with these experiences through our everyday encounters with time.

We Shall Overcome

As our Hiroshima and Nagasaki events are being held online this year, we wanted to share the spirit of community so often felt at these events, that helps us to persevere in our mission.

Last year, London CND coordinator Hannah Kemp-Welch represented CND at the World Conference Against A&H bombs in Japan. There, she recorded some of the singing she heard at the conference - attended by 5,000 people from all over the world, committed to campaigning until nuclear weapons are abolished.

Listen to activitsts from around the globe singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ on 6th August 2019 in Hiroshima, and do sing-a-long from home!

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,

We shall overcome someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome someday.

We'll walk hand in hand, we'll walk hand in hand,

We'll walk hand in hand someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We'll walk hand in hand someday.

We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace,

We shall live in peace someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall live in peace someday.

We are not afraid, we are not afraid,

We are not afraid today;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We are not afraid today.

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,

We shall overcome someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome someday.

Sadako's Crane

Joe Jukes from CND Peace Education has created this video to share the story behind the paper peace crane, alongside a ‘how-to’ so you can spend a refelective moment this Hiroshima Day folding your own.

Nuclear Ban Communities

Jacqui from Greater Manchester Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament interviews Sean Morris from Nuclear Free Local Authorities about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the 'Ban Treaty') and ways that towns and cities can show their support.

Items mentioned in the video:

• CND's Ban Communities webpage and draft resolution via: https://cnduk.org/nuclear-ban-communities/

• Background on the Treaty from ICAN via: https://www.icanw.org/the_treaty

• Newsletters and briefings from Nuclear Free Local Authorities via: https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/

This Evil Thing

Michael Mears, an award-winning performer of his own solo plays for theatre and radio, has produced This Evil Thing about conscientious objectors in World War I as a lockdown movie in six parts of around 15 mins each.

An actor and playwright, Michael has a rich career in theatre, television and film – from classical Shakespearean roles to Paddington 2 and the hotel barman who brings Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell together in Four Weddings And A Funeral.

Michael also appeared in Christine Edzard’s adaptation of The Good Soldier Schweik familiar to London filmgoers via the Sands Film Studios. Their film club screenings are cancelled during lockdown, but a new presentation is streamed live every Tuesday night at 8pm via the website or FB page.

https://www.sandsfilms.co.uk/cinema-club-and-events.html

Watch: Ethical Foreign Policy

In early March, London CND held it’s annual conference – this year, titled ‘Ethical Foreign Policy’. This vibrant event had a diverse panel of speakers, and video presentations from the USA and New Zealand. We’re delighted to now make this available for you to view online.

Part one

Welcome (start - 00:06:58)
Carol Turner, London CND
Nobu Ono, SOAS Student CND Society
Amber Goneni, Youth & Student CND

Plenary 1 (00:06:58 - end)
BRITAIN’S ROLE IN THE WORLD
Catherine West MP: View from Westminster
Video link with Marian Hobbs: The New Zealand experience
Hannah Kemp-Welch: Women and nuclear
Kristen Hope: Reflections on the Calais Convey
Facilitator: Carol Turner

Part two

Plenary 2
IRAN, IRAQ CONFLICTS
Carol Turner: Breaking the Iran nuclear deal
Abbas Edalat: Iran today
Sami Ramadani: Iraq 17 years on
Emma Dent Coad

Part three

Round Table
ENGAGING NEW ACTIVISTS
Video link with Emily Rubino: View from the US
Benali Hamdache: Climate and war
Kanako Higa: US bases
Nobu Ono: SOAS Students
Facilitator: Amber Goneni

Gensuikyo - our partners in Japan

On the occasion of a professional assignment in Tokyo, I had the honour and privilege twice to meet representatives and staff of Gensuikyo, the Japan Council Against A & H Bombs. Here are notes taken from my discussions with some of the eight permanent staff, and with supporters of Gensuikyo, notably Yayoi Tsuchida, Assistant General Secretary, and Hiroshi Taka, formerly General Secretary and now Representative Director.

From left to right: Marc Morgan, member of Haringey CND, Hiroshi Taka, formerly General Secretary and now Representative Director of Gensuikyo, Yayoi Tsuchida, Assistant General Secretary of Gensuikyo.

It is impossible to evoke the genesis and history of Gensuikyo without first considering the political background, post-war Japanese history, and the twists and turns of Japan’s relations with the US.

After world war II, Japan was occupied and did not regain its full political independence until 1952. Even then, it was independence under surveillance: Japan was expected to align with the US in its cold war against the Soviet Union and, with the provision of industrial supplies and military bases, in its hot war in Korea. Subservient Japanese governments went along with this expectation, but civil society, while accepting features of Western lifestyle and economic organization, was restless. This set a pattern of ambiguous relations with the US which, while now more muted, subsists until this day.

Matters came to a head in 1954, when the US tested its first H-bomb in the Marshall Islands. This provoked an explosion of anger amongst Japanese people, with an astonishing 32 million people signing a petition calling for the abolition of Nuclear Weapons. Gensuikyo was created in the wake of this outpouring of public concern. After preliminary discussions, the Council was officially launched at a peace conference in August 1955.

The structure of Gensuikyo has changed very little over the years: it is an umbrella organization to which large numbers of organizations are affiliated, with three very simple demands or principles:

1. Prevention of any repeat of Nuclear war, ever

2. Abolition of all nuclear weapons

3. Solidarity with victims of the 1945 nuclear bombings of Japan.

Any organization may join which subscribes to these three core principles.  Large numbers of organizations are members of the coalition: Trade Unions – the bedrock of Gensiuyo’s support and also of its financing; Religious organizations; local branches of Gensuikyo, of which there are many, and which can, unlike Gensuikyo centrally, have individual members.

Gensuikyo offices

While the core messages of Gensuikyo have changed very little over the years, it has modulated its campaigning themes to take account of changing national and international realities. Gensuikyo played an active part in the increasingly vocal campaign against US attempts to bind Japan into a more militarily explicit Treaty in the early 1960s.

In national politics, Gensuikyo has resisted the attempts, sometimes as in the early 60s induced by the US, sometimes homegrown, to water down Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. Article 9 commits the Japanese government to renounce belligerency and to avoid waging war – and in principle also to avoid preparations for war, including by renouncing the maintenance of a standard army in the classical sense. In practise Japan has a “self-defence force” equipped like most modern armies, but strategy and equipment are supposed to reflect a non-belligerent posture. Several governments including the present one under Abe have attempted to circumvent the restrictions imposed by Article 9, and to embrace conventional military doctrines under cover of strengthening the “self-defence force”. For the most part such attempts have failed, under the pressure of opposition parties and of civil society.

Campaigning in Nagasaki

In the 1960s and in the latter decades of the 20th century, Gensuikyo has teamed up with protest movements in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere to protest against French nuclear weapons in the Pacific.

Since 2000 Gensuikyo has been a vocal and active member of worldwide civil society movements putting pressure on the nuclear-armed states to engage in genuine nuclear disarmament. Japan, with Gensuikyo at the forefront, sent between 800 and 1,000 representatives to the UN, on the occasion of the NPT preliminary conferences and then the NPT Revision conferences themselves.

Those meetings revealed the duplicity of the nuclear armed states, with their repeated promises to engage in genuine disarmament in line with their commitments under Article 6 of the NPT, and their repeated and ongoing failure to honour, even to begin to honour, the said promises and commitments. 

Gensuikyo continues to participate in the NPT revision conferences, but along with other civil society movements, it is increasingly focusing its energies on promoting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. While maintaining active international links, its priority in this regard is to raise awareness in Japan itself. As the only country ever to have suffered a nuclear attack, and as -regarding civil society at least- an independent voice in a world where superpowers try to pressure allies into subservience, Japan ought to be fertile territory for support for the TPNW.

In practice things are not so simple. Although weaker than it was, and despite the unpopularity of its leader, Prime Minister Abe, the Liberal Democratic party seems certain to be re-elected in elections due later this year. Japanese society as a whole is politically and socially conservative, and apathy or ignorance of the nuclear threat, even in this nuclear-victim country, are prevalent here as they are elsewhere.

Despite this, there are signs of hope. In November 2019 Pope Francis II visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and made rousing speeches calling out nuclear weapons for the monstrous abomination they are. Further to his visit, opinion polls showed 65.9% of Japanese supporting signature of the TPNW by Japan; 10 million people have signed a petition, and 448 local councils – out of a total or 1700 – have passed resolutions, calling on Japan to sign. At a national level, though divided, the main opposition parties are also favourable.

World Conference Against A & H Bombs 2019, organised by Gensuikyo

Gensuikyo will be promoting the TPNW vociferously this year on the occasion of its main annual campaigning event, which is a Peace March, or more precisely a series of Peace Marches, taking place between June and August. The Peace March was first instituted in 1958 (just as the first Altermaston marches were taking place), and has been held every year since.

The main trajectory of the Peace March is Tokyo to Hiroshima, with teams of marchers relaying one another along the 1,000 miles which separate the two cities. But people march in other parts of Japan also, with a total of 100,000 people regularly taking part. I was due to take part myself this year, and would have been a most willing herald of solidarity between the campaigns in our two nations, but sadly the coronavirus crisis has forced me to return home prematurely. A bond is established, however, and I will definitely remain in touch with my friends in Gensuikyo, and will aim to return to take part in their campaigns another time.

Hiroshima A-bomb dome

Article by Marc Morgan, member of Haringey CND and of Abolition des Armes Nucleaires – Maison de Vigilance (France)

Greeting for London CND

Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, sent this message to the London CND conference:

I would like to send best wishes and solidarity to London CND for a successful Annual Meeting today. I am sorry I can’t be with you in person, due to local commitments to celebrate International Women’s Day. In that vein, can I particularly send greetings to all the women with you today? We know that women often bear the brunt of the consequences of conflict and war, and are often at the forefront of opposing it.

The theme of your discussion today on ethical foreign policy and the role of Britain in the world is more important than ever. The issue of the arms trade is central to this and I have been proud to work with CND and London CND on this issue. In particular we had a great partnership in opposition the DSEI Arms event last year, where the Council hosted an inspiring Alternative Peace Exhibition. I also joined CND’s anti-nuclear events and visited the peace camp. As a campaigning council we made clear that that such an event should never come back to our Borough ever again.

Those of us leading in local government must maintain London’s historically strong commitment to peace. This is now combined with tackling climate change, developing the Green New Deal and alternatives to the arms industries through a just transition. This must remain central to our future policy agenda. We need to continue to campaign and to pressure national government over its actions, such as its part in the catastrophe which continues daily to devastate the lives of the people of Yemen.

No one should be making profits from war, and I want to commend your efforts in opposition to nuclear weapons, and to the waste of Trident in particular. We should be directing our spending priorities to our NHS, to address the crisis in housing and in adult social care, for our young people’s education and jobs, and to invest in an inclusive green economy. In Newham we have suffered from ten years of Tory austerity, with huge cuts from central government, and so we know the impact of government spending choices.

And so I am pleased to continue to support your work in opposing the waste and threat of weapons of mass destruction, and look forward to working together in the coming year.

Rokhsana.