Setsuko’s Best Day Ever: January 21, 2021 Nuclear Weapons are illegal!
—Mary Olson, Founder Gender and Radiation Impact Project
On that day in 2021, the 50th nation ratified the new United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—and the treaty came into effect. Nearly 4 years earlier the world celebrated with Setsuko Thurlow, one of the most ardent advocates for this treaty. Fast forward:
2023 Director Christopher Nolan, even with an imperfect script, punched open a hole in a reality that had grown silent and then was also wrapped in silence: nuclear weapons and the horrifying prospect that they would be used again. My country is the only one that has used weaponized fission in war, in 1945 when we destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Younger colleagues have admitted to me that they are feeling afraid nuclear war…I tell them that being a child of the Cold War, I have had few days in my life when fear did not lurk in one form or another.
Nothing pierces fear or fuels breaking nuclear silence quite like HOPE!
I have a wonderful prescription for anyone reading this post: Watch the film, The Vow From Hiroshima, about my friend Setsuko Thurlow who survived the day her city of Hiroshima was destroyed by a US nuclear bomb, on August 6, 1945. The film is the story of Thurlow’s vow and quest to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The film is going to be on TV!
PBS has picked up The Vow From Hiroshima. This Memorial Day weekend (Sunday) is a favored schedule by many stations–but each local schedule is unique. You can check your local schedule here.
Why would a victim of nuclear war have a BEST DAY EVER we can share?
Setsuko’s vision has become a global UN treaty: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). For this gift to the Earth, Thurlow accepted the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, that was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). This civil society campaign of 650 partner organizations based (today) in 110 countries stepped up with a simple message: BAN Nuclear Weapons TODAY. Not down the road, not in our children’s era. Now. Let’s create a culture that understands the world is safer WITHOUT nuclear weapons. Setsuko worked tirelessly to support the budding and eventual flowering of these. Stop: do you HEAR it? Not silent! HOPE! Ringing out.
ICAN and Setsuko and many other leaders also amplified the leadership of nations also ready to declare that nuclear weapons have impacts that are not only military–and these impacts far exceed the boundaries of the nuclear-weapons holding states. A series of global conferences on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons were held–first in Norway, then Mexico, and finally in Austria (2014). These meetings were well attended and featured world experts telling how and why nuclear weapons are a constant danger that outweighs any value–not the least because accidents happen. The papers presented included the destruction of our biosphere and basic systems supporting human and all life. (See the author’s presentation at the 2014 Vienna Conference) The attendees launched the Humanitarian Initiative which led to the new treaty.
The film The Vow from Hiroshima tells the story of a monumental, little-known human rights leader and is full of best-days-ever for Setsuko–including when we travel with her to Oslo Norway and hear her speech as she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize along with Beatrice Fihn of ICAN.
The film also tells the story of the new Treaty, it can be our best-day-ever story too.
Director Susan Strickler and Producer Mitchie Takeuchi wrap their film in both the existential harm that nuclear fission presents to humanity, as well as the joy of recognizing that one woman (with many friends) can, indeed, change the world.
Today the treaty has been signed by 93 nations and of these, 70 nations have also ratified and become parties to the TPNW at the United Nations and affirmed that they are nuclear-weapons-free nations. As this number grows, track the progress with ICAN here.
No nation will be forced to sign this treaty–however it is an invitation and a growing embodiment of the nuclear-free world that all the nuclear-weapons holding states have promised. It is HOPE that will bring them to this table, where, with Setsuko, they will find friends.
The Vow from Hiroshima is airing on PBS, nationwide–however each local station sets its own schedule. For more information and to find a link where you can check your local schedule, visit the film’s home page:
https://www.thevowfromhiroshima.com/
For more information on Gender and Radiation Impact Project (GRIP) visit www.genderandradiation.org