On June 14 the international Peace Boat, the Oceanic, visited Dublin on its 69th Global Voyage. The Oceanic left Japan on April 16, 2010 with 850 participants.
The ship plans to visit 22 ports in 20 countries around the world over the course of 101 days before it returns to Japan on 25 July. From Yokohama, its visits include China, Vietnam, Jordan, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Russia, Norway, Ireland, Mexico, and other countries.
The Peace Boat is a Japan-based, international NGO that has been working since 1983 to promote peace and sustainability through the organisation of peace voyages onboard a large passenger ship. It has a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.
Mission: to Campaign for a peaceful, nuclear-free world
Ten Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) are on the voyage, and their heartbreaking personal stories of what they experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the lifelong suffering they have endured as a result of radiation exposure at that time are moving arguments for nuclear disarmament.
During this voyage, a delegation of Hibakusha took part in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in May at the United Nations. The Peace Boat has a strong focus on nuclear disarmament and how to create a peaceful, nuclear-free world.
It also features the relaunch of the Global University, with themes including peaceful resolution of conflicts in the Middle East, environmental sustainability in Northern Europe and globalisation in Latin America.
The two atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 200,000 people instantly, created a hell on earth for survivors, and unleashed a nuclear arms race. Sadly, more than 2000 nuclear ‘tests’ have taken place since then.
The hydrogen bomb dropped on Bikini Atoll in 1954 was 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, and created more hibakusha in surrounding areas.
There are over 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, many on the same state of alert as during the Cold War, and thousands could be launched in a few minutes, devastating the entire world.
On three separate voyages, 103 hibakusha have visited schools, met with leaders and decision makers, and held press conferences. The average age of the hibakusha is now over 75 years old– they were babies or children at the time of the nuclear bombs– so the time remaining for them to share their experience and their message directly with the world is very short.
The hibakusha held a press conference and a round-table discussion in Buswell’s Hotel, after which the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Emer Costello, hosted a reception for them in the Mansion House.
The mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began the Mayors for Peace Network, which seeks abolition of nuclear weapons. Mayors in 3,800 cities in 143 countries and regions are carrying out the 2020 Vision Campaign, aiming for nuclear abolition by that date.
The Lord Mayor of Dublin is a member of Mayors for Peace and undertook to recruit more Irish mayors to this cause. Also present were representatives of Pax Christi, the Peace and Neutrality Alliance and other NGOs and peace groups.
According to Canon Patrick Comerford, President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Irish CND), the Irish Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, had planned to take part in the consultation until her detention by Israeli forces for being on board the ‘Rachel Corrie’ during the recent flotilla that was intercepted on its way to Gaza.
However, she sent a message of support and thanks for ‘participating in this global voyage to remind the world of its moral and legal responsibility to demand their governments abolish these suicidal/ genocidal weapons of destruction’.
The participants on board the Peace Boat, including the hibakusha, expressed shock and sadness at the Israeli attack on the flotilla, which was staged immediately after they visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan.
As an expression of their appeal for a nuclear-free and peaceful Middle East, over 100 people on board the ship displayed a huge banner that declared: ‘End the Blockade– Free Gaza’. The banner could be seen on the side of ‘The Oceanic’ as it sailed out of Dublin on June 14.
The group also laid flowers and colourful paper cranes at the Hiroshima Peace Cherry Tree in Merrion Square. The paper cranes echo the story of Sasaki Sadako, a young girl in Hiroshima who was exposed to black radioactive rain at the age of two. She went to elementary school in good health afterwards, but at the age of 12 fell sick with leukaemia.
While fighting with the fear of death, Sadako started to fold paper cranes at the hospital, as she knew a legend that if someone folds 1000 cranes, their wish is granted. She never complained about her pain and suffering and never ceased folding, but died before she could fold all the cranes.
Her classmates erected the Children’s Peace Monument in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, and the paper cranes, or orizuru, are now a universal symbol of the wish for world peace.
Later, at a meeting in the Art Exchange in Temple Bar, Irish songs were played and sung, and in return, the Hibakusha sang for us in Japanese.
Also on the journey are Kawasaki Akira and Meri Joyce of Peace Boat International, the Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Miller, Lisa Clarke and Alyn Ware of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Aaron Tovish of Mayors for Peace, and Dr Randy Rydell, Senior Political Affairs Officer in the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.
Their visit to Dublin was co-ordinated by Dr David Hutchinson Edgar and Mary McCarrick of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Irish CND) and Krisztina Dragoman of World without Wars and without Violence Ireland.
Above: The Peace Boat