Lessons from Hiroshima

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Louisa L.

Given the scale of ruling class attacks, it's not surprising that  there are daily protests across the country. One commemoration needs to be remembered. On Friday, August 6 the seventieth anniversary of  the bombing of Hiroshima, in the last days of World War Two, was marked by a quiet candlelit procession past the Yininmadyemi memorial to Aboriginal servicemen and women, and the Sydney War Memorial.

Dennis Doherty of the Hiroshima Day Committee spoke eloquently about Hiroshima, and the current situation. “The US is coordinating and cooperating with the most bellicose elements of the Japanese Government... Australia needs an independent foreign policy not one tied to a  tripartite agreement between Japan, the US and Australia. 

“We do not need to be part of the Five Eyes spying arrangement that sees us have bad relations with our neighbours,” he said. “We do not need the almost 50 US bases on our soil or US marines in Darwin, with more bases to come.

“In Australia we can't find six years of Gonski education funding, but we can have $16 billion set aside for F35 fighter planes. We cannot have Australian coastal shipping with Australian jobs, but we can have twelve submarines at a cost of $25 billion.

“Australia is outspending the combined US, Britain and France in celebrations of World War One. What can that be about if not to soften up Australian opinion for the next war and the present exorbitant spending on the military?

“We say wars and the preparations for wars rob our people,” Mr Doherty continued.

As the Sydney Hiroshima Day Committee states of the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “Common in modern warfare, innocent civilians bore the brunt of the devastating blasts.”

Just one bomb, killed 80,000 people and utterly destroyed five square miles of Hiroshima. 

This year 100 voices, subdued and solemn, repeated “Hiroshima, never again.”

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