Towards Zero:
Building global solidarity for nuclear abolition
Daisaku Ikeda
If nuclear weapons epitomize the forces that would divide and destroy
the world, they can only be overcome by the solidarity of ordinary
citizens. This solidarity has the power to make hope an irresistible
force transforming history.
Although the threat of global nuclear was has diminished since the
end of the Cold War, the number of States with nuclear arms has nearly
doubled since 1970 when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
entered into force.
There are still some 25,000 nuclear warheads in the world. At the
same time, there is a rising fear that the spread of nuclear weapons
technologies and materials through the black market will unleash the
nightmare of nuclear terrorism.
In recent years, there have been signs that at last the world is
getting serious about eliminating nuclear weapons. On September 24, for
example, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution
expressing its resolve to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The fact
that the five permanent members of the Security Council, all
nuclear-weapon States, voted to adopt the resolution makes this a
significant step forward.
The NPT Review Conference scheduled for May 2010 will be crucial in
determining whether these positive signs coalesce into real progress
towards a world without nuclear weapons.
On September 8, 1957, my mentor, second Soka Gakkai, President Josei
Toda, issued an impassioned call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
His speech, which denounced these weapons as an absolute evil, contains
three themes of particular relevance for today: the need to transform
the consciousness of political leaders; the need for a shared vision
toward the outlawing of nuclear weapons; and the need to establish
‘human security’ on a global scale.
Using very powerful language - ‘devil incarnate’, ‘fiend’ - he
denounced those who would use nuclear weapons. While we may find such
terms disconcerting today, Toda’s intent was to expose the aberrant
nature of nuclear deterrence - the cold and inhuman readiness to
sacrifice vast numbers of people in order to realise one’s own security
or dominance.
I believe it is possible to lay the foundations for a world without
nuclear weapons during the next five years, and to this end propose a
five-part plan. I call on:
1. The five declared nuclear-weapon States to announce their
commitment to a shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons at next
year’s NPT Review Conference and to promptly initiate concrete steps
toward its achievement.
2. The United Nations to establish a panel of experts on nuclear
abolition, strengthening collaborative relations with civil society
regarding the disarmament process.
3. The States parties to the NPT to strengthen nonproliferation
mechanisms and remove obstacles to the elimination of nuclear weapons by
the year 2015. The 2010 Review Conference should establish a standing
working group to focus on these issues.
4. All States to actively cooperate to reduce the role of nuclear
weapons in national security and to advance toward the establishment of
security arrangements that are not dependent on nuclear weapons by the
year 2015.
5. The world’s people to clearly manifest their will for the
outlawing of nuclear weapons and to establish, by the year 2015, the
international norm that will serve as the foundation for a Nuclear
Weapons Convention (NWC).
The path to the adoption of an NWC is likely to be a difficult one.
But, rather than be paralysed by this difficulty, we should take action
now to generate overwhelming popular support for the prohibition of
nuclear weapons, such that calls for the adoption of an NWC become
impossible to ignore.
In his Prague speech, President Obama noted the moral responsibility
of the United States as the only country to have actually used nuclear
weapons; he also announced the scaling back of the role of these weapons
in US security strategy and urged other States to follow suit.
However, US disarmament efforts will be complicated if its allies
insist on the continuance or strengthening of the ‘nuclear umbrella’.
Such a demand would constitute a violation of the spirit of the NPT.
It is crucial for nuclear-weapon States and their allies to engage in
careful and earnest deliberations regarding extended deterrence.
Together, they should develop alternatives, starting with effective
measures for reducing regional tensions.
A clear demonstration of political will on the part of the United
States and Japan could transform conditions in Northeast Asia,
specifically the stalemate surrounding North Korea’s nuclear development
program. I urge all the countries currently engaged in the Six-Party
Talks - China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the United
States - to declare Northeast Asia, a nuclear non-use region.
Universalizing the commitment that no country or people should ever
fall victim to the horrors of nuclear weapons should be the pivotal
element of US-Japanese partnership in the 21st Century. Together, our
two countries should take the lead in creating a world free from nuclear
weapons.
To put the era of nuclear terror behind us, we must struggle against
the real ‘enemy’. That enemy is not nuclear weapons per se, nor is it
the States that possess or develop them. The real enemy is the way of
thinking that justifies nuclear weapons; the readiness to annihilate
others when they are seen as a threat or as a hindrance.
This was the ‘enemy’ that Josei Toda had in mind when he spoke of
“declawing the threat hidden in the very depths of nuclear weapons.” He
was convinced that a shared determination to combat this evil could
serve as the basis for a transnational solidarity among the world’s
people.
Let us abandon the habit of studiously ignoring the menace posed to
Earth by nuclear weapons and instead prove that a world without nuclear
weapons can be realised in our lifetimes.
(The writer is President of Soka Gakkai International and founder
of Soka University and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy
Research). |