August 6th – 65 years ago today a bomb codenamed “Little Boy” was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, which had been spared conventional aerial bombardment so that it would be a “pristine target”. With a radius of one mile from Ground Zero, the first effect of the explosion was blinding light, accompanied by radiant heat from the fireball. Near Ground Zero, everything flammable burst into flames, glass products and sand melted into molten glass, and humans were either vaporised or turned to carbon in an instant. Famously, the shadow of one victim was etched into stone steps. An estimated 65,000 to 200,000 people lost their lives in the impact of that one single bomb, with later fatalities from cancer and leukemia coming over the next 30 years.
When I was 15 I travelled to Hiroshima with my brother and cousin. I was a passionate advocate for nuclear disarmament and could not understand how the two super-powers of the 1980s – USA and Russia – were engaged in an expensive arms race to create even more powerful versions of the bombs that had wreaked so much destruction on Hiroshima, and three days later, Nagasaki. Once in Hiroshima we approached an elderly Japanese man – old enough to have been a survivor – to ask where Peace Memorial Park was. He could speak no English, and we could speak no Japanese. He took us by the hand, on and off buses, until we reached the park. He bowed and left us.
The park stands as testament to the world of the horrors of that day. It is a destruction that the world should never forget, yet I find very few young people are even aware of it. And nowadays we find other nations building nuclear weapons. The USA, Russia, China, France and Britain were the five nuclear nations whose nuclear status meant they became permanent members of the UN Security Council. Now we must add to this list India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel (although the latter never publicly acknowledges the fact). Iran may or may not be trying to create its own weapons.
For me the fact that Pakistan has them, and Iran may want them, evokes the greatest sadness within me. That Muslim nations should attempt to attain something which is so far from Islamic principles shows how lost even Muslims have become – rejecting The Divine Creator.
The nuclear arms race is based upon the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction, whereby two opposing sides both have the ability to destroy each other, thereby protecting both. Yet this notion of “deterrence” does not take into account the fact that historically there has never been an arms race which did not end in a war. And for me, the acronym sums it up.
As Muslims it is our duty to think outside the box, not blindly follow the mandate of others. If having nuclear weapons is the ticket to becoming a permanent member of the UN, we need to change the ticket, not continue to spend billions of pounds of scarce resources of a “deterrence” that supposedly we’ll never use. The nuclear mindset comes from the 1950s. A lot has changed since then. We need bold new thinking to get us out of this quagmire, and Muslims should be leading the way based upon the principles of self-surrender onto God rather than blindly following like sheep (potentially to slaughter).
Some Muslims have cited to me the Qur’anic verse 8:60 which talks about preparedness for war. But the nuclear bomb is not the same as the sword and war horses. Nuclear weapons make no distinction between the combatant and the non-combatant, between the soldier and the old, the infirm, the women, the children. Nuclear weapons poison the land and the genetic code of future generations. The midwives in Japan saw the results of nuclear weapons – the genetic destructions of generations. It is the equivalent of poisoning the wells ten times over and is fundamentally un-Islamic.
To continue aping the modern war mindset of societies that have killed The Divine Creator in their thinking is to head towards a parapet of destruction with our eyes closed. And thus may this anniversary of Hiroshima stand as testament to us now and to future generations that nuclear weaponry is fundamentally at odds with self-surrender onto Him, and no Muslim should desire them for their nation.