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Diversity in the Workplace Page 6 O PINION June 22, 2016 Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. Nuclear Bomb Doomsday Clock Still Ticking How will we write the next chapter? M arian W right e delMan President Obama’s historic visit to Hi- roshima was an op- portunity to take a clear-eyed look back to the irst and only time nuclear weapons have been used in war. Germany had surrendered on May 8, 1945. Japan refused to surrender and continued to wage the Paciic War. President Harry S. Truman faced a decision on whether or not to drop the world’s irst atomic bomb in Japan. “President Truman formed a committee of men to tell him if this bomb would work, and if so, what he should do with it. Some members of this committee felt that the bomb would jeopardize the future of civilization. They were against its use. Others want- ed it to be used in demonstration on a forest of cryptomeria trees, but not against a civil or military target. Many atomic scientists by warned that the use of atomic power in war would be dificult and even impossible to control. The danger would be very great. Finally, there were oth- ers who believed that if the bomb were used just once or twice, on one or two Japanese cities, there would be no more war. They believed the new bomb would produce eter- nal peace.” The description is from Trap- pist monk and social justice and peace activist Thomas Merton’s 1962 prose poem “Original Child Bomb,” a title that is a rough translation of the root characters in the Japanese term for the atom. It includes a numbered list of 41 points about the atomic bomb’s creation, the decision to drop the irst one on Hiroshima, and its af- termath: “32: The bomb exploded within 100 feet of the aiming point. The ireball was 18,000 feet across. The temperature at the center of the ireball was 100,000,000 de- grees. The people who were near the center became nothing. The whole city was blown to bits and the ruins all caught ire instant- ly everywhere, burning briskly. 70,000 people were killed right away or died within a few hours. Those who did not die at once suffered great pain. Few of them were soldiers. “33: The men in the plane per- ceived that the raid had been suc- cessful, but they thought of the people in the city and they were not perfectly happy. Some felt they had done wrong. But in any case they had obeyed orders. ‘It was war.’” It was war, and despite the ini- tial reaction by co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis as he witnessed the devastation — “My God, what have we done?” — pilots and crew members stressed over and over again that they believed they did what they had to do. But the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not produced eter- nal peace. Instead they opened a Pandora’s Box that can never be fully locked back up. I have visited Hiroshima twice — once with my husband and once with him and our three sons. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome), created from the ruins of the only structure left standing near the bomb’s hypo- center, is a reminder of how far we still have to go to make this a world worthy of and safe for all our children. The Bulletin of the Atomic Sci- entists’ “Doomsday Clock” has this ominous message today: It is still three minutes to midnight. Beginning in 1947 the clock’s hands have moved based on the scientists’ evaluation of wheth- er events are pushing humanity closer to or further from nuclear apocalypse; since 2007 they have also considered climate change and other threats that might lead to global catastrophe. Last year, the scientists noted: “The prob- ability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions need- ed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” Will we hear and heed? President Obama’s recent vis- it should prompt us all to realize that if we do not want the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be repeated ever again we cannot be complacent. While we can celebrate all steps that have been taken to con- trol access to more weapons in our nuclear saturated world we must do even more to protect our children’s and grandchildren’s futures in a world rife with war and religious, racial, gender, sec- tarian, and political strife. When anyone argues that the world might be safer if more countries had nuclear weapons it is yet another reminder that his- tory can and may repeat itself on our watch if we are not vigilant. The clock is still ticking. The same year that “Origi- nal Child Bomb” was published, Thomas Merton also wrote this in the essay “Nuclear War and Christian Responsibility”: “. . . there can be no doubt that Hiro- shima and Nagasaki were, though not fully deliberate crimes, nev- ertheless crimes. And who was responsible? No one. Or ‘histo- ry.’ We cannot go on playing with nuclear ire and shrugging off the results as ‘history.’ We are the ones concerned. We are the ones responsible. History does not make us, we make it—or end it.” What we have wrought by trying to play God is still our re- sponsibility. How will we write the next chapter? Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s De- fense Fund.