A quick thought, inspired by my email inbox. It is remarkable to me that, every anniversary, every time we are called to consider the lessons of the bombs, some folks start getting all “well actually” about the Japanese military regime’s war atrocities. https://twitter.com/doubleemmartin/status/1291152180368400384

This totally misses the lesson. For 75 years, the hibakusha — the bomb survivors — have done absolutely heroic work bearing witness to the impact of the bombs and organizing and calling for peace and nuclear disarmament. Their testimonies are thoughtful, compassionate.

I have yet to see their calls for peace framed as a matter of taking sides, as an “us” versus “them.” They are incredibly clear-eyed. They lived the war in history-altering ways, and the paths of nationalism and imperialism that lead to it: they speak to ending those for all.

I turn again to the testimony of Inosuke Hayasaki, who I met in Nagasaki, and his explanation for why he has spent over seven decades sharing his witness to the bombs.

Nuclear war remains a danger to us all. These are the people that can testify to its horrors. To hear those survivors’ calls to peace and retort the evils of the regime that led them into suffering is, frankly, just cruel, and a refusal to hear the humanity in their testimony.