The Power of Japan: Does it lie in military strength or in its unique witness for peace?

From 2007: Does Japan’s power lie in its military strength or in its unique witness to peace?

First it was Little Boy, then Fat Man. Sixty-two years ago, in August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, each a Japanese city of roughly 250,000. According to estimates, a total of 150,000 Japanese were killed immediately in the two cities, and thousands more were injured or made ill by the radiation and nuclear fallout. What few people outside Japan realize is that the death toll continues to climb. In summer 2007, when Tomihisa Taue, the Mayor of Nagasaki, led the annual commemoration of the bombing at the Nagasaki Peace Park, he added more than 3,000 deaths from bomb-related radiation illness during the previous 12 months, which brought the official death toll as of 2007 to 143,124 for Nagasaki alone.

There were, of course, survivors, the hibakusha (literally explosion-affected people) and among them the tainai hibakusha, those nestled in their mothers womb when the atomic bombs exploded. It is not inconsequential that the current Archbishop of Nagasaki, the Most Reverend Joseph M. Takami, is himself one of the tainai hibakusha. This article appears in October 22 2007.