Kudos to Northampton’s City Council and Mayor David Narkewicz for standing up to pledge to be a city that will never more invest in companies that produce parts or technology for nuclear arms. (Recognized at a June 20 council meeting).
As always, our leaders and citizens are at the forefront of advancing global as well as national humanitarian causes. Many of us still recall an earlier movement of the 1980s called Nuclear Freeze, which was the brainstorm of Frances Crowe and Randy Kehler. With their undaunted guidance, the U.S. and the world took notice, the result being an astonishing global reduction of no less than 45,000 nuclear arms, to the present level of roughly 15,000.
Now those assuming the mantle of abolishment are taking the next critical step: an omni-lateral campaign to eliminate every last one. A tall order to be sure, until we remember the Biblical vision of the angel Gabriel to a skeptical, insignificant, peasant young lady named Mary of the hilltown of Nazareth: With God, all things are possible.
My conviction is that everyone who reads this opinion piece is, like me, a nuclear abolitionist, meaning one who gladly would live in a world without them, providing universally agreed verifiable measures were in place.
In 2017, the United Nations adopted the Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons, ratified, to date, by 70 nations. The movement officially has begun.
Today’s situation worsens as the Trump administration recently tore up a deal with Iran, which had agreed to cease enriching uranium toward the ability to produce their own missiles, thereby becoming the ninth possessor-nation.
As if this were not bad enough, the Saudis are chapping at the Arabic bit to become what would be the 10th. With Israel’s warheads poised, vigilantly pointing their arsenal of about 150, in an easterly direction, the real fear is that it won’t take much for each or any Middle Eastern possessor-nation to feel compelled to launch, in the name of their respective God, an act from which our entire planet could never recover.
The Physicians for Social Responsibility’s considered estimate is that if only 1 percent of the world’s stockpile were unleashed, there would be no going back, no way whatsoever that the tens of millions affected could be cared for, to any degree. At best, the continents would resemble one vast swath of Chernobyl-like existence.
The Buddha rightly advised us to “be the light you are.” If you and I began today to be the nuclear abolitionists that we are, there’s no telling how much we can accomplish, simply because there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, as the old adage states.
On Monday, June 24, in Milwaukee, delegates of my denomination of the United Church Of Christ of 2,000 voted to adopt a resolution similar to Northampton’s. It had the overwhelming support of 97 percent approval.
Whenever I am asked why I have become so passionate about working for a world without the ability to destroy itself in virtually in a matter of minutes, I quickly reply: “There are seven billion good reasons; and, if you wish, I can begin to name them: one by one…”
Find out how you can hop on board the Nuclear Abolition peace-train, by clicking two sites: PSR’s Back From The Brink, and NuclearBan.US.
The Rev. Peter Kakos lives in Northampton.