The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of survivors of the atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is winning the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons and for proving through testimonies that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
In response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945, a worldwide movement was created whose members have worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the disastrous humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. Gradually, a strong international norm developed that stigmatised the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. This norm became known as the "nuclear taboo".
The testimony of the Hibakusha - the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - is unique in this wider context.
These historical witnesses have helped to create and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experiences, and issuing urgent warnings against the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons. Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable and somehow understand the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.
nobelprize.org/ gnews - RoZ
PHOTO - Xcom