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Honolulu’s eighth annual Peace Walk, held on Aug. 9 to remember the day in 1945 that an
atomic bomb shattered the Japanese city of
Nagasaki, was conducted Wednesday against the backdrop of a North
Korea nuclear threat that is stirring up haunting memories of the past.
Participants in the 1-mile walk, which concluded with prayer at the Nagasaki Peace Bell memorial at the Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds in Honolulu, said North Korea’s recent threat to use nuclear weapons against the U.S. has raised fears that history may repeat itself.
Rosemary Casey, a Catholic member of the Newman Center, took part for the first time in the multi-faith event, which started at 5:30 p.m. from the Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin in Nuuanu.
She said people are not making the connection
between what happened 72 years ago and what is happening with North
Korea.
Casey has seen the crisis escalate as President Donald Trump and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un provoke each other with more threatening rhetoric.
Watching the news before she left for the event, she thought, “Why don’t you show the pictures of what happened (in Nagasaki)? What is the result
of this kind of rhetoric?”
Dexter Mar, a Buddhist lay minister and Peace Walk chairman, said the Honolulu Quakers, Newman Center Catholics and the Betsuin co-sponsor the event as an expression of gratitude for decades of peace, and as a reminder that nuclear destruction should never be allowed to happen again.
“The doomsday clock is 2-1/2 minutes to midnight and dropping more with this crisis … It’s the lowest it’s been in the last decade,” Mar said.
He was referring to the iconic clock posted by the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,” which measures
the likelihood of global
catastrophe and can
be found online at
thebulletin.org/timeline. Since January 2017, it’s been at the three-minute mark.
“It’s a big concern,” Mar said. “We’ve lived through a nuclear crisis before. It’s unpleasant, especially when it’s flying over our heads from North Korea. Usually, it’s Iran, Pakistan or Europe. Now it’s the Pacific,” with Hawaii or Guam possible targets, he added.
The Rev. Jack Ryan of the Newman Center said: “Peace is the only answer. No one wins at war. A nuclear war is unthinkable. Our leaders need to take a breath, to calm down … During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the world was at the brink of nuclear war. President Kennedy asked the Secret Service to drive him to St. Matthew’s Cathedral in our nation’s capital. He humbly knelt to pray for peace and the wisdom to be a peacemaker.”
Motonobu Shiiba, president of the local Nagasaki Prefecture Kenjinkai (formed by Nagasaki citizens to memorialize the tragedy), was about 5 years old when the bomb exploded. His family lived far away from the epicenter, but two families of relatives died in the blast and their survivors suffered from radiation poisoning decades afterward. (The U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb used in war on Hiroshima during World War II, and three days later, exploded the second over Nagasaki.)
For 42 years, Shiiba’s group has rung the Nagasaki bell — donated by the Japanese city in 1990 — in a separate ceremony up until last year. Shiiba said a lot of Japanese people are “anxious” and “scared” about the current crisis with North Korea. “We have to unite people … To talk about world peace is very important,” he added.
Ona Lee, a Quaker, said this was the sixth time she has attended the event.
“What’s happening right now with North Korea, it’s even more relevant,” she said. “We need to march and walk for peace.”
Click here to see more photos.
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