GERMANY: Anti-Nuclear Exhibit Calls for Culture of Peace

•  berlin
• Wednesday, October 12, 2011
• Inter Press Service

In the wake of the nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant in March, which drew the world's attention to the limits of nuclear safety, the question seems more legitimate than ever.

At the Oct. 7 opening of the exhibition 'From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Transforming the Human Spirit' in Berlin, Hiromasa Ikeda, vice president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), gave the German capital a prize as a city of peace.

The SGI also declared Germany's anti-nuclear movement a model for Japan, which is so far the only victim of devastating nuclear attacks. More than 160,000 people died immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The SGI exhibition brought to Berlin is comprised of 18 panels that document the threat of nuclear weapons in pictures and words and offer a wide range of reasons and arguments in favour of global peace, disarmament and non-proliferation.

SGI is a lay Buddhist movement linking more than 12 million people around the world to promote peace, culture and education through personal change and social contribution. It is committed to the abolition of one of the biggest threats to mankind: nuclear weapons.

'Today humanity faces a daunting array of challenges — from poverty and environmental destruction to devastating unemployment and financial instability — which require the joint, coordinated response of all nations,' SGI President Daisaku Ikeda said in a message read out during the opening of the Berlin exhibition.

'These challenges make all the more clear the folly of diverting precious human and economic resources to the maintenance of nuclear arsenals. What humanity requires is genuine security, not nuclear weapons,' he added.

The exhibition, which will run through Oct 16, documents the 'folly' of investing in a culture of war instead of development. Currently countries spend more than one trillion dollars a year on global military expenditures and the arms trade — an average of 173 dollars for each person on the planet, one panel reads.

'We could meet the basic human needs of every person on earth if 70 - 80 billion dollars — less than 10 percent of the world's military spending — were redirected to that purpose,' it adds.

The weapons arsenals still comprise more than 20,000 nuclear heads, which could annihilate all life on earth several times over.

'Now is the time for global civil society and political leaders of conscience to come together to work for the noble goal of a world without nuclear weapons,' said Daisaku Ikeda. 'The realisation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) outlawing these weapons of mass destruction should be the first milestone to which we aspire.'

He renewed his call for the prompt start of negotiations on such a convention.

His son Hiromasa Ikeda underlined in an address to some 100 invited participants from different walks of life the importance of challenging the rationale of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear weapons don't contribute to human security, he said, but reflect an 'ossified thinking' 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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