Bula [Hello], and greetings from the Rainbow Warrior and her crew.
It is a privilege to have been asked to speak to you this morning. It is an historic day, because today, fifty years ago, at 8.15 am on a beautiful fine morning like this one, a nuclear bomb, codenamed "little boy" was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. 45,000 people were killed instantly by the heat and blast from the explosion. Many people were vaporised, leaving only their shadows behind. Eye-witness accounts describe traumatised people wandering around with skin trailing from their bodies. All recorded pregnancies within a two-mile radius of the centre of the blast resulted in miscarriage or stillbirth. 4.1 square miles of the city were completely destroyed. Bomb survivors called themselves the hibakusha and many are still affected today. Radiation sickness and cancers over the past decades as a result of that one bomb put the final estimated death toll of the Hiroshima bomb at around 200,000 people.
The dawn of the nuclear age, fifty years ago, was well before I was born. But the horror of Hiroshima and the threat of nuclear annilihation of our whole planet has been one of the forces that has shaped my life. Because although no bomb has been exploded in anger more than 2,000 of them have been exploded in nuclear tests, and there are still the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima bombs in the arsenals of the nuclear powers.
The fact that many of these tests have happened in the Pacific -- named as the ocean of peace, but one which has repeatedly been scarred by nuclear terror from outside powers -- is something that I - like many of you, cannot tolerate. The fact that the nuclear powers have tested their bombs on the people of the Pacific, and their own innocent people, cannot be tolerated. The fact that the United States -- just to give one example -- a country committed to democracy and human rights, could have fed plutonium to children, disabled people, black people, without their knowledge, to experiment on the effects of radiation, is intolerable. To me, one of the worst horrors of the nuclear age has been this loss of moral integrity, the secrecy and lies of scientists, politicians, and governments who have put their nuclear addiction ahead of the lives of their own peoples, who have put the obscenity of a "nuclear balance of terror" ahead of the health and survival of the planet; and who are prepared to leave a legacy of human suffering, genetic damage, birth defects and environmental pollution for children for many generations to come.
Challenging the enormity of the nuclear issue is not easy. I often think of my grandmother, who argued, campaigned, wrote letters and generally bugged people all her life to try and stop the nuclear threat. I remember the women of Greenham Common, who camped outside the Cruise missile base in Britain -- accused of being mad, bad and unpatriotic -- until the missiles were removed. I think of Senator Anjain of the Marshall Islands who fought the might of the US government to get justice for his people who had been victims of US tests. I remember the hibashuka of Hiroshima, who even today, in spite of their own ill-health and the lonng years of campaigning, continue to protest the nuclear threat. I remember Fernando Pereira, murdered ten years ago when French secret service agents blew up the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland as she was about to set sail for Moruroa. And I remember the people of Tahiti, in their thousands, who camped for three days and nights on the streets of Papeete when we arrived there in July, to protest at French testinng.
It can be difficult, frustrating, exhausting and deeply depressing to do the work we do. But I would not have it any other way. The courage, spirit, good humour and humanity of the people I work with -- whether it is in Tahiti, in Nevada, Fiji, in Russia, in Britain or the crew of the Rainbow Warrior -- inspires me to continue. It keeps me going when the strength of the nuclear powers seems too much, when being a David against the Goliath of the superpowers seems not only an impossible task but a stupidity.
I was asked a few weeks ago what makes people like me and the crew prepared to bear witness at Moruroa, and put our bodies on the line to stop French testing. I don't have a simple answer, because every person has their own motivation. But all I can say, is please dont think that any of us in Greenpeace are extraordinary. We are not. But we believe that TOGETHER we can change things, and that the "optimism of the action is better than the pessimism of the thought". Of course we need to think, to analyse, to inform ourselves. But to act -- whether it is to write a letter, make a phone call, organise a meeting, hold a demonstrtaion, take non-violent aaction -- is to become part of the solution , rather than part of the problem.
The funny thing is, that it can activism can become a habit. The first step is the hardest, but the energy and fufilment that you get from knowing that what you do is right and important and CAN help channge things is one of the most satisfying and liberating experiences you can have. Being stroppy can become a way of life!
Today, as we remember the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all those affected by nuclear testing and radiation over the past 50 years, I would urge you to join us in the "optimism of action": the optimism that indeed we are winning, that we can make progress and abolish the nuclear threat. We have a choice - a world free of nuclear weapons or a nuclear-free-for all. France's decision to resume nuclear testing in our backyard is the most tangible example of the threat we can all do something about. Please join us and millions of people around the world in opposing that threat, and ACT in your own way -- whether by letter, lobbying , prayer or protest to stop it. Thank you.
Stephanie Mills