Hiroshima: The Price of Peace

A visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum is sobering. Although the exhibits present a balanced and objective perspective on the detonation of the atomic bomb on August 7, 1945, even the mere facts of a nuclear explosion are necessarily horrendous. Everyone hates warfare, and one comes away from Hiroshima hating it even more. No doubt, everyone leaving this museum is a pacifist, at least for a while.

Particularly moving for me is an arch several hundred meters from the famous A-Bomb Dome. Standing at the arch, one can see arranged in a straight line the peace arch, an eternal memorial flame and the famous domed building, which had been an exhibition hall before the blast.

Also noteworthy is the “Children’s Peace Bell.” Anyone can stand under its arch and ring the bell, thus offering a prayer for peace.

It turns out after some reflection, though, that pacifism is not an ethical hiding place. Ethical flaws emerge when one takes the long view. How does one deal with the moral problems that arise when an unjust aggressor is killing thousands of people and confiscates their resources and property? Is it moral simply allow him to get away with it?

Two German theologians dealing with this issue, the brothers Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, came to the United States between the wars. After World War I both were pacifists, and wrote compelling books describing their ethics. Yet after Adolf Hitler came to power, both men changed their views to what is classically known as a “just war” theory.

In his book “Moral Man, Immoral Society” Reinhold Niebuhr contends that if one takes peace seriously, there are times when serious force must be used to oppose evil.

The question of the morality of warfare is complex, involving difficult judgements and a nuanced view of war and peace. How does one balance the horrors of 600,000 Japanese civilians killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the 6 million Chinese killed by the Japanese Army from 1937 to 1945? Is it a moral response to allow people like Kanji Ishiwara, Hideki Tojo, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Ratko Mladic or Vladimir Putin simply get away with genocide?

The destruction of these two cities in Japan has attracted much more attention than the Japanese atrocities in China, partly because the weapon used here in Hiroshima was new and incomprehensibly destructive. The so-called Rape of Nanjing has received less attention, possibly because it was effected by conventional weapons and occurred over a longer period of time. Yet the loss of life in China was far greater than that produced by both atomic bombs.

We have museums for the people killed at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Treblinka. They are graphic, and we should have them. It is just and proper to remember. But where are the museums for the people killed at Nanjing, or Sobibor, or the Gulag Archpelago?

We were all taught as children in Sunday school that we were to choose good and not evil. As adults we find, however, that often the choice is not between good and bad, but rather between something bad and something worse.

To drop a nuclear bomb is horrible. No argument there. Yet there have been situations in history when failure to do so could have resulted in even greater evil.

Tough question.

The issue is not a simple one. I would love to know what you think. When does it become necessary to bring force to oppose evil? Leave a comment summarizing your thoughts.Leggi altro