Commemorate Hiroshima Day in Winnipeg

Hiroshima, Japan atomic bombing August 1945. The U.S. bombed the country unnecessarily killing hundreds of thousands., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Commemorate Hiroshima Day in Winnipeg:
Lanterns for Peace - Memorial Park

Friday, August 9, 7:30 pm to 10:00 pm

Come early to make a lantern; the program begins shortly before dusk.

Note: The date is the 9th, not the usual 6th.
Bring your cameras.

Sponsors: Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba, Peace Alliance Winnipeg, Project Peacemakers
https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/274214716051978/

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Dear Friends, Sisters and Brothers,

The 68th anniversary of the world's first nuclear war will soon be here. Across Canada and the world, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to evoke horror and sadness at the bestiality of U.S. imperialism at the close of the Second World War.

Rather than bomb a less inhabited part of Japan, President Truman destroyed two cities killing approximately 150,000 to 246,000 people. It was already apparent that the U.S. would dominate the world economy after the war. The bombings made it clear that the U.S. would use nuclear weapons to keep it that way.

To give you an insight into the mind of the world's top imperialist, here is Truman's comment after Hitler's armies invaded the Soviet Union in 1941: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible..." (The New York Times, June 24, 1941).

We thank the world's anti-fascist forces who compelled the U.S. to fight against Hitler, not the Soviet Union. The tragic reality is that Western imperialism's strategy of appeasement - pushing Hitler to invade Russia - worked. Germany occupied half of France and forced Britain to pay much of its treasury to the U.S. Russia essentially won the war against Hitler by the time the West started its 11-month romp to Berlin - D-Day, June 1944.

Viewed in the context of inter-imperialist rivalry, the U.S. towered over Germany, Japan, Britain and France. Canada was the world's third largest capital exporter in the 1940s*, so Canada's capitalists also "came out ahead." (Today, Harper is bragging that Canada came out ahead after the 2008 depression; really we only have not lost as much as other countries.)

Hiroshima continues to be an urgent reminder why we need to achieve nuclear disarmament. The arms race and war are an inherent and growing feature of capitalism; disarmament is the ideal of socialism.

Last year, the U.S. shifted its naval nuclear arsenal at China. The U.S. "pivot to Asia" is an ominous danger to world peace. The U.S. has repeatedly threatened China with nuclear annihilation since the Korean War. Russia is still targeted.

Below is a poem by Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) in memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The Dead Little Girl, also known as "I come and stand at every door," has been put to music and recorded by artists such as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Paul Robeson, The Byrds and singers from many lands.

Here is a youtube cover of the poem, in its original Turkish with subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZE4EOL_x8

(Preview) Hikmet was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist. Described as a "romantic communist" and "romantic revolutionary", he was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs and spent much of his adult life in prison or in exile. His poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages. On 22 November 1950, the World Council of Peace announced that Nazim Hikmet Ran was among the recipients of the International Peace Prize along with Pablo Picasso, Paul Robeson, Wanda Jakubowska and Pablo Neruda. (Thanks to Wikipedia for this biographical note.)
Peace, disarmament and socialism,
Darrell Rankin
Manitoba office, Communist Party of Canada

*Andrei Gromyko, The overseas expansion of capital (Moscow, 1982, p. 33).

The Dead Little Girl
- Nazim Hikmet

It is me knocking at your door
- at how many doors I've been
But no one can see me
Since the dead are invisible.

I died at Hiroshima
that was ten years ago
I am a girl of seven
Dead children do not grow.

First my hair caught fire
then my eyes burnt out
I became a handful of ashes
blown away by the wind.

I don't wish anything for myself
for a child who is burnt to cinders
cannot even eat sweets.

I'm knocking at your doors
aunts and uncles, to get your signatures
so that never again children will burn
and so they can eat sweets.