Sheffield remembers Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

A guest blog by Rachel Rowlands

Lord Mayor Safiya Saeed spoke at a ceremony held in Tudor Square on August 9th, marking the 80^th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of two Japanese cities, which killed around 200,000 people and nuclear contamination from which continues to poison the environment and adversely affect people’s health today.

“We gather in remembrance of one of the most devastating moments of human history, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 80 years ago. As Lord Mayor of this city, I am proud to represent our city as a member of the International Network, Mayors for Peace, an organisation founded by the Mayor of Hiroshima to unite cities around the world in pursuit of a future free from the threat of nuclear weapons. This anniversary is not only a time to reflect, but a time to reaffirm our shared responsibility….. The continued existence of nuclear weapons represents a threat to all humanity. The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in 2021, is a powerful step forward in sending a clear message that the world must move beyond …towards diplomacy and dialogue.”

The Lord Mayor spoke movingly of her own and her family’s firsthand experience of the horrors of war, the lasting trauma, and her arrival here as a migrant seeking safety.

Green Party councillor and local historian, Brian Holmshaw, reflected on the importance of this annual event in Sheffield’s understanding of itself, recalling the strong response to the nuclear threat in the early 1980s, with numerous groups promoting nuclear disarmament through rallies, marches, festivals and cultural activities. (Eead his speech in full below)

June Cattell from Sheffield Creative Action for Peace (SCRAP), who organised this event, spoke about the alarming increase to the nuclear threat over the past year. Billions are being spent on upgrading our nuclear arsenal, consuming resources needed to tackle the climate emergency, housing crisis and for the NHS. Nukewatch has collected evidence to suggest that US nuclear weapons are back on UK soil, at RAF Lakenheath. The Tribune has published convincing evidence that the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre which has strong links with Sheffield University and the SY Mayoral Combined Authority is involved in creating a new generation nuclear warhead 30 times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tudor Square was decorated with origami cranes and with pennants, created by SCRAP, each bearing the name of a country that has ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Sadly, the UK has so far refused to engage with this Treaty. However, three of Sheffield’s MPs have signed the parliamentary pledge in support of it, and SCRAP has been working to encourage Sheffield City Council to join Leeds, Manchester and Leicester in passing a resolution in support of it.

The ceremony included moving poems by hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) and was enlivened by Sheffield’s Choir for Peace who sang peace songs including one specially written for Hiroshima Day last year.

     “Sheffield stands with cities across the globe calling for a safer more peaceful world,” said the Lord Mayor, “a world where no country again suffers the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Rachel Rowlands On behalf of Sheffield Creative Action for Peace

Here is Cllr Brian Holmshaw’s speech in full.

Thank you for allowing me to speak at this years commemoration of the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I’ve taken part in many others over the years, as a participant in the vigil, not a speaker, quietly at the back, watching as the years go by, witnessing as the Methodists and non-conformists call it. Its important to witness. But I wanted to speak this year event as a local historian of Sheffield to say how important I think this event and the wider peace movement in the city has been over the years, to the city and it’s sense and understanding of itself.

We are a peaceable place, we believe in trying to overcome warfare and discord, we do it in the midst of all those voices shouting for more war, more defence as they call it. The voices aren’t just national ones, we’ve people in the city who press for more Sheffield defence jobs, for more armaments manufacture in the city, for local nuclear power plants. These are dangerous, hideous plans and we need to reject them completely.

We all start from some place or other when we think about the many hundreds who died in the two Japanese cities in the 1940’s. It was a starting point for me on a political journey but also on a cultural and emotional level.

I was a teenager in 1980, moved by the stories and gripped by a fear of it happening here, we were deep in the cold war. But the response was formidable, dozens of local self-support groups sprang up in our neighbourhoods.  CND and anti-nuclear groups like Grimesthorpe Anti Nuclear in Pitsmoor that I was a part of, with shared ideas replicated throughout the city.

There was a printed list of groups– I still have a copy. I am still amazed at the range of groups, and of the neighbourhoods they represented.

We organised events and festivals, and when I became Secretary of Youth CND in the city in 1981 we ran coaches to fund raising gigs in Brixton, to major demos and then to Greenham Common, we had music festivals like the ones in Weston Park. Art was a part too, exhibitions, drawings, images, vinyl, postcards and posters bought from independent bookshops and record stores to put on on our walls.

It’s a different kind of nuclear threat we face these days.  There’s instability and unpredictability on many fronts. But we need to draw on the stories of our past in the city, using  culture like SCRAP do in the city, as well as politics, to raise the profile of anti-nuclear. Remembering that positivity is crucial to being able to push through the damaging times we live in now, listening to others voices, supporting and learning from each other – like we did in those dozens of local self-support networks in the 1980’s.

Brian Holmshaw

I too have fond memories of campaigning in the 1980s with CND. Protesting at Lakenheath and Molesworth, visiting Eirene, the Peace Chapel, torchlit (with flames not batteries) processions through the city centre when I marched with the Bishop, massive marches in London, concerts at City Hall and much more. It looks like we need to revive CND again combat the threat of American nuclear weapons on British soil.

Graham

Related posts

Here is last years ceremony.

Have our leaders forgotten the dangers of nuclear power and weapons?