www.criticalconcern.com/sadako.htm
I’ve recently been thinking about the million Iraqis, half of them
children under the age of five, who died as a result of the sanctions the U.S.
sponsored through the U.N. against Iraq. In
the current madness and killing going on in Iraq and Afghanistan we have
forgotten about these victims of our policies.
The
United Nations adopted economic sanctions in 1945 as one method of maintaining
global order. The economic
sanctions imposed on the people of Iraq August 6, 1990 were the most
comprehensive of the fourteen times sanctions have been imposed.
The U.N. reported that after several years of the sanctions 5,000
children were dying each month as a direct result. The predominant cause of death was and is diarrheal
diseases caused by drinking fecally polluted water.
The sanctions prevented the importation of supplies and equipment to
clean the waters.
A document from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency on the second day of
the first Gulf War was sent to CENTCOM. CENTCOM
was the Central Command of the allied forces attacking Iraq in 1991.
The document was entitled “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities”.
The document focused on the fact that Iraq needed to import supplies from
outside Iraq to purify it’s water supply.
It further stated “failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage
of pure drinking water for much of the population.
This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of
disease…”. The million deaths
over the next twelve years fulfilled this prophecy.
Since its founding in 1996, Voices in the Wilderness has campaigned
non-violently to end the economic and military warfare against the people of
Iraq. Voices has sent over 70
delegations to Iraq to witness to the devastation first of the sanctions against
and now of the military occupation of Iraq.
I was a member of a delegation to Iraq in August 2000. We spent ten days visiting hospitals, the national orchestra,
families and orphanages in Baghdad and Basra.
By the time we were in Basra I had seen many children dying in what was
left of the hospitals. These
children for the most part were dying of diseases easily cured with the proper
medication.
Basra sits right on the Shatt al Arab and in August the humidity is often
almost as high as the temperature. Electricity was sporadic so there were no
fans or air conditioners. I
understand from friends who are in Iraq that the electricity is actually even
less available now under the Occupation.
We were sitting together in a room of an Iraqi family who were hosting a
Voices delegation for a month. Each
one of our group was speaking about how they felt about the visit to Iraq.
When my turn came I was struck by such a profound sense of helplessness
that I could only cry. The waste of
lives and futures that I as an American was responsible for filled me to
overflowing.
my tears
fall to mix in the desert earth
with the tears of the mothers
I hope for
a miracle
a sudden rising up and
blossoming in the wasteland
of the rose of Sharon
but my tears
are dry
and salt
Recently my wife and I attended a commemoration of the 59th
anniversary of the nuclear wasting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The conference was co-sponsored by the Nevada Desert Experience and the
Center for Action and Contemplation. Fr.
Richard Rohr, ofm entitled his discussions Hope Against Darkness: the transforming vision of Franciscanism in an
age of anxiety. His talks
brought to my mind the children of Iraq and Viet Nam who I’ve seen dying, the
children of Japan who died in atomic blasts in 1945 and the children who have
been betrayed by those in positions of power in the Church.
As Richard spoke of a ‘way of tears’ as a necessary stance of
vulnerability for spiritual growth in men in particular I could only remember
that hot day in Basra. Apparently
Francis of Assisi would go away for weekends to cry.
The young man who cannot cry is a
savage; the old man who cannot laugh is a fool.
Richard also spoke of Sadako and the thousand paper peace cranes.
Sadako Sasaki was a young Japanese girl who developed leukemia in 1955 as
a result of the Hiroshima atomic bomb ten years earlier. While in the hospital,
her closest friend reminded her of a Japanese legend that said that if she
folded a thousand origami paper cranes, her wish to be well again might be
granted. She began folding cranes
and continued to fold them until her death on October 25, 1955.
Her courage and determination inspired many of her school mates and a
peace park dedicated to all the Japanese children who died in the atomic
bombings was erected in 1958. She
has inspired people all over the world and there is a Sadako Peace Park in
Seattle.
In 1542 firearms were introduced into Japan by the Portuguese.
Francis Xavier landed in Japan in 1549.
By 1552 when he left Japan his teachings and life helped develop a
vibrant Christian community in Nagasaki.
By 1552 the Japanese had also developed better weapons than the
Europeans. In the usual imperial
pattern soon the Portuguese were using the Church to undermine local authority
by trying to develop allegiances to the Portuguese crown.
In 1597 Paul Miki and 26 others were martyred at Nagasaki by a Japanese
government in response to the efforts to undermine their authority.
By 1614 all Christianity was banned and in 1641 all but the Chinese and
the Dutch are banned from Japan.
Over 200 years later American Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay and
demanded trade. A treaty was signed
which limited Westerners to Nagasaki and a church to be only used by Westerners
was built. On March 17, 1865
several Japanese women knocked on the door and talked to the priest.
It seems that during the 200 years of no priests and no outside contact
the Christian community in Nagasaki had a remnant of 30,000 believers.
They had all been baptized and the Japanese society had been totally
unaware of their existence.
When news spread about these Kakure Kirihitan there was another
persecution by the Japanese government but it was soon stopped by pressure from
the West. In 1894 the Japanese
Christians were for the first time allowed to build a church on the hill in
Nagasaki where the martyrs had been crucified in 1597.
After 23 years of building St. Mary’s Cathedral was dedicated in 1917.
It was the largest church in Asia.
On August 9, 1945 Catholic and Protestant chaplains blessed the all
Christian crew of an airplane just before it took off from Tinian Island with
“Little Boy” an atomic bomb. The
target was Kokoro on the Japanese mainland.
When the plane arrived over Kokoro the foggy weather prevented them from
clearly seeing their target. They
moved on to their secondary target which was Nagasaki.
Nagasaki was also fogged in but a brief clearing allowed the bombardier
to see the most distinct building in Nagasaki.
St. Mary’s Cathedral became ground zero for the second atomic bomb
dropped on the Japanese people. In
this case the Christian crew wiped out the largest Christian community in Japan
in a matter of seconds. The
Christians were only about 1% of the population of Japan but most of them lived
in the Nagasaki area.
little boy little girl
in defiance of current
theories of the physical universe
on August 6, 1945
ten thousand paper peace cranes
flew out of a black hole
in the sky
above
Hiroshima
overcoming Death,
the destroyer of the worlds
Sadako Sasaki and many other Japanese children were our target that day.
The children of Viet Nam and Iraq have been our targets more recently
along with the children in our churches. Albert
Einstein not long before his death said the central question that needs to be
answered is “Is the universe a safe place for a human being to be?”
We might ask “Is the world we have made a safe place for a child to
be?”
Larry Kerschner
POB 397
Pe Ell WA 98572