Kon’nichiwa, sisters and friends. I bring you greetings from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
It’s great to be back here with old friends and to be standing next to my friend, Emiko. I’ve been quite overwhelmed yesterday and today, so inspired by the activities of the peace movement here in Japan. Just tonight, you’ve make peace work so beautiful and happy, and heartfelt.
Our world is heating up, our water is drying up, and military spending is going up. As we all know here, bombs, especially nuclear bombs, guns and landmines will not deter or remove the threat of a Tsunami, a hurricane, a flood, a virus, climate change or a water shortage. These are the real security threat of our times. We can face and address them, and we can find a solution, but only if we have the human and economic resources currently being devoted to military, weapons and war.
The money that is currently spent on the military security is now globally 1,339 billion dollars a year. That is in one year, the spending on the military is equivalent to 600 years of the UN’s budget. 600 years. The cost of occupying Iraq for two weeks, two weeks only, is the equivalent of what ALL the rich countries have spent on gender equality in five years. This military spending, this weapons trading and profiteering is corporate welfare, in fact, it’s organized crime. That’s the only way to describe what’s happening.
We say the word “billion” quite often and we say it quite easily, but in fact it’s very difficult to imagine a billion. From the first day of the year 2008, one billion seconds ago was the year 1961. One billion minutes ago Jesus Christ was walking around. One billion hours ago human ancestors were living in the Stone Age. One billion days ago no animal walked upright, the earth was mostly populated with crawling, fish, swimming things.
That is what WILPF, my organisation is trying to work on to help people
understand how many billions we are wasting on war and preparations for
war. And sisters, I’m so angry about this because this is our money, and
this is our future.
On 6th and 9th of August, WILPF remembers the horror of the crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also crimes committed against global Hibakusha, victims of nuclear crimes in the Pacific, in the Australian desert, in Kazakhstan and many other places.
The Australian and Japanese governments have begun a new process, a new
commission – a Commission to help try and advance nuclear disarmament.
And I think we women need to help them. This commission has not started
yet, but the announcement itself is positive especially while there’s a
US election going on. To ensure that this Commission is positive and strong.
WILPF is proposing that we establish an NGO Shadow Commission, to be a
watchdog, to be a resource and to be a critique of the Commission. We think
that women have a strong role to play, and in particular alliances between
Australian and Japanese women’s organizations is going to be very helpful
in making this a positive thing. So while our governments are working together,
let also us work together to put an end to nuclear weapons, to put an end
to nuclear umbrella.
Arigato.
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