Yes, I am old enough to remember the fear engendered by the Cuban missile crisis, when Kennedy and Khrushchev went to the brink and had school kids like me working out what to do with our final four minutes.
That spurred me as an adult to visit the peace camp at Greenham Common, go on marches, and join Justice and Peace Scotland interfaith vigils at Faslane.
But I’ll be honest – until October of this year, I didn’t think that these decades of protest would create a nuclear-free world in my lifetime. And yet here we are in Advent 2020 with hope in our hearts for that very thing.
This week I attended an online meeting hosted by ICAN Scotland (Nobel peace prize winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and it was buzzing with ideas from member organisations about how we will mark January 22, 2021: the day that the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty comes into force.
Following ratification of the treaty by 50 nations back in October, the treaty will not only make possession and use of nuclear weapons illegal, but will also look after the welfare of that long-ignored group of people – the victims of nuclear explosions and tests who have suffered horrific health problems caused by radiation.
The campaign isn’t over. There are nine ‘nuclear nations’ that are, if you’ll pardon the expression, sticking to their guns. But this is the beginning of the end.
The Scottish Government has made it clear that nuclear weapons are sited here against Scotland’s wishes. The Scottish Catholic Bishops have, of course, since 1982, condemned the possession and use of nuclear weapons. And Pope Francis has also said that their possession and use is immoral.
How are we going to convince the handful of ‘nuclear nations’ to take this the final step and agree to what the world is praying for? China (320 warheads), France (290 warheads), Russia (1,326 warheads declared, an estimated 4,315 believed to be nearer the mark), the UK (215 warheads), and the US (around 5,800) could each blow us to smithereens without us having even four minutes’ grace. India, Pakistan and Israel never signed the previous Non Proliferation Treaty and between them have around 400 nuclear warheads. And then there is North Korea.
And we’re planning a celebration on January 22? Yes and no.
The more noise we make about celebration, the clearer it will be to those nations that the world just doesn’t want this lethal ‘deterrent’. But really, it is the start of a lot of hard work – please join us in asking if your pension fund or your council’s pension fund is invested in nuclear weapons, or if your bank invests in them; please write letters to your MPs. Let’s rattle these pro-nuclear dinosaurs.
Because as Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu says, ‘With your support, we can take ICAN its full distance – all the way to zero nuclear weapons.’