August 6th, 2023: The peoples of the world demand peace and non-violence
On August 6th, we commemorate the nuclear massacre carried out by the United States in Hiroshima 78 years ago, against an unarmed civilian population. It was the first time such an extermination of this scale occurred and was repeated three days later in Nagasaki.
It marked the beginning of the global domination of the United States. No other State committed such a tremendous act of genocide with a nuclear arsenal before or after these events.
It also marked the following years (the so-called Cold War) in which power State armed themselves exponentially.
Today, the escalation initiated by U.S. military strategies, focused on NATO expansion to the east and the creation of new military alliances in the Indochina region, has provoked a bellicose response from Russia (war in Ukraine) and China (increased military pressure on Taiwan). This puts all the humanity at risk of nuclear conflict again, at a time when the United States is losing global economic control to other world players.
The arms industry, the largest industry, is the one for which United Nations Security Council member States spend the largest budget. Yes, those same States that should guarantee peace and possess the largest nuclear arsenal.
"Preventive" wars, for the "defense of strategic interests," "restoration of freedom and democracy," "free trade," "stability," and other lies seek to justify the use of weapons, and wars for money.
Money that seeks to reproduce itself through the global financial system, at the cost of misery, hunger, exploitation, marginalization, forced migrations, and genocides.
The global financial system deepens social inequalities by imposing certain areas of the planet to provide low-cost or semi-slave labor, plundering resources for the growth of their empire in others. Still, others are destined to become a "theater" of internal struggles, social and biological experiments, or continuous bombardments. In all cases, in violation of every human right.
The arms industry proliferates not only through "conventional" wars but also through control systems that governments use to monitor, control, and suppress populations when they rise up demanding respect for their fundamental rights.
This is the scale of values of this violent and anti-humanist system. The predominance of violence through weapons. Death over life.
The peoples of the world do not want this. They want to live in harmony and develop themselves free from injustice, revenge, and senselessness.
It is time to leave behind the decadent values of this system and build a new society.
In many parts of the world, humanists and many other communities will commemorate this date. To remember, but also to demand:
- Adherence and respect for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by nuclear powers to free humanity from this deadly danger.
- Cessation of armed conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy.
- Reduction of the budget for armaments and armies and the use of this budget to ensure decent living conditions and respect for human rights in all regions of the planet.
- Demilitarization, withdrawal of troops from occupied territories, and an end to economic blockades.
- Fair distribution of wealth.
- Planning and agreement of populations on the use of resources.
- Cancellation of public debts and the creation of an interest-free banking system.
- Active nonviolence as a moral force for a new planetary civilization already nested in the hearts of the peoples of the world.