Speech of Anna Ikeda

Good afternoon, everyone. It is a great honor to join this forum on behalf of my organization, Soka Gakkai International. I’d like to thank the Sant’Egidio Community and Dr. Bartoli for their invitation and for organizing this session. I’d like to also thank my fellow presenters, whose remarks as well as their work are incredible contributions to our shared vision. 

 

The Soka Gakkai International (SGI) has worked for the abolition of nuclear weapons over many decades. Our work in this area originated from a declaration made by the second president of the Soka Gakkai movement, Josen Toda, in September 1957. In his declaration, Toda impassionately called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, insisting on our inviolable right to live as citizens of the world. He stated that he wished to attack the problem at its root, and “expose and rip out the claws that lie hidden in the very depths of such weapons.” 

 

Each human life is infinitely noble and valuable; we each have limitless potential. This is our core belief as Buddhists, and I believe it is a universal value in most of the world’s religions. At the same time, in our Buddhist philosophy, we recognize that each of us possess potential for destruction, for disregarding and making light of others’ lives. We call this inner negativity “fundamental darkness.” Thus, in our Buddhist movement, the challenge of nuclear abolition is not an abstract theory or solely a security strategy. It is intrinsically a human challenge, a competition between our human dignity and inner darkness. 

 

There is one testimony from a Hiroshima a-bomb survivor, Reiko Yamada, I will never forget. 

 

She stated: “A good friend of mine in the neighborhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her 4 brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard.”

 

Who deserves to die such a death? Nobody! Yet our world continues to spend billions of dollars to upkeep our nuclear arsenals, and our leaders at times imply readiness to use them. It is utterly unacceptable.  

 

Similar sentiments have been expressed by downwinders in the United States, generations of nuclear testing survivors in Kazakhstan, Marshall Islands, and others. They feel their communities were dispensable. And they continue to suffer the effects of nuclear weapons every day. 

 

In the words of the hibakusha, we find the fundamental answer to why nuclear weapons must be abolished, that “No one else should ever suffer what we did.” However, their voices are not heeded by those in decision-making positions. At this year's NPT Preparatory Committee, which concluded last month, nuclear-armed states continued to advocate for a security system that relies on nuclear weapons, stressing the importance of nuclear deterrence. Earlier this month, Representative Michael Turner, chairman of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued an op-ed in the New York Times, calling for more investment in U.S. nuclear-arms program.

 

It is claimed that nuclear deterrence is essential for national security, but the renewed nuclear arms race invites the question: Whose security is being protected, and at what cost? UN Secretary-General Guterres has rightly warned that nuclear weapons “offer no security, just carnage and chaos.” So long as nuclear weapons exist, they will be used one day. The result would not only be the destruction from the blast and wide-spread, long-term harm caused by radiation, but also what scientists call nuclear winter and nuclear famine—the collapse of global food production that would result from the climatic changes provoked by nuclear detonations. No one on Earth would be unaffected by even a limited nuclear exchange. 

 

The 2022 SGI Peace Proposal, authored by our late international president Daisaku Ikeda, urged that we must “detoxify” ourselves from current nuclear-dependent security doctrines. As people of faith and peace communities, we have the responsibility to partake in this process of detoxification, and heal our world. As Austrian Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, who served as President of the First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) stated, “If nuclear weapons are discussed only among military experts, it is almost impossible to get out of the idea of nuclear deterrence. You have to bring in the legal perspective, the moral and ethical dimension.” 

 

Pope Francis has declared both the use and possession of nuclear weapons “immoral.” Our organization was one of the 13 cooperating organizations in the 2017 conference “Perspectives for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament” held at the Vatican, where the pope stated: “Weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity.” 

 

The SGI has fully supported the TPNW from its inception as a member of civil society and faith community. The adoption of the TPNW owes so much to the hibakusha and those from affected communities, whose testimonies provided an indisputable case for addressing the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and eliminating such weapons. The Treaty endeavors to address the harms caused to the victims and the environment through its obligations under Articles 6 and 7. As SGI, we have also worked on the implementation of the Treaty’s Article 12 on universalization by encouraging States to sign and ratify the Treaty.

 

With the current global situation in which countries are expanding and modernizing their nuclear arsenals, and the growing risk of the use of nuclear weapons, the SGI has advocated for a commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons as a means of risk reduction and confidence building. No First Use would be a critical step toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security and serve as an impetus to advance nuclear disarmament. 

 

But fundamentally, abolishing nuclear weapons would mean transforming the ideas about our security. It would require establishing the respect for dignity of life as the core premise of our societies, as well as inspiring hope that such change is possible. For that reason, as SGI, we have always emphasized the importance of education, so that it would be common sense that national security systems based on mass violence are not acceptable. Learning about the lived experiences of survivors are critical in such educational efforts.

 

To conclude, I’d like to share an insight from Daisaku Ikeda I’ve always cherished:

 

There are those who tell us that humanity is condemned to war and violence, that it is ingrained in our nature to hate and kill each other. Such people will tell you that they are simply being “realistic.” I sincerely hope that you will never submit to such “realism”—not about your own lives, not about the world. If you examine such claims carefully, you will usually find that those who make them have simply decided—in an arbitrary and often self-serving way—-what is realistic and what is not. They cut off and deny the limitless possibilities of reality to make it fit on their own pessimism and narrow-mindedness.

 

The only assurance that nuclear weapons would not be used, is their total elimination. Let us not allow anyone to tell us that it is impossible. Let us dare to imagine peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, fully believing in the human capacity and creativity to do so. Thank you very much.