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international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons
80 Years After US Attack on Hiroshima, Rising Threat Fuels Calls to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
The hibakusha, or survivors, "deserve to see their work vindicated and to witness the end of these inhumane, indiscriminate weapons of total destruction in their lifetime," said ICAN's leader.
Aug 06, 2025
Survivors of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and other nuclear abolitionists renewed calls for ridding the world of nukes on Wednesday, the 80th anniversary of the American attack on the Japanese city.
During the annual Peace Memorial Ceremony in Japan, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui pointed to Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have contributed to the narrative that nuclear weapons are necessary for national defense and elevated global fears of their use.
"These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history," he said. Russia and the United States—which is arming Ukraine and Israel—have the largest nuclear arsenals. The other nuclear-armed nations are China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.
"Despite the current turmoil at the nation-state level, we, the people, must never give up," Matsui added. "Instead, we must work even harder to build civil society consensus that nuclear weapons must be abolished for a genuinely peaceful world."
Silent prayers were held in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, marking 80 years since the atomic bombing of the city by the US on August 6, 1945.
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— Al Jazeera English (@aljazeera.com) August 6, 2025 at 6:35 AM
The mayor also urged the Japanese government to respect the wishes of hibakusha, or survivors, and join the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was adopted in 2017 and took effect in 2021.
"The treaty not only bans nuclear weapons and all activities related to their production, deployment, and use, but also mandates that countries that joined the treaty provide support for people harmed by nuclear weapons in the past and for the cleanup of areas that were used for nuclear testing," survivor Terumi Tanaka noted Wednesday in a New York Times opinion piece.
Tanaka was 13 years old at the time of the bombing—an experience he recounted last year, while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of a group he co-chairs: Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers.
"Our Nobel Peace Prize sends a message to younger people that they need to be aware that we are facing an emergency—and the need to see a larger movement of young activists working to address the nuclear threat," 93-year-old Tanaka wrote Wednesday. "Even here in Japan, not enough people see this as a pressing issue."
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—which won the Nobel Peace Prize after playing a significant role in building support for the TPNW in 2017—also used the anniversary to advocate for abolishing nuclear weapons.
ICAN executive Melissa Parke, who joined the ceremony in Japan, said in a statement that "it is not possible to come to Hiroshima and attend these solemn commemorations without being moved as well as convinced of the urgent need for nuclear weapons to be eliminated."
"The hibakusha, who were awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize for their tenacious campaigning for the elimination of nuclear weapons, deserve to see their work vindicated and to witness the end of these inhumane, indiscriminate weapons of total destruction in their lifetime," Parke argued. "That means the nine nuclear-armed countries, most of which were represented here today, must heed their call to join the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and get rid of their arsenals."
As we mark 80 years since the atomic bombings of Japan, CND Vice-President Caroline Lucas writes from Hiroshima and asks why are nuclear powers ditching disarmament for a new nuclear arms race? Read more: www.independent.co.uk/voices/hiros...
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— Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (@cnduk.bsky.social) August 6, 2025 at 8:03 AM
In a Common Dreams opinion piece about the youth impacted by the 1945 bombings, ICAN treaty coordinator Tim Wright wrote: "The fact that children would suffer the greatest harm of all in the event of a nuclear attack against a city today should have profound implications for policymaking in nuclear-armed states and spur action for disarmament. Yet, all nine such states continue to act contrary to that objective. And the risk of a nuclear weapon being used again appears to be at an all-time high."
Common Dreams also published related opinions from Gerry Condon, a Vietnam-era veteran and former president of Veterans for Peace; Austin Headrick, public education and advocacy coordinator for Asia at American Friends Service Committee; and Ann Wright, a U.S. Army veteran who resigned from the U.S. State Department in opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Speaking at the ongoing 2025 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, Wright noted that "there are a multitude of organizations in the United States and around the world that are working for the elimination of nuclear weapons."
"As we commemorate the lives lost and damaged by nuclear weapons 80 years ago," she said, "we commit ourselves to work harder for the elimination of these weapons, taking on our governments and the industries that make money from the construction and testing of these weapons of mass destruction."
ICAN in June released a report showing that the world's nine nuclear-armed nations spent more than $100 billion on their arsenals last year, up 11% from 2023. A few days later, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's annual yearbook warned that "a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened."
Those reports followed similar warnings from the experts behind the Doomsday Clock, who in January set the symbol of how close the world is to apocalypse at "89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe."
Fueling fears of such a catastrophe, U.S. President Donald Trump said last Friday that he "ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions" in response to "highly provocative statements" by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council.
During Trump's first term, he withdrew the United States from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia—after which the Kremlin declared a self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of those missiles. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced Monday that it will no longer abide by its rules, citing recent moves by the U.S. and its allies.
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Fresh Pakistan-India Military Exchange 'Exactly Why Nuclear Weapons Must Be Eliminated'
Nobel-winning nuclear abolition group called on "the international community to redouble efforts toward disarmament through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons."
May 07, 2025
Fear of potential war between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed nations, rose after India launched deadly strikes on Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir early Wednesday local time—prompting the nuclear nonproliferation group the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons to call for de-escalation between the two countries.
In retaliation on Wednesday, Pakistan shot down several Indian aircraft. The fighting is the latest in escalating tensions that have risen since last month's Kashmir massacre. India has blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack in which armed militants killed tourists in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, while the Pakistani government has called for a "neutral" probe.
Both countries control parts of Kashmir but claim it in full.
"A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would cause millions of immediate deaths in the region and have global consequences," said executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Melissa Parke in a Wednesday statement.
Parke pointed to a study published in 2022 in Nature Food, which found that even a more limited nuclear war between the two countries could have devastating consequences for global food supplies and could lead to the deaths of a sizable portion of the world's population. The authors of the study also estimated that more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and Pakistan due to famine.
"No country would be spared. No government can protect its people from the consequences," said Parke.
"This is exactly why nuclear weapons must be eliminated. ICAN calls on both governments to show restraint and de-escalate, and calls on the international community to redouble efforts toward disarmament through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons," Parke continued. "The only way to guarantee these weapons are never used is to ban and eliminate them."
The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a global agreement that bans the possession, use, and testing of nuclear weapons. The treaty has 94 signatories and 73 state parties, though neither Pakistan nor India have signed or are a party to it.
ICAN won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize in part due to its work on the treaty.
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Looking for Balance and Light in the Chaos? Try Art
Works like Promemoria—Reminder (Sending Out an SOS) by EMA can get to the heart of the matter by tapping not just the intellect but the emotions, putting us in touch with a deeper sense of meaning too often ignored in our rush to deal with the crises of the moment.
Feb 13, 2025
The world is in danger, mind-numbingly so, from a combination of crises: disease, hunger, mass displacement, racial and economic inequality, war and the threat of more war, a rampaging climate crisis, and an accelerating nuclear arms race (and that’s just for starters)—all occurring in a climate of massive mis- and disinformation that makes it ever harder to build a consensus toward solutions to the multiple problems we face.
Words can’t fully express our current predicament. We need other tools and other ways of making sense of the situation we now find ourselves in.
This should be a time for action and activism on behalf of our species and our planet. While there’s certainly a fair amount of that already, the combined weight of the risks we face makes all too many of us turn inward toward family and friends, or outward to find scapegoats for our problems. And yes, there are still moments of joy, optimism, and constructive action. Unfortunately, they are increasingly hard to sustain amid relentless daily attacks on people’s lives, livelihoods, and basic dignity.
One of the best ways to find a place of balance and light amid all the chaos is by creating and appreciating art, which can get to the heart of the matter by tapping not just the intellect but the emotions, putting us in touch with a deeper sense of meaning too often ignored in our rush to deal with the crises of the moment.
Sending Out an SOS
It’s in this context that I read and viewed Promemoria—Reminder (Sending Out an SOS) by EMA (Enrico Muratore Aprosio), a Geneva-based human rights advocate, humanitarian, and artist. The words in the book, which addresses Covid-19, the climate, and the prospects of nuclear war through poetry, prose, and storytelling, are compelling. But the artworks that punctuate the text are truly stunning, using bright colors and complex designs that incorporate pictures of both historical and imaginary figures—its images ranging from Karl Marx to Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan to the Mona Lisa (wearing a Covid-19 protective mask).
The book honors the spirit of altruism and courage, most notably in a section dedicated to Mbaye Diagne, a Senegalese peacekeeper who saved up to 1,000 lives amid the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, only to be killed in a mortar attack 12 days before he was set to return home.
Melissa Parke, director general of the Nobel Prize-winning International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, captures the sense of the book well, suggesting that Aprosio’s “use of beautiful animals, striking colors, and magical happenings communicates both the urgency of the situation we face and reminds us of what we stand to lose if we don’t change course.”
Not only will the book have its own impact, but it will hopefully inspire others to produce projects that address our most urgent problems in new ways, moving people to take action grounded in our common humanity.
Appreciating what we still stand to lose couldn’t be more crucial in the world we now face. Savoring everything from the signal achievements of humanity (writ large) to the pleasures and accomplishments of our everyday lives matters deeply, both as a motivation to continue working for change in an ever-messier world and as fuel for sustaining us in a struggle of unknown duration.
Yes, EMA’s book is grimly grounded in reality, even as it (literally) paints a picture of a world that could be so much better. One of my favorite panels in the book is entitled “Every Day More Bullshit,” just because, well, it seems all too sadly appropriate to the moment we’re in.
There’s also a chapter called “Radioactive Beasts,” inspired by George Orwell’s dystopian novel Animal Farm. The animals Aprosio writes about are worried by the state of the world and concerned that humans aren’t taking the risks posed by current conflicts seriously enough.
In April 2023, some of Aprosio’s fictional beasts were projected onto buildings in New York City’s Times Square with support from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Other portions of the book could be displayed across this embattled planet of ours in a similar fashion to good effect.
There’s more to EMA’s book than can be taken in at a sitting, or even many sittings, or certainly summarized in an essay like this. Still, get your hands on it if you can. It can serve as an inspirational reference work you can dip into at any time to reenergize yourself or contemplate what a different world might indeed look like. In that way, it reminds me of the effects of Afrofuturist art and literature, not because the forms necessarily resemble each other, but because both approaches underscore the desperate need for a bold vision of what a new world might look like—a vision of what anyone trying to change things might dream of.
Artists for Peace
Promemoria is anything but the only current art project that takes on nuclear weapons and related dangers. One of the most interesting current networks is Artists Against the Bomb, a global organization of creators who have produced an amazing array of antinuclear posters, among other works.
Another vital project in a world where nuclear weapons are proliferating and the U.S. is planning to invest up to $2 trillion dollars in the (yes, this is indeed the term!) “modernization” of its nuclear force in the coming decades is Bombshelltoe. It’s a policy and arts collective that defines itself as “a creative organization pushing for an active exploration of arts, culture, and history to promote nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament for the next generation.” One of its prominent efforts is the Atomic Terrain Project, which highlights how nuclear weapons have “seeped into our waters and tapped into our soil” and “continue to harm all life, human and non-human alike.”
I was fortunate enough to see an exhibition that the project mounted at the 2024 New York Art Book Fair entitled “How to Make a Bomb”—a book with the same title was also released then—organized and presented by Gabriella Hirst, Warren Harper, Tammy Nguyen, and Lovely Umayam (the founder of Bombshelltoe). The exhibit was built around a flower, the Rosa Floribunda, or—yes!—“Atom Bomb,” which Hirst describes as “a garden rose that was cultivated and named in 1953 during the Cold War arms race to commemorate Britain’s newfound status as a nuclear power.” Hirst has taken the lead in cultivating (and you might say pacifying) that rose, while getting it planted in gardens throughout the United Kingdom and beyond as an antinuclear gesture of beauty.
At the book fair, attendees could learn how to plant and maintain just such a rose while engaging in conversations about the history and devastating impact of nuclear weapons or checking out basic documents and books about the nuclear age. Such an indirect (even flowery!) route into truly grim subject matter drew interest from people who might not normally pick up a book on, or read an article about, the dangers of nuclear weapons but were fascinated by the physical process of grafting a rose and then willing to stay for open-ended conversations about the growing nuclear dangers in our world.
When asked why the project chose to use a rose as an entry point into discussions of such ominous and grim subject matter, Lovely Umayam noted that “nuclear issues alone can feel abstract and alarmist” and eerily unapproachable. As Gabriella Hirst put it, the project “is about taking the sublime into your own hands and working through that in small ways… to reduce fear among non-experts.”
At the same book fair where I encountered the Rose Project, I had the pleasure of meeting Ben Rejali, an organizer of the art and political website Khabar Keslan. Recent essays there include an interview with Palestinian filmmaker Khaled Jarrar, but I was first drawn to the project’s printed works, including reproductions of stamps from Iran and South Asia going back to the 1950s. There were, of course, numerous stamps portraying the once-dreaded Shah of Iran. There was also one of the CIA’s logo with blood running down it, a reference to the agency’s role in the 1953 coup that installed the Shah as Iran’s autocratic ruler. Perhaps the most emotionally powerful product of Khabar Keslan, however, may have been a collection of poems entitled “Salute to Olives” by the late Omar al-Bargouthi, many of which were written while he was being held in Israeli prisons.
On a planet where nuclear dangers are only growing, both Promemoria and the Atomic Terrain project underscore the importance of finding new ways to communicate about this increasingly fragile and endangered planet of ours that inspire creativity and action rather than fear, paralysis, and denial. At a time when challenges to fundamental rights are hurtling toward us at warp speed, taking the time to experience artworks of any kind can seem like a distinct luxury, but don’t believe that for a second. Such art is a key to reclaiming our humanity and getting in touch with the creative, collaborative impulses that could help save our planet. A pause, artistic in nature, to reflect and recharge our psychic batteries can go a long way toward helping us to cope with this all too strange present moment and build for the future. Promemoria provides us with that precious opportunity.
A Brief History of Culture and Resistance
Music, theater, painting, and other forms of artistic expression have, in fact, been part of every major movement for change in recent memory. The Federal Theatre Project of the 1930s, funded as part of the Works Progress Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the era of the Great Depression, hired unemployed performers and writers who produced more than 800 plays and dance events. In the process, they highlighted work by under-represented groups, including African Americans via the Negro Theatre Project and the African-American Dance Unit. It also funded foreign language plays in Spanish, Yiddish, and German until Congressman Martin Dies, Jr., head of the House Un-American Activities Committee, led a successful charge to defund the program because of its advocacy of racial equality and other progressive themes.
Theater, however, continued to play a central role in progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s, from Teatro Campesino, born during the United Farm Workers Union’s organizing drives in California; to the Bread and Puppet Theater, a staple of anti-war efforts; and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, whose plays captured a whole range of progressive themes, often in hilarious fashion. And don’t forget the freedom songs that were at the core of the civil rights movement, sung by demonstrators at mass rallies and activists detained in local jails in the South.
The anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s was also sustained and amplified by works of art. Its best-known cultural product was undoubtedly the TV movie The Day After, a fictionalized treatment of the impacts of a nuclear war viewed by more than 100 million people when it aired on ABC in November 1983. But there was also a steady drumbeat of anti-nuclear cartoons, some of which were assembled in a widely distributed collection entitled Warheads. Joel Andreas’s 77-page graphic comic book, Addicted to War: Why America Can’t Kick Militarism, proved to be a primer on the roots of the American war system from the 19th-century vision of “manifest destiny” to (in an updated edition) the Global War on Terror, taking on war profiteers and the role of the media along the way.
More recently, groups like the Yes Men and Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir have lampooned corporations and their executives through street theater and by posing as participants in corporate gatherings (and so underscoring the absurdity of their activities and world views). The Yes Men describe their work as using “humor and trickery to highlight the corporate takeover of society, the neoliberal delusion that allows it, [and] the corporate Democrats’ responsibility for our current situation.” Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir ridicule materialism in all its forms from Starbucks displacing local coffee shops to the excesses of the Disney Store in New York’s Times Square.
Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, has similarly engaged in a wide range of politically focused art projects, ranging from a Peace Symphony performed in Hiroshima to The Book of Ice, which addresses climate change, to a wide array of films, articles, and concerts. Robin Bell Visuals has produced films and art installations, including projecting the words “Pay Bribes Here” on the side of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. And there have been scores of anti-war anthems produced in virtually every genre of modern music from folk to jazz to rock to hip hop to heavy metal.
My colleague Khody Akhavi makes short compelling videos on topics ranging from the dangerous rise of AI-driven weaponry to the impact of the funding of think tanks by weapons contractors, the Pentagon, and foreign governments. And the Center for Artistic Activism partners with advocacy groups on specific projects, schools them in artistic techniques, and helps them build art into their campaigns and public education efforts. Their slogan: “we make social and environmental change more effective—and more creative.”
Better yet, the artists and projects cited above are just a sampling of the many forms of political art that have attracted audiences and encouraged activism at the local, national, and global levels. Promemoria is a worthy addition to this tradition. Not only will the book have its own impact, but it will hopefully inspire others to produce projects that address our most urgent problems in new ways, moving people to take action grounded in our common humanity. Given the world we’re now in, it can’t happen soon enough.
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