Dharmasyd IMG_0979

2012-08-05 16:49:04
Hibakusha is the name given to the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was one of my greatest joys to be a host organizer and to do the press work for the 40th anniversary Hibakusha tour of the United States, August 1985. This was the decade of Reagan's great push for nuclear superiority, and the rise of populist citizen actions resisting nuclear proliferation.

The Southern California Mobilization for Survival was joined by Sane/Freeze, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and many other groups in planning the events. This was the first time that a “shadow” campaign was planned; it was based on the fact that those close to ground zero for the bomb were vaporized, leaving only their shadows.

Lines from a poem:

“ Imagination is captured

By the figure of a girl

Skipping in boundless childhood joy

Seared into the pavement of the bridge…”

Brigades of people set out just after midnight August 5--6 to paint “shadows” on the streets of Los Angeles and many other cities across the country. But I beleive Reagan's team heard about the plans and 'successfully' set out to counteract our powerful, symbolic graphic effort to highlight the effects of nuclear weapons. I have no proof for my opinion here, but the events just seemed too synchronistic to be random.

The day before the anniversary, Reagan's friend Peter Uberoff, Baseball Commissioner and head of the 1984 Olympic Games in LA called a baseball strike for August 6th. That became the news of the day, successfully moving any coverage or photos of the 'Shadow

Project' to an inside page. The strike only lasted one day, but it had Reagan's desired effect of minimizing the coverage of the horrendous nature of nuclear weapons.

The shawl was made by Hibakusha in a hospital in Nagoya in 1987. Japan has separate hospitals just for survivors of the bombs. Several of them got together to write their prayers, wishes and hopes for a nuclear free world on the shawl. I wear it at this time of year every year as memory and dedication to work for a peaceful world, to work against allowing these horrors to come to any more people.

Yet, as I write, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, the above ground testing, and ongoing emissions have turned all of Humankind into atomic survivors. We are all Hibakusha now!

-30-

Lines of a poem are from a very long poem by yours truly, 7 pages, called “Shadow Poem for Carmen”.

I'm going to send you a graphic that hammers home the point here, but it will take me some time to look for it. No need to publish this graphic, so don't wait if I don't find it in time. It is more for emphasis.


Love,

Sydney