ABSTRACT
My name is Ray Matsumiya. My family is from Hiroshima. My grandfather was [a] victim of the atomic bomb. That has great personal meaning to me. I run an organization that brings teachers from around the world to Hiroshima to understand the impact of the atomic bomb. The idea is that by spreading awareness to young people, these people can become future activists. They [may] stop the madness of nuclear weapons. My question to you is about location and priority. There are two streams of thought about this; the first is that it is very important to reach activist populations in countries that already have nuclear weapons. For example, in America, by mobilizing grassroots movements to question why a trillion dollars is being spent on modernizing nuclear weapons and creating obstacles to funding these expenditures. The other stream of thought is to work with countries that don’t have nuclear weapons – like the resolution that’s going on right now in the UN – with 120 countries that don’t have nuclear weapons but they know that their future is tied to the use of nuclear weapons. Even if there is a limited nuclear exchange, it’s going to impact the entire world and that’s the rationale behind this stream. My question is, is it more important to activate populations in countries that have nuclear weapons or in ones that don’t?
