John Lennon’s song is a song of hope expressing the dreams of a utopian world of peace and harmony. Listen here (there’s a long intro)
Our religious leaders have expressed their endorsement of a nuclear arms agreement (“nothing to kill or die for”) – ignore the bit about “and no religion too” and concentrate on the world living as one.
Here is the letter published in the Guardian newspaper today (15 November 2020)
As bishops of the Church of England, we warmly welcome and applaud the recent ratification, by the required number of member states, of the United Nations’ treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and we rejoice that the treaty will therefore come into force on 22 January 2021.
For so many of the nations of the world to speak clearly of the need to ban these weapons of mass destruction is an encouraging and hopeful sign. We commit ourselves to pray and to work so that this ratification will indeed help to see an end to nuclear weapons in the future. We very much regret that the UK, together with other nuclear states, has not yet signed the accord. We call on the UK government to do so and thereby to give hope to all people of goodwill who seek a peaceful future.
We echo the UN secretary general who “commends the states that have ratified the treaty and salutes the work of civil society, which has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiation and ratification of the treaty”. Accordingly, we renew our support for the work of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, together with sister organisations and agencies in each nation, whose advocacy and commitment continues to make such a difference.
In 1963 a nuclear test ban treaty offered the chance of a de-escalation in the nuclear arms race. JFK spoke to the American people about that chance in 1963. Click here to see an extract from that speech.
The legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. That first drive by the USA to create an atomic weapon in a research endeavour called the Manhattan Project, opened a Pandora’s box of unimaginable destructive power.
In collaboration with Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939, warning of possible German nuclear weapons research and proposing that the United States begin its own research into atomic energy.
Albert Einstein played no role in the Manhattan Project, having been denied a security clearance in July 1940 due to his pacifist tendencies. After World War II, he worked to control nuclear proliferation. He later regretted signing the letter to Roosevelt, saying in a Newsweek interview that “had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.” – https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/albert-einstein
We can’t put the genie back in the box, but we can make every effort to reduce and control nuclear arms for the sake of all human beings. Imagine…
odespinner 