WE NEED TO RID WORLD OF NUCLEAR MONSTERS THAT HAUNT OUR DREAMS

NORTH Korea continues to defy the world in a dangerous chess game of nuclear brinkmanship. Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. US leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage. John F Kennedy, seeking to break the logjam on nuclear disarmament, said: “The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution.”

There can be no doubt that the greatest threat to civilisation, perhaps of mankind, comes from nuclear weapons. Mankind today is confronted with the unprecedented threat of self-extinction from the massive and competitive accumulation of the most destructive weapons ever produced. Mankind is faced with a choice – we must halt the arms race or face annihilation.

Globally around 30 000 nuclear weapons are held by various countries, more than 1 500 of them ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Each has a destructive power 30 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. Nuclear weapons give no quarter. Their effects transcend time and space, poisoning the Earth and deforming its inhabitants for generation upon generation.

They leave us wholly without defence, expunge all hope for meaning survival. They hold in their sway not just the fate of nations, but the very meaning of civilisation. Nuclear war threatens catastrophes that, although less encompassing than extinction, are still outside historical comparison. Although the physical threat of a full-scale nuclear holocaust has declined since the end of the cold war, nuclear war remains a grim reality.

Can we preserve our civilisation without menacing it and all life on Earth with annihilation? In a speech to the UN on September 1961, President Kennedy had the following to say: “Every man, woman and child lives under a sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

The US nuclear arsenal contains about 10 000 nuclear weapons, that is 10 000 weapons with the destructive power of 150 000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. We must remember that nuclear monsters lie in wait, many still on hair-trigger alert, poised to obliterate every project and goal for bettering the world. With the light of common sense we can confront the menace and rid the world of weapons that continue to haunt our dreams.

Farouk Araie