The choice: Life or nuclear weapons?
“Choose life that you and your descendants may live,” proclaims Deuteronomy.
In 2020, the news has been dominated by the efforts to save life from the deadly coronavirus. An amazing thing is happening: The greater threat to life is being noticed by entire countries. They have gotten prompts from faith leaders, feminist leaders, and growing movements of common sense and compassion.
On March 23, U.N. SecretaryGeneral António Guterres appealed to warring parties “to lay down their weapons.” He said, “It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
Pope Francis said: “I associate myself with all those who have accepted the appeal, and I invite all (parties in conflicts) to follow up on the appeal by stopping every form of warlike hostilities.”
By June, 170 countries of the world had signed on to the appeal for a global cease-fire from the U.N. secretary general.
Much of the global family had not been paying attention to the fact that all life on the planet could be destroyed almost instantly by the human species through the use of nuclear weapons. Is there will and a critical mass of people to make deliberate efforts to prevent this?
Most nations adopted an agreement to ban nuclear weapons — the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — on July 7, 2017. When at least 50 sovereign nations ratify a treaty, 90 days later the treaty goes into effect.
For 75 years, the human family has watched as more and more essential resources needed for it to flourish have been offered to the idols of control, power and greed. The tools needed for life were being used for death. Global citizens recognized the destruction of the environment, the womb in which we live.
People in pandemic vulnerability listened to the cries echoing and re-echoing since August 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When faced with thousands of pandemic deaths, a will for life began to prevail around the globe, and more and more countries ratified the treaty. In late October, Honduras ratified right after Jamaica and Nauru.
What life tools do I have in my toolbox? Needles for sewing together, saws for cutting apart, spoons for mixing, hammers for forcing, megaphones for sharing, gags for silencing?
Our country was challenged because in our toolbox we had a gigantic number of bombs, but we could not bomb the virus away. We lacked the tools we needed.
May this be a year of my searching for the right tools and developing my skills using them. May this be the year of our country selecting the right tools and developing skills using them.
On Jan. 22, nuclear weapons become illegal under international law. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons bans the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition, possession or stockpiling, transfer, control or receipt, use of threat to use, stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons.
Banners are going up that proclaim that. Do you want one? Go to www.icanw.org.