The recent news of Mordechai Vanunu requesting the revocation of his Israeli citizenship should again pierce the conscience of the global village. Vanunu spent 18 years in prison for exposing Israel's nuclear weapons program, much of it attained illegally, and its nuclear arsenal of anywhere from 50 to 200 nuclear warheads. "After the treatment and care which I got from this country and its citizens," said Vanunu, "I cannot feel myself a wanted citizen here. He went on to say that he still feels like a prisoner of war and a hostage, one that is held by the state and the government. (Also, his conversion to Christianity in a nation the West believes to be democratic has caused even more political and religious persecution.)
Vanunu, who maintains strong Judeo-Christian values, believed Israel's pursuit to produce nuclear weapons and to possibly someday use them was a crime against both God and humanity. According to a new Citizenship Revocation Law passed by the Knesset, those convicted of treason lose their right to Israeli citizenship. In Vanunu's case, treason was conscientiously attempting to prevent Israel's destructive path of nuclear war. Vanunu added that in revoking his citizenship, he wished to exercise his right to the Freedom of Conscience and the Freedom of Choice. Just last year Vanunu was again imprisoned 10 weeks for breaking the "conditions" of his parole.
While Israel's "undeclared" nuclear weapons program continues to grow, the United States declared its "right" to use nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki initially killed over 200,000. Many more died due to radiation poisoning. In "Visiting Hiroshima," Marcel Junod wrote: "Within a few seconds the thousands of people in the streets and the gardens in the center of the town were scorched by a wave of searing heat. Many were killed instantly, others lay writing on the ground screaming in agony from the intolerable pain of their burns. Everything standing upright in the way of the blast...was annihilated."
For this reason Japan, the only nation to have ever experienced an atomic attack, renounced nuclear weaponry. It is why the preamble to Japan's constitution specifically states the intent to never again "...be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government." Japan's hope was to never have its people visited by the "zone of utter death" and "ring of fire" that petrified ever living thing in an attitude of indescribable suffering. The Japanese aspired to "an international peace based on justice and order and forever renounced war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes."
This month in 1974, India became the sixth nation to possess nuclear weapons. In the Great Indian Desert, the "Smiling Buddha," codenamed for India's nuclear device and formally called the "Peaceful Nuclear Explosive," was a twelve-kiloton nuclear bomb. The nation of "Enlightenment," of "All Things Sacred," of "Gandhian Nonviolence and Truth," joined the nuclear arms race alongside the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, and China. India promised the global village that it would not be building any more nuclear weapons and instead would be harnessing its nuclear potential for peaceful energy purposes. It was a position that India appeared to maintain, at least for a while.
In 1998, India conducted five more nuclear weapons tests and is currently working jointly with the United States to further its nuclear program. Like Israel, it has a nuclear arsenal estimated at 200 nuclear warheads. India is in a unique position, both politically and geographically. It must, however, go beyond its "no first use" and lead an effort to denuclearize Asia. With its rich religious-political histories and cultures, including its proximity to surrounding nations, will India be able to encourage China, Russia and Pakistan in making Asia a nuclear-free continent? Like Vanunu and Japan, India can help show the world its true enemies: poverty, diseases and lack of opportunities. India can again reveal there is unity of life, and the hurt that one causes to others often returns.
"If the citizen is the sovereign who appoints the government," as Mahatma Gandhi once said, then Vanunu is a true citizen, one that is not bound by finite and artificial political boundaries that serve only to produce misguided nationalism and insecurities towards other peoples. Like Japan, he understands what true freedom and liberty are, knowing that in the shadow of nuclear arsenals there can never exist such ideals. This is why he exposed Israel's nuclear arsenal. People everywhere who love peace, whether they live in the Untied States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, or Israel, should do the same. Belonging to a global village, people everywhere should petition to revoke their national citizenship until their own country and its political leaders destroys each nuclear weapon.
"...regaining consciousness," wrote Haruko Ogasawara a survivor of Hiroshima, "I found myself lying on the ground covered with pieces of wood. When I stood up in a frantic effort to look around, there was darkness. Terribly frightened, I thought I was alone in a world of death, and groped for any light." The light is Vanunu' actions and his conscience to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Let us make sure he is not alone.
Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)
(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)
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