by Kim Williams

Members of the Hampton Roads Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons held a Vigil for Nuclear Disarmament at the US Federal Building in downtown Norfolk, VA. The city is home to the worlds largest naval base, the region one of the most militarized in the world.

In honor of the Sept. 26 International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, the group held signs promoting disarmament and read by megaphone the two 2017 Noble Peace Prize acceptance speeches by Beatrice Fihn and Setsuko Thurlow (a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing) on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (https://www.icanw.org). The weather was lovely and the atmosphere festive as the group engaged with pedestrians in their early evening shopping and cafe dining pursuits. Conversations with passers-by were polite. An informal survey found that no single passer- by was aware of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, currently ratified by 56 countries after becoming International Law on January 21, 2021.

The Vigil for Disarmament capped a week which began Monday with HRCAN members visiting the local office of US Senator Mark Warner. Five members of the group met for one hour with Senator Warner's regional director, Drew Lumpkin, who expressed gratitude for their educating him on nuclear weapons and the international treaty. He promised to convey to the Senator the contents of the discussion as well as the invitation to become the first US Senator to sign ICAN's Legislator's Pledge.

As Beatrice Fihn said in her Nobel speech, "the story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be. Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us? One of these things will happen." We do believe that to achieve the end of nuclear weapons, we must make it our purpose to change our culture away from fear, denial and belief in the false promises of war to a culture of welcome, courage and true democracy. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a wonderful tool to begin the conversations needed to educated ourselves, our families, friends, neighbors, members of our wider communities, and even our elected 'representatives." Conversations are a tool, a means of building relationships. In relationships, we can listen to each other, share our hopes and dreams, begin to speak up for those left out, and begin to invite others to imagine and then participate in making things different, less violent, more inclusive, safer for children. Conversation can help us begin to entertain the idea that wars and nuclear weapons do not keep us safe.

A cynic may view the efforts of a few people in Norfolk VA sanding for Nuclear Disarmament as inconsequential, but we know that we have to start somewhere. We know that our efforts go beyond that one day and this one week. We will go back to that street corner, again and again. We will go back to that politician's office, again. We will keep moving in this effort, and we know so many others around the world will do the same.

Local newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot, published an opinion piece on 9/24/ 2021 by HRCAN member Steve Baggarly: http://digitaledition.pilotonline.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=06b98884-9a32-486f-849a-e42a22e5e02c

"A day to focus on ending the threat of nuclear war "
BY STEVE BAGGARLY HAMPTON ROADS CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Sunday will be the seventh annual observance of the United Nations’ International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Since 1970, the United States, Russia and England have been legally bound to do just that — totally eliminate their nuclear arsenals — as state parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In 1992, China and France joined the NPT committing all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to “good faith negotiations” of a treaty on “complete disarmament … at an early date.”

Suspecting that a half century without such a treaty meant that those nations were not serious about fulfilling their legal obligation to disarm, much of the rest of the world negotiated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which entered into force in January of this year. The TPNW outlaws the development, manufacture, possession, deployment, and use or threat of use of nuclear weapons and can be the fulfillment of the NPT’s vision of “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” The nine nuclear-armed nations have yet to sign.

The TPNW is the alternative for our world bristling with 13,100 nuclear weapons (2,000 on high alert) with 540 pounds of TNT for every child, woman and man on the planet. It is an alternative to the malice, madness, miscalculation, manipulation or mistake that could lead to global annihilation.

In relation to all these threats, deterrence theory, the shrinking basket into which the nuclear armed countries place all their eggs, can only play a role in tempering malice — one nuclear armed nation wishing to attack another may think twice if it would mean they themselves would also be destroyed. It cannot thwart outright madness, miscalculation (“are those missiles coming our way carrying conventional or nuclear warheads?”), manipulation (the relentless advance of cyberwarfare and computer hacking may soon enable terrorists, organized crime or malicious individuals to initiate nuclear war), or mistake (people are fallible, machines break). Indeed, the threat is so grave that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock stands at only 100 seconds to midnight.

The TPNW is the alternative to the current nuclear arms race. Every nuclear-armed state is modernizing its arsenal: China is building hundreds of new missile silos and fitting more of its intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. India and Pakistan are building submarines as delivery platforms. England has vowed to increase its nuclear arsenal by 40%. North Korea is testing long-range missiles to deliver its warheads. China and Russia are both developing hypersonic missiles to evade U.S. missile defense systems. The United States is amid a $1.7 trillion effort to overhaul our entire nuclear warfighting complex — warheads, submarines, missiles, factories, airplanes, communications, etc. — over 30 years.

To skirt U.S. missile defenses Russia is also developing submarines that can fire drone torpedoes carrying megaton warheads to obliterate coastal cities such as Norfolk. A major military hub, Hampton Roads is high on our adversaries’ nuclear targeting lists.

The Hampton Roads Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (partner of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, see icanw.org) invites all Hampton Roads city councils to adopt ICAN’s Cities Appeal resolution, and all its legislators to sign ICAN’s Legislator’s Pledge, asking the U.S. government to sign the TPNW. Then the hard work would begin of getting the other nuclear armed states to sign as well, come up with a simultaneous disarmament plan, then all ratify together and begin to implement the plan.

Sept. 26 reminds us that the only way to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again is by their total elimination. If we are a nation of laws, we will fulfill our legal obligation under the NPT and disarm our nuclear weapons by signing the TPNW and leading the way to a world free of nuclear weapons.

Steve Baggarly, of Norfolk, is a member of the Hampton Roads Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.