1 Year after Hidankyo’s Nobel Prize, Student Calls for Nuke Abolition

Hiroshima, Oct. 11 (Jiji Press)–A year after Nihon Hidankyo was announced as the 2024 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a high school student who attended the award ceremony is steadfast in her determination to pursue the abolition of nuclear weapons. “I feel even more strongly that nuclear weapons are something we must eliminate,” said Natsuki Kai, 18, a third-year student at the Hiroshima Municipal Motomachi Senior High School in the western city of Hiroshima. “It’s not the matter of whether they can be eliminated or not.” Kai’s great-grandfather was among those exposed to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, while her great-grandmother was affected by another U.S. atomic bombing of the southwestern city of Nagasaki three days later. On Oct. 11, 2024, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the year’s Nobel Peace Prize would go to Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, for “its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” Kai was among those who attended a press conference held at the Hiroshima city government office after the announcement. Nihon Hidankyo was “the starting point of the peace movement,” she said. “I was delighted that (the group) would receive such a prestigious award and felt very motivated.” Together with three other high school peace messengers, Kai visited the Norwegian capital of Oslo to attend the award ceremony Dec. 10 the same year. At the ceremony, she listened to the speeches delivered by Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Frydnes and Nihon Hidankyo co-chair Terumi Tanaka, 93. “I felt that there was a sense of great responsibility and expectation for the younger generation,” Kai said. She saw many teary-eyed attendees listening to Tanaka’s speech. “I realized that the stories of hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) have a huge impact on people,” she said. At the same time, she became aware of the big problem of how to pass on such stories to future generations. In Oslo, Kai also took part in events involving talking about the atomic bombings as experienced by family members and peace activities at a local high school and other places. She said that when she mentioned the high school peace messengers’ slogan, “Our impact may be small, but we are not powerless,” in a speech at a local university, the audience broke into applause. “I was pleased to see that our feelings had reached them,” she said. Kai said that a local high school student had expressed a continued sense of urgency over nuclear weapons and related issues, while not many people around her have a strong concern about such issues. “Topics such as peace, nuclear weapons and war seem vague, but they are in fact directly linked to our lives,” Kai said. “I hope that more (younger) people will be aware that (a war) may occur anytime,” she added. Kai said that in the last 12 months, she managed to convey her message for peace through various opportunities in which she talked about herself. She voiced hopes of continuing her peace activities based on her knowledge and experience she has acquired so far. “I will keep telling the younger generation about the stories of the atomic bombings, in hopes that such efforts will be carried on until the 90th and 100th anniversaries and beyond,” she said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]