August
5th, 2009
Dear
President Barack Obama,
Greetings from Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. As global citizens
who share your deep concern with issues of peace and nuclear proliferation,
we believe your visit to Japan this fall offers an unprecedented
opportunity to steer our world decisively towards the abolition
of nuclear weapons. If you deliver a speech in Hiroshima, as no
other sitting U.S. president ever has, you can turn the hearts and
minds of all humanity to this grave threat, and allow all of us
to re-imagine a future no longer held hostage by the fears of cold
wars, nuclear winter, or nuclear terrorism. As you have said, the
political will and support for a nuclear-free world first requires
imagination. A thoughtful, informed and moving address from Hiroshima
would be a bold and essential act of imagination.
We believe that each of us must honor the past, be in the present,
and remember the future. The Hiroshima Address we imagine you delivering
you would honor the memory of all the souls lost or wounded on both
sides in the Pacific War, make clear the fierce urgency presently
facing us to stop the spread and abolish stockpiles of nuclear weapons,
and remind us that what we say and do today is not merely for ourselves
but for our progeny. We urge you to consider this opportunity. Please
include Hiroshima in your autumn visit to Japan.
Sincerely yours,
John Einarsen
Founding editor, Kyoto Journal, on behalf of our whole
staff
PS. We are enclosing the current issue of our magazine Kyoto
Journal (Perspectives from Asia), a non-profit quarterly that
we have been putting our hearts and minds into on a volunteer basis
for the past 22 years. This issue of KJ focuses on Article 9, the
clause in the Japanese Constitution that forever renounces war.
