According to a recent poll commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross the majority of millennials around the world support the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. They join with the majority of governments around the world (130 out of 193 UN member states).
The poll surveyed over 16,000 millennials (aged 20-35) across 16 countries and territories (Afghanistan, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian territory, Syria, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States) in 2019. (1)
In the detail of the above research, I learned that in Russia 86% and in Ukraine 92% of those surveyed took this view. Only four states were higher, one being Syria.
Older adults in the West (and presumably in Russia too) will have learned from living relatives that, whilst wars are catastrophic for many people, some wars can be won. But nuclear weapons hardly existed when that opinion was being formed. So I shiver when I hear the phrase ‘history repeating itself’ in coverage of the crisis in Ukraine.
It seems to suggest a kind of helplessness, an inevitability.
As if we already know how things will pan out – and maybe there’s nothing we can do.
I refuse to buy that cheap, dangerous soundbite.
Science now makes it clear that a war where nuclear weapons dominate could cause the end of humanity.
The world now versus the world in 1945 are as alike as ‘an apple and a hand grenade’ to adapt the cliché. A world war waged on a ticking time bomb can’t be ‘won’ in any meaningful sense of that word.
Across our world, children, indigenous people, politicians, scientists and adults of all ages are desperately trying to be heard on what they know is needed to reverse climate change and avoid catastrophe.
Is the arms-trade the elephant in the room?
I recently accepted a request from a friend to stand for Scottish CND Executive.
I was tempted to look the other way – afraid of stirring up old fears and panic.
But, I must have been led, as I was elected last November. Since then, I have thrown myself into making a difference.
One experience that particularly resonated with me was a Scottish CND meeting at the Faslane Peace Camp to discuss their forthcoming 40th anniversary in June.
As well as veteran witnesses of the nuclear menace lurking in the Gare Loch, I chatted with a smart, enthusiastic teenager who had recently arrived at the camp.
I asked him what he thought might be the focus of the anniversary events.
His response?
“It has to be the link between the environment and war.”
And not just nuclear weapons, but the arms trade, the whole war machine, we agreed. And now I can’t get his bright smile, his determination to act, out of my mind.
Young people everywhere need our support and action if they are to have a world left to live in. But they also need our belief that change is possible. That the earth can be saved. That war is not inevitable.
And that the age of nuclear weapons is coming to an end.
Nuclear weapons have clearly not ‘kept the peace’ as we’ve all grown tired of being told by those with a short sighted financial or power interest in their continued existence.
But there is hope.
The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) – its contribution to which the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize – entered into force on 22 January 2021. It is already binding on 59 countries so far, with more in the process of joining.
I began this letter with a quote from the ICAN website. I will finish it with another:
“The next generation has spoken: they don’t want nuclear weapons in their future. Today’s leaders should take heed and join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as a first step towards a nuclear-weapon-free future.”
Alicia Sanders Zakre, ICAN Policy and Research Coordinator
Now is not the time to be faint-hearted about this.
Clare Phillips, Castle Douglas Local Meeting
More info on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at www.icanw.org
Scottish CND at www.banthebomb.org
Scottish Partners in ICAN at www.nuclearban.scot