High school students relay appeal for "nuclear abolition" - Lecture commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sendai Peace Tanabata

The temperature on this day was over 30 degrees. It was the first day of the long weekend, but people were already lining up in front of the chapel at Shokei Gakuin High School, the venue, an hour before the event started.

An audience of 500 people packed the venue.

One of the executive committee members, Mr. Satoshi Akai, who is the advisor for the Religious Affairs Department at Shokei Gakuin High School, gave a speech. His high school has participated in the Peace Tanabata activities for the past 45 years.

"Sakuzo Yoshino, who studied the Bible under Annie Buzzell, the first principal of our school, said, 'All people are children of God, and the basis of democracy is that they should be respected as dignified beings.' In addition, as the Bible says, 'Blessed are those who bring about peace,' the idea of 'life first' has supported activities related to the Tanabata Peace Festival."

Terumi Tanaka, representative of the Japan Confederation of A-bomb Victims Organizations, took the stage to applause. He sat down and began speaking. His voice was so powerful it was hard to believe he was 93 years old.

"For a moment the world went white, and I had no idea what had happened. When I came to, the town had disappeared." Tanaka was 13 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on her home in Nagasaki.

"After that, the survivors moved to different places and became scattered, unable to raise their voices. The Daigo Fukuryu Maru incident, in which the survivors were exposed to radiation from an American hydrogen bomb test in the South Pacific, changed the situation. The Hidankyo was formed to widely publicize their experiences of the atomic bombing. It is the result of our movement that nuclear weapons have not been used in the 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Last year, they received the Nobel Peace Prize, but this is not the end. In particular, it is unacceptable that the Japanese government, which proclaims itself to be the "only country to have suffered atomic bombings in war," has not only refused to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but has also refused to participate in the conference as an observer.

The event was managed by 50 members of the Religious Studies Club of Shokei Gakuin High School, who acted as receptionists, moderators, and guides to the venue. Young people were also prominent in the audience.

"What methods can be used to prevent the use of nuclear weapons?" asked a junior high school student. "How can we convey the desire for nuclear abolition to children?" asked a young mother.

Satoshi Ohira, a professor at Miyagi Gakuin Women's University, took the stage in the second part of the event. He reported on the reality of the mobilization of female students, which became clear based on wartime diaries and journals left at the school.

"In 1943, when the war had become a quagmire, many girls' high schools, including the mission schools Miyagi Gakuin and Shokei Gakuin, mobilized their graduating students for the following year to munitions factories around the country as volunteer corps. This was to make up for the labor shortage caused by adult men being sent to the battlefield. Girls were not only mobilized within Miyagi Prefecture; for example, girls from First Girls' High School (formerly Miyagi First Girls' High School) were mobilized by night train to the faraway naval arsenal in Yokosuka."

Using slides, Ohira spoke about how girls' schools, places of learning, were dominated by the shadow of war.

The crowd was excited by a quiz devised by high school students.

"How many cranes were folded at the first Peace Tanabata?", "How many nuclear weapons are currently on earth?", "In the Book of Isaiah in the Bible, 'reforge a sword into ____'", "What is ____?", etc. It was a quiz of 10 multiple choice questions. The two who answered all the questions correctly were presented with a piece of colored paper by Tanaka. This was to ensure that they would not just listen to the lecture, but would also keep the questions in their hearts. It was an idea that only young people could come up with.

This lecture was planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sendai Peace Tanabata Festival this summer, which calls for "nuclear abolition and peace" by making streamers out of folded paper cranes sent from all over the country. It was no mistake to choose the theme of "relaying the appeal for nuclear abolition to future generations."

Applause for the 50 high school students!

Responsible for writing: Executive Committee Member, Tadaki Matsudate