The Nobel Peace Prize 2024 has been awarded to Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo of survivors of the World War II atomic bombings, reported news agency AP. A grassroots firm received prestigious award for its efforts “to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”
The Nobel Committee praised the organisation “for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” The organisation also called as Hibakusha, was found by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945.
“One day, the atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki will no longer be among us as witnesses to history,” the committee said, announcing its decision in Oslo on Friday.
“But with a strong culture of remembrance and continued commitment, new generations in Japan are carrying forward the experience and the message of the witnesses,” it added.
In response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945, a global movement arose whose members have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons. Gradually, a powerful international norm developed, stigmatising the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. This norm has become known as “the nuclear taboo”.
The testimony of the Hibakusha – the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – is unique in this larger context. These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons. The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.