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President Obama’s Speech in Hiroshima, Japan
[1] Seventy-one years ago, on a bright
cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and
the world was changed. A flash of light and a
wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated
[5] that mankind possessed the means to destroy
itself.
It is not the fact of war that sets
Hiroshima apart. Artifacts tell us that violent
conflict appeared with the very first man. Our
[10] early ancestors having learned to make blades
from flint and spears from wood used these
tools not just for hunting but against their
own kind. On every continent, the history of
civilization is filled with war, whether driven
[15] by scarcity of grain or hunger for gold, comp
elled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal.
Empires have risen and fallen. Peoples have
been subjugated and liberated. And at each
juncture, innocents have suffered, a countless
[20] toll, their names forgotten by time.
The world war that reached its brutal
end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fought
among the wealthiest and most powerful of
nations. Their civilizations had given the world
[25] great cities and magnificent art. Their thinkers
had advanced ideas of justice and harmony
and truth. And yet the war grew out of the
same base instinct for domination or conquest
that had caused conflicts among the simplest
[30] tribes, an old pattern amplified by new
capabilities and without new constraints.
In the image of a mushroom cloud that
rose into these skies, we are most starkly
reminded of humanity’s core contradiction.
[35] How the very spark that marks us as a
species, our thoughts, our imagination, our
language, our toolmaking, our ability to set
ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our
will — those very things also give us the
[40] capacity for unmatched destruction.
How often does material advancement
or social innovation blind us to this truth? How
easily we learn to justify violence in the name
of some higher cause.
[45] Every great religion promises a pathway
to love and peace and righteousness, and yet
no religion has been spared from believers
who have claimed their faith as a license to
kill.
[50] Nations arise telling a story that binds
people together in sacrifice and cooperation,
allowing for remarkable feats. But those same
stories have so often been used to oppress
and dehumanize those who are different.
[55] Science allows us to communicate
across the seas and fly above the clouds, to
cure disease and understand the cosmos, but
those same discoveries can be turned into
ever more efficient killing machines.
[60] The wars of the modern age teach us
this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth.
Technological progress without an equivalent
progress in human institutions can doom us.
The scientific revolution that led to the
[65] splitting of an atom requires a moral
revolution as well.
Mere words cannot give voice to such
suffering. But we have a shared responsibility
to look directly into the eye of history and ask
[70] what we must do differently to curb such
suffering again.
Since that fateful day, we have made
choices that give us hope. The United States
and Japan have forged not only an alliance but
[75] a friendship that has won far more for our
people than we could ever claim through war.
The nations of Europe built a union that
replaced battlefields with bonds of commerce
and democracy. Oppressed people and nations
[80] won liberation. An international community
established institutions and treaties that work
to avoid war and aspire to restrict and roll
back and ultimately eliminate the existence of
nuclear weapons.
[85] Still, every act of aggression between
nations, every act of terror and corruption and
cruelty and oppression that we see around the
world shows our work is never done. We may
not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do
[90] evil, so nations and the alliances that we form
must possess the means to defend ourselves.
But among those nations like my own that
hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the
courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue
[95] a world without them.
We may not realize this goal in my
lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the
possibility of catastrophe. We can chart a
course that leads to the destruction of these
[100] stockpiles. We can stop the spread to new
nations and secure deadly materials from
fanatics.
And yet that is not enough. For we see
around the world today how even the crudest
[105] rifles and barrel bombs can serve up violence
on a terrible scale. We must change our mindset
about war itself. To prevent conflict
through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts
after they’ve begun. To see our growing
[110] interdependence as a cause for peaceful
cooperation and not violent competition. To
define our nations not by our capacity to
destroy but by what we build. And perhaps,
above all, we must reimagine our connection
[115] to one another as members of one human
race.
For this, too, is what makes our species
unique. We’re not bound by genetic code to
repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn.
[120] We can choose. We can tell our children a
different story, one that describes a common
humanity, one that makes war less likely and
cruelty less easily accepted.
My own nation’s story began with
[125] simple words: All men are created equal and
endowed by our creator with certain
unalienable rights including life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. Realizing that ideal
has never been easy, even within our own
[130] borders, even among our own citizens. But
staying true to that story is worth the effort. It
is an ideal to be strived for, an ideal that
extends across continents and across oceans.
The irreducible worth of every person, the
[135] insistence that every life is precious, the
radical and necessary notion that we are part
of a single human family — that is the story
that we all must tell.
Ordinary people understand this, I
[140] think. They do not want more war. They
would rather that the wonders of science be
focused on improving life and not eliminating
it. When the choices made by nations, when
the choices made by leaders, reflect this
[145] simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima
is done.
The world was forever changed here,
but today the children of this city will go
through their day in peace. What a precious
[150] thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then
extending to every child. That is a future we
can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and
Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of
atomic warfare but as the start of our own
[155] moral awakening.
From:www.nytimes.com
The sentences “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed” (lines 01-03) and “We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe” (lines 96-98) respectively contain a
different story, one that describes a common
humanity, one that makes war less likely and
cruelty less easily accepted.
My own nation’s story began with
[125] simple words: All men are created equal and
endowed by our creator with certain
unalienable rights including life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. Realizing that ideal
has never been easy, even within our own
[130] borders, even among our own citizens. But
staying true to that story is worth the effort. It
is an ideal to be strived for, an ideal that
extends across continents and across oceans.
The irreducible worth of every person, the
[135] insistence that every life is precious, the
radical and necessary notion that we are part
of a single human family — that is the story
that we all must tell.
Ordinary people understand this, I
[140] think. They do not want more war. They
would rather that the wonders of science be
focused on improving life and not eliminating
it. When the choices made by nations, when
the choices made by leaders, reflect this
[145] simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima
is done.
The world was forever changed here,
but today the children of this city will go
through their day in peace. What a precious
[150] thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then
extending to every child. That is a future we
can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and
Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of
atomic warfare but as the start of our own
[155] moral awakening.
From:www.nytimes.com
The sentences “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed” (lines 01-03) and “We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe” (lines 96-98) respectively contain a
