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8-22-06
One-year anniversary celebration of Olympia’s Nuclear Free Zone
Ordinance.
Mayor Foutch
and city council members, my name is Jenny McSharry. I am a
resident of Olympia and a member of the Beyond Hiroshima
Coalition.
My comments
this evening are dedicated to the children of the world who so
often do not have a voice.
When I was
about ten years old, my younger sister came crying in the middle
of the night to my bedroom. She had had a nightmare and was
sobbing deeply, so I told her to tell me all about it. She said
that in the nightmare she had been playing with our brother out
in the field next to our house when suddenly a huge mushroom
cloud exploded up into the sky, and the world as she knew it was
destroyed forever. So deep was my own terror upon hearing my
sister describe her nightmare that I said the only thing I could
think to say in that moment which was, ”Well…it’s not happening
now, is it?”
Somehow,
this calmed her and I felt proud that the words I had grasped
out of the air worked, and she fell asleep.
But, the
problem is…and now that I have grown I know this….the problem
is, is that what I told my sister to comfort her, and what we
tell all our children to comfort them, is a lie, because it IS
happening now. We are living in the shadow of the nuclear
nightmare, now. It is a reality now for those who survived the
blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of who are with us here
today. It is a reality now for all of us who are impacted by
nuclear waste leaching into groundwater at Hanford making its
way to the Columbia River. It is a reality now for those
children born in the area around Chernobyl with encephalitis,
arm and leg deformities, brain cancers, and thyroid problems
which stunt their growth. It is a reality now in the nightmares
of our children.
But there
are those of us who, instead of participating in the nightmare
that the federal government promotes, have instead decided to
dream. We are dreaming a day without nuclear weapons. Please
accept these cranes, symbolic of peace, as a gift of thanks from
The Beyond Hiroshima Coalition to you city council members for
your contribution to our dream. Thank you for passing the
Nuclear Free Zone Ordinance and celebrating its one-year
anniversary with us. We are also gifting these cranes to our
distinguished visitors from Japan and in so doing wish to
highlight that our fate here in Olympia has been and always will
be bound inextricably to theirs, and their fate to ours. We
also hope that in giving these cranes of peace to both you and
our friends in the Japanese delegation that, in some small way,
it begins to build a bond of trust and friendship between the
citizens of Olympia and Japan, despite our federal government’s
shameful immorality and non-compliance with the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In closing,
some of our critics have pointed out that the Nuclear Free Zone
Ordinance is largely symbolic. In response I must express
agreement, and point to the obvious example of the American Flag
in order to highlight that symbols and the symbolic gestures
that accompany them motivate some of the most powerful acts of
service to what amounts to dreams. So, if the ordinance is
largely symbolic, more power to the dreams and dreamers that
gave rise to its existence. And more power to the dream of
peace, which has brought all of us here today, some from halfway
around the world, to celebrate together!
Come and Join Us!
The atomic bomb named
"Little Boy" was dropped on
Hiroshima by
the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 bomber, at 8:15 in the morning of
August 6, 1945. At that moment,
Homo Sapiens
(from the Latin
for man wise or knowing) became a distinctly
endangered
species. A species that had shown a remarkable talent for
adapting to and transforming the planet to accommodate its needs
had suddenly become the biggest threat to its own survival. It
remains to be seen if Homo Sapiens can evolve into Homo Sapiens Summissus (from the Latin for man wise and gentle). It’s an
open question whether the species can develop wisdom or has just
developed self-destructive IQ.
Species Wisdom Factor is the question.
"Never doubt that a small group
of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the
only thing that ever has."
Margaret
Mead
A
small group of thoughtful
citizens came together about January 2005 and decided that Olympia,
Washington and the Greater South Sound Community should stop and
reflect on nuclear weapons and the post-nuclear age. We
chose the week of the sixtieth anniversary of the bombing of
Hiroshima
and Nagasaki for this time of reflection. We welcome you and
thank you for the interest expressed by coming to this site and
reading this far. Feel free to link to this site and spread the
word. More information is available by emailing us at
imagine@beyondhiroshima.org.
We had a great series of event capped by the Olympia City
Council's consideration of an ordinance to make Olympia a
nuclear-free zone.
Our
nuclear
free ordinance was passed in September 2005. You will
need Acrobat Reader to view the ordinance and some other
documents on this website.
 
No Nukes in Space, Please.
We are now
working on enforcement of the ordinance and looking at new ways
that citizens and local communities can take the lead to make
the world a safer place by addressing the risks posed by nuclear
weapons.
Our
Business Sponsors!
Thank you!
The Alpine Experience
KAOS
Radio Station
Traditions Cafe
Bryce's Barber Shop
Olympia Food Coop
Quick Paralegal Services LLC
Fertile Ground
Guesthouse Olympia's
Secret Cafe |
