2016 commemoration of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Gila Friends Meeting (Quakers), held in Gough Park, Silver City, New Mexico with participants from Grant County, Las Cruces, and El Paso. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be commemorated at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 6, 2023 in the pavilion at Gough Park in Silver City, New Mexico, at the corner of 12th and North Pope Streets, according to an announcement by the Gila Friends Meeting (Quakers). This ceremony of remembrance will begin with a period of silent worship, followed by an opportunity to share reflections in an atmosphere of reverence and respect. All are welcome. Participants are asked to bring their own chairs. Before and after the ceremony, participants may view historical posters on the development, decision making, and effects of the atomic bombings.

The Gila Friends Meeting has observed the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan annually since 1986. The United States exploded the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the second over Nagasaki on August 9. Well over 100,000 people died instantly. Many more died in the months and years that followed from radiation exposure, and many pregnancies ended in stillbirths or in children born severely impaired. Gila Friends invite the community to remember and grieve for the victims of the bombings, as well as for those who have suffered illness and death from uranium mining, bomb testing, and all aspects of weapons construction and management. The event offers participants an opportunity to renew their dedication to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Although arms control and disarmament programs have reduced the number of weapons in the world’s nuclear arsenal by about 80%, the more than 13,000 that remain are sufficient to destroy the world as we have known it many times over – and disarmament efforts have given way to an international arms race aimed at creating a new generation of nuclear weapons. The U.S. has already embarked on a nuclear weapons “modernization” program that is projected to spend at least $2 trillion tax dollars over the next 10 years, much of it at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This moves us further away from the abolition of nuclear weapons that the United States promised to seek 53 years ago! (For more information, visit https://www.fcnl.org/issues/nuclear-weapons  .

The devastating war initiated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, has put the world on a razor’s edge of risk that nuclear weapons will be used in conflict for the first time since 1945. Any such use of nuclear weapons would result in an extreme threat of escalation to all-out nuclear war. Quakers and other faith communities are responding to the specter of nuclear war with concern and action.