{"id":6986,"date":"2020-03-16T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/?p=6986"},"modified":"2023-05-04T15:10:01","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T05:10:01","slug":"the-nuclear-free-pacific-is-not-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/the-nuclear-free-pacific-is-not-free\/","title":{"rendered":"The nuclear-free Pacific is not free"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When\nwhite flakes fell from the sky in the atolls belonging to the Marshall Islands,\nchildren were in awe and wonder, thinking it was snowing. It wasn\u2019t snow. This\n\u2018white ash\u2019 was the fallout from the thermo-nuclear bomb called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctbto.org\/specials\/testing-times\/1-march-1954-castle-bravo\/\">Castle Bravo,\ndetonated on March 1st, 1954<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nCastle Bravo nuclear test was not the first and neither would it be the last.\nThe nuclear testing programme prevailed in the Pacific from 1946 to 1996 by the\nUSA, France and the United Kingdom on the premise of\nsecuring the world from the threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The traditional security philosophies and\nstrategies of nuclear deterrence during the cold-war era has left a Pacific legacy\nthat has had a critical impact on individuals, communities, health systems, the\nenvironment, politics and economies. The United Nations Development Fund\nidentified these concepts as factors of human security in its ground breaking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hdr.undp.org\/en\/humandev\">Human Development Report in 1994.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/projects\/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise\/\">The Runit Dome<\/a>\nin the Marshall Islands is sealed over 3.1 million cubic feet of irradiated\nsoil and other radioactive debris as well as plutonium. This dome known as the\n\u201cThe Tomb\u201d is at risk of leaking due to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificclimatechangescience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/8_PCCSP_Marshall_Islands_8pp.pdf\">the rising sea\nlevels<\/a>.\nThe Marshall Islands government maintains its claim that the US government has\nnot taken responsibility for the environmental catastrophe they have left\nbehind with regard to the potential leak of the contents of the dome into the\nsea and the questions of <a href=\"https:\/\/k1project.columbia.edu\/news\/k1-projects-recent-research-marshall-islands\">resettlement<\/a> for those that\nhave been internally displaced &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">France\nconducted<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctbto.org\/nuclear-testing\/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing\/frances-nuclear-testing-programme\/\"> 193 <\/a>atmospheric and underground\nnuclear tests in French Polynesia over 30 years, ending in 1996. Land and sea\nwere used as nuclear waste dumping grounds contaminated with radioactivity and\nplutonium when a bomb cracked on Moruroa. <a href=\"http:\/\/canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz\/peace\/nuchealth.html\">The health impacts\nof nuclear testing<\/a>\nby France on the people of French Polynesia has been underplayed by the French\ngovernment, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ippnw.org\/pdf\/Moruroa-the-bomb-and-us.pdf\">International\nPhysicians For the Prevention of Nuclear War<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.equaltimes.org\/beyond-radioactivity-how-french\">A lack of\ntransparency <\/a>and data measuring the direct links of nuclear\nradiation in the environment and health has made it challenging to monitor as\nsymptoms and diseases caused by radiation exposure have only come to light in\nrecent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/disarmament.blogs.pace.edu\/2018\/05\/07\/fiji-addressing-the-humanitarian-and-human-rights-concerns-of-kirisimasi-christmas-and-malden-island-veterans\/\">Fijian and I-Kiribati<\/a> servicemen\nand civilian personnel were among those that worked with the nuclear testing\nof bombs and waste disposal in Krisimasi and Malden islands, between 1957 and\n1958. <a href=\"https:\/\/press.anu.edu.au\/publications\/series\/pacific\/grappling-bomb\"><em>Grappling with the Bomb<\/em><\/a><em> : Britain\u2019s Pacific H-bomb tests<\/em> authored by Nic\nMaclellan, details the stories of victims, witnesses and the lack of\naccountability and cover ups by the UK government under Harold Macmillan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nclimate change discourse has done two significant things in the Pacific: it has\nunited the region in one voice and it has also obfuscated the region\u2019s human\nrights issues. Before climate change put Pacific leaders and civil society on the world\nstage, the protests and the<a href=\"http:\/\/repository.usp.ac.fj\/5658\/1\/Ending_nuclear_testing_in_the_Pacific-_Bishop_Bryce_and_the_Pacific_conference_of_churches.pdf\"> movement<\/a> to halt nuclear\ntesting in the Pacific region was one of the catalysts of &nbsp;regional political and moral agency. Although\nnot all Pacific nations were used for nuclear testing, the first post-colonial generation\nof Pacific political leaders from Fiji, (Western) Samoa and Tonga, united their\nvoices in protest to end it. <em>(See chapter\nsix of Greg Fry\u2019s Framing the Islands, The decolonisation of regional\ngovernance.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">International\nrelations scholar, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20097510?origin=JSTOR-pdf&amp;seq=1\">Mohammed Ayoob<\/a> in his 1995 book,\n<em>The Third World Security Predicament:\nState Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System<\/em>, identifies the\nrelationship between colonial and post-colonial legacy and its history of\nongoing unsettled issues of \u2018new\u2019 states even into the twenty-first century. Pacific\nisland nations such as Marshall Islands have not only inherited their colonial\nhistories but also the human and environmental impacts of the nuclear testing\nlegacy some seventy-four years later, while still forming their agency as\nindependent states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pacific\nisland leaders agreed that climate change remains the single greatest threat to\nregional security in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forumsec.org\/boe-declaration-on-regional-security\/\">Boe Declaration<\/a>. However, the\nexisting human rights challenges that are linked to nuclear testing risk being\nobscured by the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A\nnew generation of leaders &nbsp;who are&nbsp; making their debut in the climate change\ndiscourse may not fully understand the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanscientist.org\/article\/fallout-from-nuclear-weapons-tests-and-cancer-risks\">legacy <\/a>of\nnuclear testing\nand how it continues to be linked to the question of self-determination and the\nfight for the recognition of human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nclimate change discourse might become seized by narratives that could propagate\nother agendas and focus away from human rights issues such as those caused by\nnuclear testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\natomic blast of Castle Bravo on Bikini Atoll caused the irradiation of a Japanese\n<a href=\"https:\/\/thebulletin.org\/2018\/02\/how-the-unlucky-lucky-dragon-birthed-an-era-of-nuclear-fear\/\">fishing vessel<\/a> when its crew were\nfishing in the Pacific Ocean at the time of the explosion. This incident not\nonly caused a diplomatic incident between Japan and US governments but also\ninspired the cinematic birth of Gojira or Godzilla, as the creature is commonly\nknown. Godzilla became an iconic symbol of Japanese post-nuclear legacy after\nUSA dropped the atom bomb on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.icanw.org\/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_bombings\"> Hiroshima and\nNagasaki in 1945.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But\neven Godzilla\u2019s own <a href=\"http:\/\/journeytothewiredwest.com\/history\/the-origins-of-godzilla-castle-bravo-and-the-daigo-fukuryu-maru\/\">history<\/a> has been\ncontrolled by narratives which attempt to diffuse the nuclear discourse. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g4H2pEkMsKs\">American movie re-makes <\/a>left out\nreferences and distorted the context of&nbsp;\nGodzilla\u2019s origins in comparison to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YOm1hMfNPG4\">original Japanese <\/a>version\nin 1954,\nwhose storyline served as a reminder of the nuclear bomb and its devastation on\nhumanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Environmental\ndegradation, internal displacement, impacts on health, the lack of political\nand social agency are not all effects of climate change. These are some of the pre-existing\nfactors that are linked to nuclear testing in parts of the Pacific and\nsupported by evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The climate change context may make these factors worse if the root causes of human suffering are not recognised, addressed and ameliorated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"author label wp-block-paragraph\">AUTHOR<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Grace Maharaj <\/strong>was born in Fiji and grew up in New Zealand and is a resident of Sweden. She has worked with asylum and migration for the social services department under the municipality of Stockholm. She is currently studying Climate Change Leadership, Peace and Conflict Studies at the Uppsala University, Sweden.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When white flakes fell from the sky in the atolls belonging to the Marshall Islands, children were in awe and wonder, thinking it was snowing. It wasn\u2019t snow. This \u2018white ash\u2019 was the fallout from the thermo-nuclear bomb called Castle Bravo, detonated on March 1st, 1954. The Castle Bravo nuclear test was not the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":6987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1758,1021,248,1057],"tags":[783,969,1050],"class_list":["post-6986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-environment","category-pacific-outlook","category-png-and-the-pacific","category-security","tag-denuclearisation","tag-pacific-islands","tag-pacific-outlook"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Jill Moriarty","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The nuclear-free Pacific is not free | Griffith Asia Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When white flakes fell from the sky in the atolls belonging to the Marshall Islands, children were in awe and wonder, thinking it was snowing. 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