Though it sounds unbelievable, the first decade of the 21st century has seen fewer victims of war than any other decade in the last 100 years. That said, on average 55,000 people were still killed in armed conflict every year. So, the current 'low' seems more a reflection of the horrifying rate of bloodshed in the relatively recent past. A past where, we are told, nuclear weapons kept the peace. Then, it feels to me that the current relative lull in war and its death tolls are the calm before the storm...
As part of an ongoing project, for the last six months or so I've been folding peace cranes almost everyday, that effort building now towards the Nae Nukes Anywhere rally at Faslane on 22nd September. My practice means that, whether intellectually or emotionally or even sub-consciously, I've been focused on nuclear war for quite a while. When I join the fast to commemorate the victims of nuclear weapons, then, I will be commemorating the victims of the present and the future as well as of the past. I will probably only manage a one-day fast at this first attempt, but my thoughts will be with everyone fasting. On Nagasaki Day, Thursday 9th, I will be singing with Cor Gobaith at the Peace Tree in Aberystwyth. We find all sorts of ways to express our desperate hopes for a world free from famine as well as from war; hopes for a politics of trust, diversity and mutual aid.