The Life of Food
July 2009
Banner photo: Oxheart tomatoes [© Creativ Studio Heinemann]
Activities for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
The Oslo exhibition opening [SGI]
On April 15, the exhibition "From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Transforming the Human Spirit" opened at the City Hall Gallery in Oslo, Norway. Guests were welcomed by SGI Vice President Hiromasa Ikeda, who in his address noted the important role Oslo has played in peace efforts over the years.
Speaking at the opening, former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said that visitors to the exhibition had been reminded of perhaps the most important question of our time, one which relates to the physical and spiritual survival of humanity.
Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store emphasized the importance of working for nuclear abolition. "What makes human life unique is the scale of our choice, the degree to which we are free to act for good or evil, to help or to harm, to choose between a culture of violence and a culture of peace--the very title of this exhibition."
In a message for the opening, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda urged: "We must remind people that these weapons...are fundamentally incompatible with the conscience of humankind."
Later the same day, a seminar, "Nordic Initiatives for Nuclear Abolition," was held at the Nobel Institute, moderated by Stein Tonnesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). Speakers were Steffen Kongstad, director general of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Sverre Lodgaard of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
At the "Overcoming Nuclear Dangers" conference in Rome [Marco Barozzi]
SGI representatives then traveled on to Rome to participate in a conference on "Overcoming Nuclear Dangers" co-sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Nuclear Security Project and The World Political Forum. Attended by Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former senior U.S. administration officials, the conference was a two-day strategy session among political and civil society leaders on ways to free the world of nuclear weapons.
Yuki Tominaga speaks at the SGI-USA New York Culture Center
[Danny Sze]
From May 5 to 11, SGI representatives including Hirotsugu Terasaki, executive director of the SGI Office of Peace Affairs, participated in meetings held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York preparatory to the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.
On May 11, the SGI held a symposium "Nuclear Abolition and Human Security: Shared action to meet a common threat." Speakers were Kazuo Tase, chief of the Human Security Unit, UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Patricia Lewis, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies; and Kathleen Sullivan, education consultant to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. The event, which was cosponsored by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), explored how the perspectives of human security can be brought to bear in countering the threat of nuclear weapons.
On May 7, SGI-USA's New York Culture Center hosted a visit by five hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) who had traveled to present their testimonies to participants in the official NPT meetings. Over 400 SGI-USA members welcomed them and listened to their accounts. One of the group was a 12-year-old girl, Yuki Tominaga, who accompanied her grandmother, hibakusha Emiko Okada, and who also suffers health problems linked to the bombing.
