Writes: James N. Kariuki

Obama, nuclear weapons and the race factor — Given the history of nuclear weapons relative to the non-white world, and noting the ongoing ‘loose talk about nukes’ in the US regarding Iran, it is fitting that Barack Obama should aspire to eliminate all nuclear weapons, American and otherwise. Perhaps, he owes it most to his ancestral Diaspora.

In early August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The indiscriminate damage of life and property was immeasurable. It was a massive collective punishment, a classic case of the power of modern civilisation without its mercy.

Ever since, the world has been haunted by two questions. Was the use of nuclear devices necessary? Would the US have used nuclear weapons against white Germany? Critics remain deeply divided.

President Harry Truman’s sympathisers however, support his logic that the bombs were vital to shortening the war in the Pacific and saving American lives.

Doubters insist that by mid-1945, Japan was virtually a crippled enemy. Nazi Germany had already surrendered in May 1945.

Combined bombardment

How much longer could Japan have endured under the combined ‘conventional’ bombardment of the Allies and, possibly, Russia?

In short, the American use of atomic weapons was unnecessary, prompted and made easier by the fact that the victims were non-white. Indeed innuendoes abound that America used the Japanese as guinea pigs to demonstrate the ravaging power of its new, barbarous weapon.

Twenty years later, the same US was bogged down in the protracted Vietnam War, and language of nuclear weapons resurfaced in American politics. The 1964 Republican presidential contender, Barry Goldwater, openly recommended using low-yield nuclear weapons for defoliation of Vietnamese woodlands.

Goldwater’s ‘nuclear reckless talk’ ultimately cost him the presidency. But in the hunt for it, he had arrogated to himself the right to entertain nuclear language that could have resulted in annihilation of a Southeast Asian nation.

Again, the collective victims would have been non-whites — men, women and children alike.

Castro’s autobiography

In a 2007 autobiography, Fidel Castro: My Life, the Cuban icon narrates the story that for Angola’s freedom, Cuban and Angolan troops fought against an apartheid army and government that had eight Hiroshima/Nagasaki-size atomic bombs secretly “provided by the US through … Israel.” Were those weapons developed during the South African-Israeli nuclear collaboration or were they US-made? In either case, the targets were black people.

As SA approached freedom, the West became increasingly nervous over the prospects of blacks inheriting a nuclear state.

Accordingly, Nelson Mandela and his associates were vigorously coaxed into dismantling the bombs and signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Racist SA could be nuclear; democratic one could not.

Given the history of nuclear weapons relative to the non-white world, and noting the ongoing ‘loose talk about nukes’ in the US regarding Iran, it is fitting that Barack Obama should aspire to eliminate all nuclear weapons, American and otherwise. Perhaps, he owes it most to his ancestral Diaspora.

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Prof. Ali Mazrui
Nuclear weapons are symbols of military strength. Until 1998, these weapons were a monopoly of the already politically powerful five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Those who are outgunned are sometimes forced to resort to terrorist tactics.

Terrorism is an instrument of the weak and it has been largely associated with Muslims. Yet, the Muslim world has been deliberately denied nuclear capability more systematically than any other part of the world. Indeed, no other part of the world has paid a bigger price for aspiring to go nuclear than the Muslim world.

In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor. After the Gulf War in early 1990s, Iraq was also hounded about its nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities. The Anglo-American invasion followed in 2003.

Likewise, Pakistan was subjected to economic sanctions by the US because of its nuclear programs long before detonation of its devices in May 1998.

Until then, when others attempted to go nuclear, the US used a combination of carrot and stick to influence their behavior.

The stick is applied more in the Muslim world. Libya and Iran have been repeatedly warned of dire consequences if ever they attempted to go nuclear.

Two partitions in the 20th century profoundly affected the Muslim world. A 1947 partition paved way for formation of new Muslim country: Pakistan. The other partition, in 1948, created a new adversary to the Muslim world: Israel. Both Israel and Pakistan were affected by the nuclear factor.

Israel was created three years after the American nuclear detonation on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Before long, Israel also asserted a monopoly of nuclear power in the Middle East. And when Pakistan sensed that India had the weapon; it decided to also possess the weapon as deterrence.

Pakistan at last detonated a device. It could use the Islamic card subtly. There were countries in the West that were prepared to help Pakistan against acute economic sanctions. Their advice was that westerners should avoid driving Pakistan into the embrace of the Muslim world.

France’s President Jacques Chiraq for example insisted that, if Pakistan was pushed too far, it could become too dependent on the Muslim world. If it needed economic assistance from the Muslim world, what could it offer in return? Technology. That know-how could ultimately include nuclear technology.

Kwame Nkrumah once asserted Africa’s right to participate in a world of nuclear energy. In 1979, I too speculated about an African nuclear challenge, including a future Nigeria, a future South Africa and conceivably even a future Zaire.

Since my 1979, speculation in the BBC Reith lectures, Nigeria and Zaire have regressed from being potential nuclear powers. Their respective infrastructures have degenerated dismally, and so much of their scientific talent has been brain drained.

For South Africa, as soon as the bomb was in danger of falling into Black hands, FW De Klerk, and later Nelson Mandela, were coaxed into signing the Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Treaty.

Clearly, my 1979 proposal for a nuclearised Africa are now further away from fulfillment. Nonetheless, in this new millennium, it is fitting to re-open the question as to whether to accept the global status quo. The issue is pressing given that India and Pakistan are now nuclear states and raging confrontations have arisen regarding North Korea and Iran.

As I saw the issue in 1979, and has continued to be expressed by others as such since, the world nuclear situation is a kind of apartheid. We have five Nuclear Haves, who are under no pressure to give up their arsenals of mass destruction weapons. Then there are nuclear Have-nots who are punished when they show nuclear aspirations.

My view is still that some degree of proliferation may shock the five principal nuclear powers out of their complacency. Such proliferation would convince them that the current system of a few select nuclear powers cannot be forever sustained. Therefore, we should aim for global nuclear disarmament, universal and total renunciation of those evil weapons for everybody. When that is done, we can then try to establish a system of monitoring that would apply evenly to everybody.

There is no reason, for example, why one military alliance, NATO, should have three nuclear powers. Can the US and the UK ever be on opposite sides of a war? Yet, the US, the Britain and France are in one military alliance, and each of them insists of keeping those weapons. Yet, they have the arrogance to tell others that they cannot have them.

Four Christian countries and one Confucian-Marxist power have asserted nuclear monopoly. There is an additional Jewish state in the Middle East that is permitted to have weapons of mass destruction, and the US shows indifference. And in 2003 the same America undertook to bomb Iraq to smithereens for ‘alleged’ same offense.

Unless you have a system that secures people on equal terms, what is to prevent the next government of Iraq from developing nuclear capability, short of permanently colonising it? The genie is already out of the bottle. How do you get it back?

In the final analysis, nuclear monopoly is severely challenged in South Asia. A much needed crack has been created in the nuclear apartheid system, a system that is not sustainable any way. Nuclear weapons are evil. They ought to be abolished; but for everybody. As long as they are possessed by anyone, it will be legitimate for others to aspire for them.

Globally today, there are weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of people and potentially millions of people. The main disagreement is whether these weapons should be abolished altogether. And if it is the case that they should, how do we set about convincing the Nuclear Haves that these weapons should go?

I remain convinced that we cannot persuade the North to disarm unless there is some degree of transient nuclear proliferation to persuade them that universal nuclear disarmament is the only solution.

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