Hemlock #47: Teaching Nagasaki feat. Franco Castro Escobar - Disaster Storytelling, Youth Antinuclear Education in Japan, Militarism and Nuclear Abolition, Iris Chang, & The Bells of Nagasaki

Hiroshima rages while Nagasaki prays. FULL EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON PATREON

I'm joined for a second time by friend of the show Franco Castro Escobar, a PhD researcher at Keele University in the UK. This time we discuss life in Nagasaki before, during, and after the nuclear attack, trauma and education, the developmental origins of youth antinuclear activists, hibaku Maria and the destruction of the Urakami Cathedral, Iwo Jima and the Pacific Theater, disaster storytelling and kataribe, militarism in San Diego, efforts to rewrite and suppress history in Japan, Iris Chang and Nanking, and American imperial activities vis a vis the dreaded "counterproliferation" - empowering allies to acquire nuclear weapons or attack adversary states with nuclear breakout potential as an alternative to diplomacy.

We also talk about the beautiful camphor trees in Nagasaki, many of which are still alive today despite being charred and cracked by nuclear blast, the longstanding commitment to nonviolence and prayer as an alternative to hatred in Nagasaki, and some important poetry and theology connected to the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) movement that expresses the 'ultimate aspiration' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be the last cities attacked by atomic bombs as we transition to a more peaceful world, one that must be free of nuclear weapons and threats of their retention and use.

This episode aims to answer a few questions that ought to be important to all of us, namely:

How can children be taught the truth about the historical effects and current reality of nuclear weapons proliferation?

Why did the United States really attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

How do religious beliefs (and the lack thereof) influence how people interpret collective tragedies and respond?

SHOW NOTES

• Franco's article Youth antinuclear socialisation in Japan: early encounters with the concept of nuclear weapons

• Urakami Cathedral, largest Catholic cathedral in Asia

• Book: The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai

• Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition

• Kataribe Storytelling

• Disaster Storytelling

• Minamata Mercury Poisoning Scandal

• Barefoot Gen (Best Hiroshima teaching resource for kids, acc to Franco, genre: Anime and Manga)

• Book: Nagasaki by Susan Southard

• Book: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

• Book: Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley

• Book: When We Say Hiroshima: Selected Poems by Kurihara Sadako

• Book: Command and Control by Eric Schlosser

• Book: Nuclear War: A Scenario by Anne Jacobsen

• Book: The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

• The 1971 Blood Telegram (Bangladesh Genocide/US State Dept)

  
  

  Music Credit (Fair Use Asserted by Author): 福山雅治 - クスノキ-500年の風に吹かれて-（KUSUNOKI PROJECT ver.） https://youtu.be/JumRmUwmOgs