How to View Peace, How to Create Peace
―70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing: Hiroshima Peace Institute Activities―
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by Gen Kikkawa
President, Hiroshima City University Hiroshima Peace Institute
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I. Who is peace for?
1. Where is peace going?
The international society is in a state of chaos.
While the risk of nuclear war that was apparent during the Cold War has abated, there is still no sign of nuclear weapons being abolished.
On the contrary, global crises are continuing to emerge, including the crisis of the destruction of natural environments, the war of terrorism, the growing gap between rich and poor, and more.
In addition, the political turmoil in the Middle East that followed on from the "Arab Spring" has now developed into civil war in Syria, and allowed the emergence of the terrorist war led by Islamic State.
There is also no foreseeable resolution of the ethnic conflict in the eastern part of the Ukraine.
Looking towards Asia, India and Pakistan's possession of nuclear weapons was followed by the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea, heightening the crisis in the Korean Peninsula.
There has also been continued military expansion in East Asia, wih territorial disputes between Japan and South Korea as well as Japan and China.
It now also seems possible that Japan, supposedly a staunch pacifist nation, could participate in a war by America based on the premise of collective self-defense.
The region of East Asia in which Japan is located has somehow become a dangerous conflict zone.
The aim of this paper is, firstly, to verify the way we view world peace, which is something we have revered, based on the reality of international politics.
At the same time, I would like to propose strategies for achieving peace without weapons and the human security.
The second aim of the paper is to outline the activities of the Hiroshima Peace Institute for the creation of peace in a nuclear-free Asia.
2. In the shadow of peace
As the Cold War ended, something became gradually clearer.
It was the fact that great numbers of people lost their freedom and their lives because their nations fought for peace, for friendly relations, and for national security.
In the shadow of peace occurred not only clear human rights violations, but also massacres so awful that they could not be fully expressed by the widely-known word of "genocide".
In the shadow of peace, there has been continued repression and murder of people, to the extent that we have had to invent new words such as "democide," "politicide" and "classicide".
Even if there is peace, there is no guarantee that people will be safe.
How many people lost their lives in the wars (including civil wars) that occurred in the 20th century?
The number is as many as 134 million to 146 million people.
The number of victims of war from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the end of the conflict in Yugoslavia in 1995 is over 30 million people.
Moreover, the proportion of these victims who are civilian is increasing, and consequently the number of refugees is also growing rapidly.
The number of refugees at the beginning of the 1960s was around 1-2 million people but has now reached 50 million people (current at 2014).
We tend to think that as long as there is not war, we have peace and are safe.
But actually that is not the case.
In the shadow of peace, violence – separate from war – has taken the lives of many civilians and innocent citizens.
This is democide.
Democide is a recent political term that refers to mass slaughter by a government or leader of the citizens under his/her control.
Democide includes not only the intentional killing of citizens by the government, such as genocide or death by firing squad, but also the torture and murder or political prisoners, the abuse and murder of prisoners of war, death by starvation for political reasons, and other cases where citizens have died as a result of willful neglect by the government.
What is the extent of democide that has occurred?
According to R. J. Rummel, who defined the term "democide", the number of victims of democide occurring as the result of political power in the period from 1900 to 1987 was as many as 169 million people.
New incidences of democide occurring from 1987 to 1999 resulted in an additional 1.3 million victims, and adding to this the 38 million peasants murdered in China's Great Leap Forward and others, the total for the period is estimated by Rummel at 260 million people (20th Century Democide http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM, viewed November 16, 2008).
In peace studies to date, democide has not been discussed greatly.
It has mainly occurred in developing nations and socialist nations.
This is a state crime against the subjects of the state by a government that does not guarantee basic human rights and does not govern democratically.
3. Peace order that threatens the safety of the people
Even if there is peace, there is no guarantee that the world will definitely be a safe place for people.
In peaceful times, and even in times that were known as times where the concept of human rights spread internationally, state crimes such as democide resulted in humanitarian crises. But for some reason the international community remained silent, or even overlooked such incidences.
Who was peace for?
Was there some special reason for the international community to pretend that they didn't see?
It is notable that there is actually a rule (international law) in the international community that forbids countries from interfering in the domestic issues of other countries, and in addition, there is an international political structure in place that allows countries to overlook humanitarian crises.
There were originally problems inherent in the international peace order that was established with the United Nations.
The international peace order established by the United Nations refers to the international peace order that was formed based on the principles of sovereign equality, nonintervention, people's right to self-determination, and the maintenance of territorial integrity.
Western nations advocating liberalism as well as socialist nations such as the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations and developing nations with dictatorships in Asia and Africa all wanted the principles of sovereign equality and nonintervention.
This was because as long as the global community adhered to these principles and nations did not invade or intervene in other nations' politics, any country's government would be guaranteed to act freely, with no logical restraints.
On the other hand, the principles of peoples' right to self-determination and maintenance of territorial integrity were the principles that in particular were demanded by non-democratic states with weak ruling foundations and countries with a lack of civic integration.
This is because in international politics, the right to self-determination implies that the government in question is free to control the country in whatever way it pleases.
Moreover, the principle of maintenance of territorial integrity originally meant the prohibition of invasion by other nations in order to secure a country's territorial unity.
However in reality, it could be invoked as an important principle that does not recognize the separation and independence of ethnic groups, which is why some countries wanted this principle.
These international principles that govern the global peace order became a factor allowing the international community to overlook repression of citizens, serious human rights violations, and government-led humanitarian crises.
4. Who is the aid for?
Nonetheless, the international peace order cannot be used as the sole explanation for the global community inevitably overlooking inhumane acts by governments.
Another reason for this was the state of international aid.
What does "aid" actually mean?
I would like to consider here who aid is for, and what is its purpose.
During the period where the peoples in the previously colonized nations in Asia and Africa were recognized as unconditionally independent, and newly independent nations joined the United Nations en masse, those nations were not asked to Westernize (move toward "civilization") as Japan had once been, nor were any questions asked about their methods of domestic rule.
It was a period where wars of aggression had subsided, annexation of territory became a rare occurrence, and the existence of nation states was unconditionally guaranteed.
Nonetheless, in developing nations that had just achieved independence, there were not enough resources available for state-building, and it was unforeseeable how the state could be constructed without aid from the international community.
As long as the international community had recognized nations that had no possibility of achieving economic independence, then the international community now had a duty to support such nations.
The advanced Western nations provided development aid through the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), an organization under the umbrella of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In 1965 the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was established with the aim of supporting the development and growth of developing nations, and the United Nations started providing aid to developing nations through the UNDP.
However, international aid was by no means a charitable work that took the hardships of the developing nations into consideration.
It was a new method of expanding power in peacetime, taking the place of invasion.
This is also connected with the emergence of the situation where the number of nations that were allied started to have an impact.
Based on the global peace where acts of aggression were prohibited, sovereign equality was promised, and the right to self-determination, territorial integrity and noninterference were guaranteed, increasing the number of allied nations was a way of expanding power.
Moreover, the start of the Cold War occurred at the same time as the sudden increase in the number of nations, and this spurred on the competition for allies.
For example, of the 51 nations that were in principle members of the United Nations, only 13 (25%) were from Asia or Africa.
Fifteen years later in 1960, which was known as "Independence of African Nations", the number of United Nations member nations had increased to 100, and by 1962 the total number of member nations allied with the superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union, was fewer than the number of member nations who were not allied with the superpowers.
Then in 1964, developing nations formed the Group of 77 in the United Nations, in order to attract aid from advanced nations, and with this the nations of Asia and Africa became the majority in the international community.
Once the developing natiopns had formed the majority in the international community, they became the target of both the East and the West camps.
The two camps, led respectively by the two superpowers the Soviet Union and the United States, offered strategic aid such as food aid, military support and economic aid in order to secure such nations as allies, paying no heed to whether the country receiving the aid was a dictatorship or based on authoritarian power.
America continued to provide strategic aid to anti-communist military dictatorships and anti-communist forces within non-friendly nations.
The reason that America did not hesitate to provide aid to the military regimes in South Korea and Pakistan as well as the dictatorships in Central and South America was because it was trying to secure such countries as allies or friendly nations.
On the other hand the Soviet Union also spared no effort to provide aid to socialist nations and anti-government communist organizations around the world.
In particular, in the 1970s the Soviet Union supported ten socialist regimes such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola with military aid.
The Soviet Union also provided strategic aid to Eastern European allies.
The aim of such aid, in which the Soviet sacrificed the welfare of its own people to provide aid to Eastern European nations whose standard of living was higher than its own, was to secure allies.
However this aid peaked in 1981, after which time Soviet aid to Eastern Europe became more low-key.
Eventually, breaks in the funding turned into rifts in relationships, Eastern European nations started distancing themselves from the Soviet Union, and as a result of the Eastern Europe democratic revolutions, the Eastern camp (Soviet bloc) collapsed.
Peace is something that we revere as the supreme value.
In actual fact, this peace was achieved by maintaining friendly relations between governments.
The international aid that was viewed as an act of benevolence was mainly strategic aid with the aim of securing the friendship of other governments.
The threat of nuclear war was so grave and fears that international disputes would escalate into nuclear war so serious that members of the international community did not interfere in other countries' human rights issues, genocide, and democracy issues – this is how peace has been maintained.
With the advent of peace, the method of expanding power shifted from territorial expansion to securing allies and friendly nations, which meant the start of a new era of international politics dependent on the number of friendly nations.
However it is no exaggeration to say that this prevented the spread of human rights throughout the world as well as preventing the spread of freedom, equality and democracy.
Aid was the driving force behind the race to secure allies.
Countries were lenient on their allies and tough on countries in the opposing bloc, the human rights issues in allied nations were overlooked and not raised as international issues.
Just because there is peace does not mean that the world is a safe place for people.
So what are the possible methods for achieving international peace at the same time as human security?
I. Who is peace for?
1. The North Wind and the Sun
I do not know anywhere else that has more sincerely prayed and appealed for peace than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There are not so many countries that have been as consistently pacifist as Japan.
So why is there a crisis occurring in the international political situation in East Asia?
Why are there still blatant human rights violations and military expansion in the region?
These kinds of questions are the basis for my efforts to create peace.
In 1995, which was the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I launched an organization called the Hiroshima Research Association (Hiroshima Kenkyu-kai), and five years later in 2000 published "Why are Nuclear Weapons not Abolished?: Nuclear Weapons and International Relations" (Hiroshi Yamada, Ph.D, (eds.), Horitsu-bunkasha, 2000).
The reason that the subheading is "Nuclear Weapons and International Relations" is because I had a particular interest in my own research method for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In other words, I tried to clarify the background behind the development of nuclear weapons and the reason that it is difficult to eliminate them from the context of international relations.
I particularly wanted to emphasize the domestic political situation that pushes a government toward the development of nuclear weapons, and also focus on the fact that the mechanism of international politics whereby countries that are isolated in international society try to maintain their state regime (administration) by "taking out nuclear insurance" – this is an international factor in the development of nuclear weapons.
This is due to the fact that pressuring nuclear powers to abolish nuclear weapons and trying to indicate a roadmap for doing so without making changes to domestic governance mechanisms and international political systems has a very low likelihood of actually being achieved.
When a nation is isolated in the international community with no guarantee of that nation's independence or security, it is not improbable that government leaders will consider a national security strategy that obtains nuclear weapons, the most powerful weapons in the history of humankind, and uses them to fend off external pressure.
If this is the case, then what should be changed, and how?
In answering this question, I would like to use one of Aesop's fables, The North Wind and the Sun, and consider the "North Wind policy" and the "Sun policy" for eliminating nuclear weapons.
The "North Wind policy" refers to the method of using sanctions against nuclear weapon development or setting deadlines for their abolition.
But that alone is not adequate.
The "Sun policy" refers to the method whose aim is to create a security community where a country's existence and peoples' safety is guaranteed, and weapons are unnecessary.
Let us recall the nation-building efforts of Japan in the Meiji period.
The arming of the clans that was allowed during the Edo period was disallowed during Meiji, and at the same time the new Meiji administration established a national military and police organization, and achieved military state unification and centralized control.
On the other hand, a national awareness (awareness of the Japanese people) was developed, a conflict resolution system (judiciary) established, and efforts were also made to build a safe country ruled by law where there was no need to resort to violence nor to fear it.
Politically stable countries have various systems established, including a police system, welfare systems, medical systems and education systems.
Such systems allow the citizens of that country to live safely and with peace of mind.
The same thing can be said about the international community.
Indicating a roadmap for the creation of a living space that allows people of any nation to live safely and with peace of mind is precisely what the Sun policy is.
2. Experience of building a community in Europe
The national-building method explained above may also be applied to the international community, which has no central government.
In the regions seen as peace zones, such as Northern Europe, the EU and North America, the reason that there are no wars and that people's safety including human rights are being guaranteed is because there is an international security community that goes beyond national boundaries.
This is very easy to understand if we take a glance at the history of the EC/EU.
The EC originally began with joint international initiatives to create a community to achieve conciliation between Germany and France and prevent war.
Europe was embroiled in racial hatred immediately after the Second World War, and it must have been far from easy to integrate countries that had been enemies.
Up until that time there had been wars of aggression over the acquisition of strategic items such as coal and steel, so they were attempting to avoid war by jointly managing strategic resources, achieve economic integration, and weaken the concept of national interest as much as possible.
In line with these peace-building aims, the European Economic Community, European Coal and Steel Community and European Atomic Energy Community were integrated to form the European Community (EC).
Creating peace requires the expertise of academics to design the drawings for the systems.
Without using practical and effective methodologies based on academic research results, it is not possible to create an international security community.
With the First World War, a number of new academic disciplines were developed, including international politics, international law and peace research, and researchers have worked to develop methodologies for the creation of peace.
In that light, research results particularly from the disciplines of international law and international politics but also from international relations studies must be incorporated in and applied to the creation of a security community for its further development.
In actual fact the EC/EU was achieved only when politicians and researchers worked together to design a security community and work on its implementation.
The researchers designed a process schedule that started from economic integration, and then proceeded to political integration, eventually developing into a security community.
Based on that blueprint, politicians worked on creating that community.
This grand international peace-building project was achieved because there were people with foresight who tried to achieve the prescription for international integration that was designed by the academics.
It surely would not have been achieved without the resolve and leadership of the architects of European integration, including Jean Monnet, Robert Schumann, and Charles de Gaulle of France, and West Germany's Konrad Adenauer.
Most social science universities offer courses on international integration or the EU, covering the history of the development of the EC/EU and the related issues.
This is a specialized subject and one of the top international relations subjects offered at universities not only in Western nations but throughout the world.
The idea of a security community in East Asia seems like nothing more than a dream and is probably seen as something that might be achieved far in the future.
There will probably also be opponents, who point out some of Asia's unique characteristics.
There may also be people who reject it, saying it is just a revival of the Great East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.
Nonetheless, Hiroshima has continued to appeal for a peace free from nuclear weapons, and from that perspective for Hiroshima, this issue cannot be avoided.
III. Hiroshima Peace Institute initiatives
1. Basic policy
There is a problem with the fact that peace has only been viewed from the perspective of international peace, and that people have closed their eyes to the negative aspects of the international activities of peace, friendship and aid as they are put into practice – activities that have been treated as benevolent acts in the international community.
It is also problematic that the viewpoint of human security was missing from security policy.
The fact that peace and national security were interpreted as opposing concepts became an obstacle in the development of a multifaceted approach to pursue both of them.
We must not forget the multifaceted approach to peace that sees the creation of international peace and the achievement of human security as inseparable, and works to achieve both.
Based on an interest on the above problems, following is an explanation of Hiroshima Peace Institute's perspective on peace and its new initiatives.
The mission of the Hiroshima Peace Institute, founded in the world's first city to be hit by an atomic bomb, is to encourage people to reconsider the way peace is viewed, and to gather together all current academic and research findings and make use of them in the creation of peace.
The Sun policy mentioned above refers to the creation of the East Asian community.
Activities aiming for the creation of an East Asian security community that does not need weapons, let alone nuclear weapons, are truly a Sun policy, and I believe that the mission of the Hiroshima Peace Institute is to provide guidance on the methodology to do so.
Working at the same time to enhance Hiroshima's voice for the creation of peace, in its mid-long term activities, the Hiroshima Peace Institute has set three research aims and organized research groups for each.
In addition to the conventional topic of nuclear disarmament research, the Institute is also investigating the new topic of human security research.
We are also involved in research on the introduction of Confidence-and Security-Building Measures (CSBMs) in East Asia, and we are considering the publication of the "Asia Nuclear Weapons and Peace Yearbook" in a few years time, with a view to the future construction of an East Asian security community.
The aim of publishing the yearbook is to identify the issues involved in creating an East Asian community and the background to those issues, by observing nuclear and disarmament trends in Asia and monitoring governance trends in Asian nations focusing on human rights and democratic systems.
2. Events commemorating 70 years since the atomic bombing
Finally, I would like to explain three events that the Hiroshima Peace Institute is implementing as events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
The first is the invitation and holding of The Peace Studies Association of Japan Spring Conference 2015.
In line with the 70th anniversary of the bombing, from June 18 (Sat) -19 (Sun), 2015, we will hold a seminar called "Redefining Peace 70 Years after Losing the War – Considering a Roadmap for and Asia-Pacific Peace Order in Hiroshima".
The seminar will be held at Aster Plaza in Hiroshima City.
Second is the compilation called the Encyclopedia of Peace and Security.
To date there have been no peace-related encyclopedias published since the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation's Peace Encyclopedia was published in 1985.
Since 1985, the Cold War has ended, and there have been major changes in the structure of international relations and international politics.
Despite this, and despite the fact that the concept of peace has diversified, in Japan no peace-related encyclopedia has been compiled since then.
The Hiroshima Peace Institute has already started compiling the Encyclopedia of Peace and Security, and we are working to have it published by summer this year as a publication to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
Thirdly, we will be holding an intensive summer seminar called "Hiroshima 70 Peace Seminar" for three days (September 4-6 this year) titled "What is Peace Building? – Past, Present and Future of Peace Research".
Peace research is a policy science discipline that aims to develop methods for creating systems to prevent war and build peace.
Therefore, the research methods and the methodologies recommended through the research are naturally academic.
This seminar will be held centering on researchers active in various different fields, including international politics, international law, political science, international organizations studies, regional research, and more.
The seminar is open to public servants involved in peace administration, members of the press who are involved in work to communicate peace, and members of the public and graduate students who would like hear about the latest peace research.
We want to discuss peace together, share expertise on how to build peace, and design a peace-building concept together.
The aim of planning this seminar is to provide participants with the opportunity to learn about the latest peace research.
The Hiroshima 70 Seminar will not end with the events to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
We will use this as an opportunity to hold an intensive summer seminar in Hiroshima every year from now.
In the mid- to long-term, the aim of this academic activity is to develop Hiroshima into the front line for knowledge on peace research – the Mecca for peace research.
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Profile
[Gen Kikkawa]
Born 1951 in Hiroshima City.
LLM, PhD (Judicial Science), Hitotsubashi University.
Main works include "After National Self‐Determination: National Minorities and International Security in a Dilemma" (YUSHINDO, 2009),
"International Security: Trajectory of War, Peace and Human Security" (YUHIKAKU, 2007),
and joint editing and writing works include "Global Governance" (HOURITAU BUNKA SHA, 2014).
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