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Fear, Hope, and Nuclear Disarmament


Greetings! I've just started my internship with Basel Peace Office and I'll be posting periodically to let you know what we're up to in Basel and beyond. First off, I'd like to introduce myself regarding where I fit into this movement and my approach to Peacebuilding.

To be perfectly candid, the issues of nuclear weapons abolition and disarmament in general are not my strong suit. I always assumed that these problems were too big and complicated for someone like me to make any difference, best left up to those with more power. I think of myself as being more concerned with influencing the mind-set of everyday people, especially young people, towards greater understanding and compassion. I'm especially concerned for the welfare of our earth-home and the creatures who inhabit it, especially those struggling most in global systems of oppression.

But as I've learned over a year of studying peace, civil society and everyday people have so much power, especially when they unite in action for a common cause. I took this opportunity to widen my outlook and impact, and especially to meet people who dedicated their life energies towards creating a more peaceful world. This, I think, is key to my motivation and learning.

Already I've been exposed to people who have directly experienced the destructive effects of nuclear weapons, from Kazakhstan to New Mexico, people my age and people who've lived through the 60's/70's and are still tirelessly fighting for a better world. I'm reminded of the campaign to ban landmines, in which civil society succeeded in a grassroots effort to ban and remove landmines worldwide. I see the successes of our German partners who convinced companies like Deutsche Bank to divest, and who organize short camps to educate and energize young people about this issue. I've listened to stories from my parents who hid under their desks in school nuclear-bomb drills, and talk as if this problem went away with the cold war.

I understand the overwhelming fear and feeling of helplessness which makes it easier to ignore or deny the dangerous reality of the world we live in because I've also wrestled with this continuously. But I also believe that with more knowledge comes more responsibility, and I hope to use this platform to educate and inform. Not just about the reality of our shared situation, but also reasons for optimism.

Fear is at the core of why nuclear weapons were and continue to be created, and hope translated into action is the most powerful tool we have at our disposal to resist it.

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