The reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize has taken a battering over years. Awarded to undeserving recipients, the nobility and dignity of the award has been debased. Giving a peace prize to politicians responsible for implementing wars overseas makes a mockery of the Nobel awards and international law.

Former US President Barack Obama, when given the prize in 2009, basically admitted he had not actually done anything to deserve it. The Nobel has been awarded to American war criminals, such as Henry Kissinger and Teddy Roosevelt, both responsible for the deaths of millions of non-Americans due to their reckless foreign policies.

The winner of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize is not an individual, but an organisation. A grassroots organisation in Japan, Nihon Hidankyo is a collective of atomic bombing survivors. The full name of the group is the Japan Confederation of A- and H- Bomb Sufferers Organisation. A long name, perhaps, but one which encapsulates the purpose of the group.

The Nobel committee cited the organisation’s tireless efforts to secure a world free of nuclear weapons. Founded in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo has promoted a message of peace, highlighting the destructive ferocity of nuclear weapons, and the ongoing health and safety impacts of atomic fallout. The group is made up of hibakusha – atomic bombing survivors. The US authorities opposed the formation of Nihon Hidankyo.

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Nobel committee, stated that the hibakushi experiences help future generations understand the enormity of nuclear bombings, and recommit all of us to the cause of a non-nuclear world.

We would do well, and learn from the example of the atomic bombing survivors, to carry forward the lessons they teach us. One of the issues with which we should be concerned is the proliferation of nuclear weapons since the end of World War 2. While we are all aware of the destructive arsenal of nuclear weapons possessed by the US, Russia, and other economic powers, Australia has played a crucial role in the rise of a third nuclear power after 1945 – Britain.

Montebello Islands

In 1952, only a few years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima And Nagasaki, British authorities detonated their first atomic explosion on the Montebello Islands, 130 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. Codenamed Operation Hurricane, Britain became the world’s third nuclear power. A number of British scientists had worked on the now-famous Manhattan project during the war, and the English government had established its own nuclear programme, codenamed Tube Alloys.

The end of the war saw the closure of the Manhattan Project, and London was exploring ways to establish itself as a major nuclear power. The 1952 tests were just the beginning of a long running range of atomic testing carried out by Britain on Australian soil.

In 1956, the year that Nihon Hidankyo was founded in Japan, Britain carried out a series of secret nuclear tests on the Montebello Islands, cementing its place in the nuclear club of nations. Unbeknown to the Australian public, but with the permission of the Australian authorities, the nuclear tests at Montebello were vastly more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Initially estimated to be 50 kilotons in power, the Montebello bombings were actually 98 kilotons, six times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. The fallout from these explosions spread for hundreds of kilometres. Residents in coastal WA towns reported hearing and feeling the blasts, followed by the now-familiar image of the mushroom cloud.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) issued several reports into the levels of radioactivity in the islands and surrounding areas. However, beyond that, successive Australian governments, beginning with Menzies, have drawn a veil of secrecy over these tests for the last 70 years.

While Australian authorities engage in the delusional fantasy that AUKUS nuclear submarines will bring security, and Australian Trumpist imitator Peter Dutton peddles reheated lukewarm illusions in nuclear power, the danger of proliferation is ignored.

The secret that everyone knows

I cannot straightforwardly state that Israel is a nuclear power. US and Israeli officials drop hints that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, but quickly follow up with strenuous denials. The last fifty years, at least, have witnessed Israel building up its (alleged) nuclear technology. Not only the US, but France has assisted the Israeli authorities in constructing (allegedly) nuclear weapons for the Zionist state.

While no-one wants to categorically state whether Israel possesses nuclear weapons, Israeli government ministers have done an admirable job of incriminating themselves. In the early days of Israel’s assault on Gaza, at least one government minister openly suggested using a nuclear bomb on the Palestinians. It would be foolish in the extreme to suggest using a powerful weapon not in your arsenal.

Soon after the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, David Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders took a strong interest in developing military technology. Chaim Weizmann, himself a scientist, developed those branches of science which would feed directly into military interests. Both politicians laid the scientific foundations for what would become Israel’s defence industry, including the Negev Nuclear Research Centre.

Since the 1950s, French technicians have assisted Israel in acquiring nuclear (and conventional) military technology. The two colonial states have a mutually beneficial arrangement; both are hostile to the emergence of Arab nationalism – France in its former colony of Algeria, and Zionism opposes Palestinian and wider Arab nationalist states.

The lessons of Nihon Hidankyo prompt all of us to take a stand for denuclearisation. A revived peace movement, highlighting the links between nuclear weapons, aggressive military rearmament and an economy geared towards wealth aggrandisement, is more urgent than ever.

Let’s not forget that the US military is a bigger polluter than many nations combined.

Robert Koehler, writing in Common Dreams, states that victims who have transformed their suffering into agency can guide us on the path to peace. We can stop the advocates of global militarism from being the arbiters of our future.