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Berkeley's Peace Day Reflects on Bombings
by Henry M. Lopez, August 9, 2004

Only yards away from the rush of evening traffic along I-80, more than 500 people gathered Saturday to commemorate the 59th anniversary of one of the most infamous episodes in human history—the 1945 detonation of an atomic weapon over Hiroshima, Japan.

Berkeley's observance of what has come to be known as Peace Day is in its third year, joining a growing number of cities worldwide that use the day to reflect not only on how world peace might be attained, but also on the continuing controversy over nuclear weapons.

The event was organized by Steve Freedkin, a Berkeley resident who also sits on Berkeley 's Peace and Justice Commission, with the sponsorship of about a dozen local organizations.

In Hiroshima , more than 45,000 people gathered in the Peace Memorial Park to hear the city's Peace Bell and sirens sound at exactly 8:15 a.m. local time, when the city was decimated by the bomb called “Little Boy” 59 years ago. Its counterpart, “Fat Man”, was dropped on Nagasaki less than a week later in the last chapter of World War II.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, as part of the city's tradition since 1947, issued a peace declaration calling on all nations to eliminate their nuclear arsenals by 2020. He also criticized U.S. efforts to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons as part of the war on terror.

“The egocentric worldview of the U.S. government is reaching extremes, Akiba said. “Ignoring the United Nations and its foundation of international law, the U.S. has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and more usable.”

Akiba also sent a less incendiary statement to Berkeley , which was read as ceremonies began just after dusk on the north end of Aquatic Park .

While some at the Berkeley event learned to fold origami cranes, most prepared themselves for the evening's main event, the lantern ceremony.

Children and adults assembled and decorated their own paper lantern shades. Event organizers supplied buoyant bases with candles to which the shades were attached and set afloat by volunteers.

Participants wrote a message about the meaning of peace on each lantern. Some were pithy, like the one by the mother who wrote, “No War for My Son.” Others were simple drawings made by children—stick figures, hearts, flowers and pets.

A pair of Buddhist priests set the evening's tenor by giving a pre-ceremony “aspiration,” a kind of prayer and chant. The purpose of the evening's chant was to call forth ancestral spirits and the spirits of those killed in war and send them back to rest with thanks for having blessed the ceremony, said Brian Kensho Nagata, director of the Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research in Berkeley.

Berkeley 's peace lantern ceremony is the only one of its kind in the Bay Area specifically commemorating the atomic attacks, Freedkin said.

“I knew then, if there wasn't one already, I'd have to start one,” Freedkin said.

The launching of the peace flotilla, however, was not without its own problems. The wind blowing in from the bay not only iced the air but kept changing the trajectory of the lanterns, sending them toward shore. Finally, though, the winds changed and the twinkling lanterns spread out over the water.

Originally published in the Daily Californian.

Learn more :: Article Archives :: Berkeley's Peace Day Reflects on Bombings