Letter of the Day | Freedom under the nuclear shadow

THE EDITOR, Madam:

On August 6, Jamaica celebrates its 64th anniversary of Independence. The same date marks the 81st anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb against a human population, when Hiroshima was devastated in 1945. The convergence of these anniversaries makes the recent inaugural New Freedom Lecture at the Norman Manley Law School, delivered by the Honourable Mr Justice Winston Anderson, president of the Caribbean Court of Justice, especially significant.

Independence celebrates a people’s right to self-determination, dignity and freedom from external domination. Yet, how free are small states when a handful of nuclear powers retain the capacity to place all humanity at risk? The Caribbean possesses no nuclear arsenal, but radioactive fallout, environmental disruption, food insecurity and economic collapse would not respect national borders. Those who do not possess these weapons still bear the danger created by them.

Justice Anderson’s call for a global No First Use doctrine deserves strong support. It would establish a legal firebreak against pre-emptive nuclear warfare. However, law alone cannot resolve the deeper crisis. Law may establish a boundary; conscience must give nations the will not to cross it.

Christian theology affirms that every human being bears the image of God. Nuclear warfare violates this dignity because it turns nationality into presumed guilt and entire populations into instruments of retaliation. It cannot distinguish rulers from citizens, combatants from children, or the guilty from the innocent. In this sense, nuclear war is collective punishment perfected by technology.

The panel also distinguished nuclear weapons from peaceful nuclear science. The Apocryphal book Sirach honours physicians and the skill through which the properties of creation become instruments of healing. Nuclear technology used in medicine, agriculture, water management and environmental monitoring may serve life. The moral problem is not knowledge itself, but knowledge redirected towards domination and mass destruction.

Bob Marley’s declaration “Have no fear for atomic energy” may be understood as faith that no political ruler can become God Most High. Yet, divine sovereignty is not an excuse for passivity. It should free us from fear so that we may resist those who attempt to govern humanity through fear.

A Caribbean response must remember that the destruction of civilisation did not begin with the atomic bomb. Slavery and colonialism erased languages, histories, sacred traditions and the achievements of colonised peoples. Nuclear annihilation would universalise that ancient logic: the powerful deciding whose lives, lands and memories are expendable.

No First Use is necessary, but it cannot be the final destination. Humanity must move beyond permanent dependence on nuclear terror towards disarmament, accountable technology, cooperative security and lasting peace rooted in justice.

Dudley McLean II

Email: dm15094@gmail.com