Speeches from the OPANAL meeting
Carmen Ramirez, esq.
Speaking on Behalf of the Atomic Mirror
Remarks to General Conference of OPANAL
November 7-8, 2005
Santiago, Chile
(Click here for the Spanish
Version)
Mr. President Luis Winter, Ambassador Edmundo Carrena Vargas, Secretary General of OPANAL, and distinguished and honored delegates of the member states of the Treaty of Tlateloloco, and all of the distinguished and honored participants and observers to this conference for the peace and health of all. Thank you for invitation and your warm welcome. And thank you to the Chilean government for its magnificent hospitality.
I am Maria Carmen Ramirez, resident of Alta California and the Americas, and of our precious and blue planet. I speak for the civil society organization, the Atomic Mirror, and its directors, Pamela Meidell of California and Janet Bloomfield of Great Britain. I am here with my colleagues, Dr. Deborah De Vries and Dr. Gabino Aguirre, two respected and loved educations of Ventura County.
The Atomic Mirror believes in the use of the cultural arts to transform our world. So it is a privilege and an honor to be here in this meeting, in this city, in this country, in this continent, where I belong and which is part of my blood and my history.
I have had the honor to meet Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are persons who have suffered in their lives, the intolerable, the inconceivable. If we could experience in our skins what they have, there would be no possibility of new wars and nuclear bombings...But the majority of us in this world is not aware, and have no idea about what has happened. We are in a nuclear coma.
I come from the only country whose government has unleashed nuclear weapons in an attack against cities and civilian populations. Because of this we have a heavy burden to be here and every corner of the earth to declare that there should not be any more nuclear arms. It is now time to announce that the politics of such weapons is antiquated, obsolete, damaging to the world and the cosmos, to every human being, living creature, important thing on our planet. And no longer can we follow the path to death. We are here to remind the whole world, remember your humanity, and remember the people in whichever government, especially in our country of the United States of America, remember your humanity. This about your loved ones, you children, your grandchildren, your descendents, and all of our human race, and beyond, think of everything that is alive on the earth, the skies, and the seas. We have to turn around and change the mentality of assuming that we can live with this poison within the reach of those who want to make war or threaten other countries and governments with annihilation.
We are here to say that we must and we can stop these nuclear arms and make them disappear. At times it may seem difficult if not impossible to change the politics of those Governments, which have nuclear weapons.
But we are witnesses that one single person can change the world. Only a few days ago a great lady of our country, Rosa Parks, died. The lady said that no, no she would not move to a seat in back of the bus because of the color of her skin. And there began the movement for civil rights in the United States which would end the shameful policy of racial inequality, injustice and ignorance in our country, the country that fought along with other countries or the democracy and liberty in Europe in the Second World War.
Each one of us can doe the work of a leader like Mrs. Rosa Parks. We can be ambassadors carrying the fire to show the way through the darkness towards the light and health of a world finally free of nuclear weapons.
We also ask for the support and help of you from the countries of the nuclear weapons free zones. Lend us your genius, your creativity, your vision. Help us to go forward.
I dare to invoke Bartolome de Las Casas, who spoke in dangerous times in favor of the indigenous people of this continent. And as we are in this country of luminous Chilean writers, I also want to invoke Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende and Violeta Parra who wrote a hymn to the universe:
Thanks to life, that has given me so much.
It gave me my heart, which stirs my frame
When I look at the fruit of the human intelligence;
when I look at the good so far from the bad,
when I look into the depth of your clear eyes
Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It has given me laughter and it has given me tears.
So I can distinguish happiness from sorrow,
The two materials which build my song,
And the song of all of you, which is the same song,
And the song of everyone, which is my own song.
Yes, thanks to life, which has given us so much.
The moment has arrived for each one of us and each group of us to put an end to the threat to our lives which is outside of our door 24 hours of each of the 365 days of the year, every year.
And as our leader of the farm workers in California, Cesar Chavez said: Yes it can be done! Come; let's get to work!
