Broadcast August 12 2008
The Olympic Games finally began at the weekend, despite all the negative publicity on China’s human rights record. In the same region of the world, in Nagasaki, Japan, a large crowd gathered at the Peace Park on Saturday to commemorate the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb – an action that caused the death of 70,000 people in 1945 and over 145,000 ultimately as the result of radiation poisoning. That gathering ended with a call to those nations that have nuclear weapons to do more about getting rid of them.
As signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the UK has ostensibly committed itself to this goal. The idea behind this agreement is that new countries do not begin to develop nuclear weapons. In return,those nations which already have them will work hard to reduce and eliminate them. Sounds like a good idea, and certainly any time a country like Iran seems to be starting to develop a nuclear capability they are quickly reminded of the error of their ways. Yet it is hard to see what progress is being made amongst the nuclear club of nations – especially as our own government for example, seems bent on replacing Trident with a new generation of missiles.
We humans have always had this tendency to whitewash ourselves whilst demonising others. The word for this is hypocrisy and it seems to have been the thing that annoyed Jesus more than anything else.
If you can forgive the pun, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that there is hypocrisy in us as a nation threatening other countries for wanting to develop nuclear weapons whilst we prepare to create new bombs for ourselves.
With our different histories, outlooks and aspirations it is hard to get the large family of nations moving together at the same pace and at the same level of understanding.
Jesus talked about “seeing the speck of wood in other people’s eyes whilst ignoring the log in our own”. Whether at international or personal level we need to take care of our own responsibilities first before lecturing others on theirs.