Hello I’m Hiroe Makiyama, Member of the Upper House in the National Diet of Japan.
I would like to make a suggestion. Since we’re all here from distant countries, and have had the wonderful opportunity to exchange our positions and views, I would suggest that when we go back to our respective countries, that we communicate and transmit either in small scale or large scale, in a private capacity or public capacity, the purpose and goal of the Global Zero to the public. For example, personally I intend to report the discussions and purpose of this conference on my website, report to my constituency in the form of meetings, make a report in my newsletter and whenever appropriate, bring up this issue in the National Diet. As Queen Noor mentioned, grass roots effort should be the task of each and all of us when we go back to our respective countries.
Secondly, I’d also like to comment on Mr. Asao (also a member of the Japanese Diet)’s suggestion on the potential meeting in Hiroshima. Speaking from my personal experience, I’m actually a graduate of an international school in Tokyo which consisted of children from 56 countries. Before graduating, we made it a custom to visit Hiroshima for our last graduation retreat. There, in the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, children learned the devastating effect of nuclear weapon, that people actually vanish, or at least melt when the nuclear weapon is used. The school taught us to go back to our respective countries with this experience in mind, and go on with our lives. I think it is crucial to keep highlighting, transmitting and keeping everyone aware of the reality of the devastating effect of nuclear weapons and for that reason, I agree and recommend the idea of a meeting in Hiroshima.
