Nuclear Threat, “The Cataclysm of Damocles”

Some days ago, I wrote a blog on “Nuclear threat”.

Re-reading the conference "The Cataclysm of Damocles" uttered by the unforgettable Gabriel García Márquez in Ixtapa, Mexico, on August 6, 1986, on the occasion of 41st anniversary of Hiroshima’s bomb, I cannot resist quoting some paragraphs that are still completely valid.

It is unacceptable to permanently live under the huge sword of Damocles, as it is possible "the explosion -targeted or accidental- only of a minimum fraction of the nuclear arsenal going to sleep with one eye and the other awake with the Saint Barbaras of the great powers". It can be mentioned without exaggeration that "Every human being, without excluding children, are sitting on a barrel with about four tons of dynamite, whose explosion can eliminate 12 times all life on Earth". It is "... wasting the chance of a better life for all ...”

García Márquez emphasizes that: “not any science, art or industry, has been doubled as many times as the nuclear industry since its origin, 41 years ago, not even any other creation of human ingenuity had such a power of determination on destiny of the world. " And meanwhile, I never tire of repeating, that 30,000 persons die every day of hunger and abandonment... The Nobel Prize mentions as an example what was then needed in child care, health, nutrition and education ... The data were frightening and could not but cause deep indignation. Unfortunately, the situation has not improved but, what seemed impossible, has worsened...

Later on he expressed that "... it is essential to be supported in creating, in education and justice areas, because the only thing that can save us from barbarism is a culture of peace.”

And this magnificent conference ended with words that still have the same validity as in 1986: "It depends on us, men and women of science, men and women of the Humanities, men and women of intelligence and peace... to get involved in the commitment of designing and producing an ark of memory, able to survive to the atomic flood ", if necessary by" ... how deaf turned out to our peace outcries in order to have the best life possible, and which barbarian inventions and why so petty interests erased it from the Universe ".

We cannot tolerate this collective shame one more day... Let us react. Let us stop being unaffected and passive "spectators". Let’s raise our voice. Million voices that -now can express freely- once and for all, be released from "The cataclysm of Damocles”.