By SOPHIE DUMARESQ
SILIENCE, broken by the sound of magpies in the trees, the curious murmurs of bystanders and the heavy breathing of the 30 something motionless bodies sprawled around me on the hot pavement of Garema Place under a late October Australian sun.
It’s been around two minutes since the whistle went off — signaling the start of the flash mob. One minute to go and I can almost feel the heat radiating off those at my feet, and their various itches and nose twitches.
Some crouching, others doubled over, sprawled across the concrete. Michael, one of the Red Cross volunteers and organisers of the flash mob, told me earlier, before the event, of a couple in another capital city who decided to freeze for the three minutes in the grips of their last kiss.
But for me, it is those who in whatever pose they decided to take on, who leave a shadow behind, who leave a lasting impression.
Their shadow, a chilling reminder of what the symbol of the nuclear warhead actually means and what is indeed the fate of those who encounter it on the wrong end of its descent.
Today, in front of me is a cardboard cut-out of a nuclear warhead, reflecting back the sunshine at me, in my camera lens, as the sound of baby magpies being kicked out of their nests draws an end to the eerie three minutes of silence.
On 6 August 1945, the first nuclear warhead was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, beginning the end of the Second World War. No baby birds or the curious giggles of bystanders broke the silence that fell on Hiroshima and the world that day. Only the echoing horror, followed three days later, by the second bombs detonation over Nagasaki.
For many, all that was left was a shadow of their ashes on the wall behind them.
Today the Red Cross, through the flash mob, hopes to raise awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons, hopefully leading to worldwide nuclear disarmament.
David Boston, the official organiser of the Canberra flashmob and a member of the Red Cross’s Young Humanitarians described his and the other flash mob members’ personal and local aims: “We are all young A.C.T humanitarians who have put in their time for the Red Cross and we would like to raise awareness and get the message out that the Australian Red Cross is having a campaign to ban the use of nuclear weapons.”
On a national level he said he would like to see “a national debate on this issue, just broader awareness nationally about nuclear weapons and the devastating consequences they have for the human race”.
He would like to see “a greater awareness of the danger of nuclear weaponry as well as the eventual faltering and ending of WMD construction”.
According to Tim Wright, the Australian director of the International Campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, as published in the Australian Red Cross’s International Humanitarian Law Magazine, issue 2, 2011, there are at least 20,000 nuclear warheads in world.
Alex Ford a non- Red Cross member of the flash mob, who decided to take part at the last minute after hearing about it through friends on the social media networking site Facebook, said, “I want to live in a world that is safer for myself and for the future of humanity, and I dislike violence. But power will not be given up without a fight. The statistics can be found throughout history.”
He did not think this flashmob had been a success.
“More people need to get involved, for people to actually take notice,” he said.
The International Court of Justice has said, “The threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law.“
For this generation, it only takes a brief recollection of the 2009 North Korean underground nuclear tests to send a shiver down your spine, with the sunshine on your face and your shadow forever following behind you.
