Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon, everyone. The first item of business is time for reflection, for which our leader is Father Paul Morton, the priest of Saint Bride’s Roman Catholic church in Cambuslang.
Father Paul Morton (Saint Bride’s Roman Catholic Church, Cambuslang)
The date 6 August 1945 may be one that you remember and find instantly recognisable. I wish to address you on that date and to encourage you to make it more known and a special day of remembrance in our land.
At 8.15 am on that day, the Enola Gay released the atomic bomb 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima. Shima hospital, in the centre of the city, took the full force of the blast—every doctor, every nurse and every patient died in a fraction of a second. The ensuing heat charred every living thing within 500m and scorched everything within 2km. Temperatures are said to have risen to 4,000°C and the wind speed rose to 440km per second.
Schools, homes, factories and other buildings were levelled to the ground. It is estimated that the number of fatalities was initially 80,000 people, which rose to 160,000 people, and the number of casualties was reckoned to be about 67,000. Sadly, more was to follow with the dropping of another atomic bomb in Nagasaki, when between 60,000 and 80,000 people lost their lives.
No matter what way we look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those were dark days in human history. A bomb was detonated that could put to the sword every living thing in a city, could destroy every building and could erase a civilisation that had taken 1,000 years to build up. Furthermore, it began an arms race—the creation of missiles and bombs many times more powerful than the bombs that landed on the Japanese cities and which, if used, could destroy every living thing on the planet.
We are walking a tightrope. We are living in the most perilous times. One wrong move, one world crisis or one person who thinks that they can gamble all and we could easily lose all.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand as a warning to us all. The pictures tell all of the desolation and human misery; they tell us of the utter destruction that warfare can do. To borrow a saying of the day, we are better than this—we are much better than this.
Make 6 August every year a special day of remembrance in our land. Consider each year the great loss of life and the terror of warfare. Remind people of the utter tragedy of that day, in the hope of avoiding a still greater tragedy and still greater darker days.
Before calling the next item of business, I inform Parliament that we have agreed with the business managers that the Presiding Officer will take the vote on motion S4M-07799, on the variation of standing orders, from last Thursday’s business at decision time today.