On 6th of August 2022 nuclear disarmament action groups Gareloch Horticulturalists Affinity Group and Trident Ploughshares built a huge cairn made of 140,000 origami cranes outside Queen Elizabeth House in Edinburgh, HQ of the UK government in Scotland.
Origami cranes are made as a symbol of hope for nuclear disarmament because of a Japanese girl called Sadako Sasaki who as a 2 year old lived in Hiroshima when the nuclear bomb was dropped in 1945. 140,000 people died both from the immediate blast, firestorms and radiation sickness and from cancers in the months following.
Sadako survived but when she was 10 years old she developed leukaemia. In hospital she heard that if you make 1000 origami paper cranes you get a wish. She wished for good health and for peace and disarmament. Her friends finished making the 1000 cranes after she died to remember her and her wish. People continue to do this worldwide to call for an end to nuclear weapons.
In 2016 Atsuko Betchaku, a volunteer at Peace and Justice Scotland started the project to make 140,000 cranes. Thousands of people joined in and sent them from all around the world and in 2021 they were displayed in the ‘Peace Cranes’ exhibition in St Johns Church, Princes St. They were finally taken to the doorstep of the UK Government in Scotland on the 77th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Protest in Harmony choir joined us to sing some lovely peace songs.
Each and every crane in this cairn was to remember a human life. Nuclear weapons must never be used again and we implore the UK government to uphold its obligations under the Non Proliferation Treaty by disarming its nuclear weapons, and to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear weapons and ban nuclear weapons for good.