Dude, Where’s my Hiroshima?

It was a nuclear bomb called «Little Boy,» which fell over the center of Hiroshima, that brought WWII to an abrupt and dramatic end for Japan. The bomb exploded about 600 meters above the city with a blast equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT, and the results were devastating: as many as 140,000 Hiroshimans—or over 65% of the city’s entire population—died on the instant; the radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km, with resulting ires across 11.4 km²; infrastructure damage was estimated at 90% of Hiro-shima’s buildings either severely dam-aged or completely destroyed.

The Japanese, and indeed the entire world, were shocked to their foundation by the magnitude of what had happened. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito, a figure of reverence and deity to his own people, was forced to swallow the bitter pill of defeat, and even consider a Japan without a kokutai (Imperial Institution). His Imperial Majesty was in a pensive and philosophical mood when accepting the terms of capitulation:

“… Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

“ Emperor Hirohito’s capitulation announcement was broadcast to the Japanese nation on August 15. 40,000 U.S. occupation troops took over Hiroshima. Far more devastating than the physical damage done by the bomb,was the death blow dealt to Japan’s national pride and dignity. The nation looked frayed, broken and tattered; her proudest and most revered symbols were humiliated. To the proud Japanese, it seemed as though the heavens had collapsed over Japan’s mighty head.

Act II—The Six Day War It was 08:15 on the morning of June 5, 1967, when 250 Israeli French-made war planes law under Egyptian radars and, in under 45 minutes, started—and effectively ended—the third Arab-Israeli conflict with a dazzling and awesome single blow. In only 132 hours, Israel had managed to increase the land under its control threefold, eliminate Arab nationalism’s expansion, and—in the process—strike a humiliating blow to three major Arab armies. The Arab masses—promised by the harangues of Ahmad Sa’id (of Cairo’s Voice of Arabs) that Egyptian troops will be ‘marching through the liberated streets of Tel Aviv’—were completely and utterly dumbfounded. The dreams, hopes, and aspirations of an entire generation of Arabs were brought to an abrupt and bitter end. The great poet Nizar Qabbani best expressed the embitterment and disillusionment of Arabs in his seminal poem ‘Footnotes On the Book of the Setback:’

If we lost the war, that is not strange For we go to war with all our talents of speech; With our fables and myths That never killed a ly; For we go to war armed with the logic of the tabla and rababa*…

The tally of the Israeli blitz was, indeed, staggering: Egypt’s army lost between 10,000 and 15,000 men (among them 1,500 officers and 40 pilots), 5,000 were missing, and almost 5,000 POWs (of whom there were 21 Generals). Syria lost 450 soldiers, around 3,000 wounded, and 365 POWs (including 30 officers). Jordan had lost 700 soldiers, and over 6,000 wounded or missing. The economic bill the Arabs footed was equally enormous: Egypt lost the Suez Canal and all but 15 percent of her military hardware—US$2 Billion worth—including almost her entire Air force was completely destroyed. In addition, 320 tanks, 480 guns, 2 SAM missile batteries and as many as 10,000 vehicles all became Israeli war booty. All of Sinai, the West Bank and Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights now lay in Israeli hands, with the resulting influx of more than 250,000 new refugees. The seemingly invincible hero of Arabism Gamal Abdel Nasser, was in a somber and brooding mood. His nerve—indeed, his world was shattered by the military fiasco, and by the personal and political collapse of his closest allies (notably Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer). Gone was the smug revolutionary tone of his earlier speeches to the Arabs when he, quite visibly shaken, delivered the most famous speech of his entire life at 18:30 on June 9. His stoic Mea Culpa—the

first and, to date, the only such public display of responsibility for a failure or defeat in the Arab World—could not hide that he was, as of this moment, a broken man: “…I have taken a decision with which I need your help. I have decided to withdraw totally and for good from any official post or political role, and

to return to the ranks of the masses, performing my duty in their midst, like any other citizen. This is a time for action, not grief...” Israel, hitherto no more than a ‘State of Gangs’ (according to the Voice of Arabs), stood a towering force among her much-weakened Arab neighbors. To add insult to injury, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Jews. Far more devastating than the physical damage done by the defeat, was the death blow dealt to Arab’s national pride and dignity. The nation looked frayed, broken and tattered; her proudest and most revered symbols were humiliated. To the proud Arabs, it seemed as though the heavens had collapsed over their heads. Dude, Where is My Hiroshima? So, what’s the point? The Arabs and the Japanese are two proud nations, with a long and glorious history, a strong and cohesive culture, and time-honored traditions and civilization. Both nations were, in two different moments of their histories, subjected to crushing and humiliating defeats. But this is where the similarities end. 62 years after Hiroshima Japan has shed the sword of the Samurai, and donned the businessman suit to achieve world domination: Japan has the second largest economy in the world after the United States, at around US$4.5 trillion in terms of nominal GDP. Japan is also a leading nation in the fields of scientific research, technology, machinery and medical research, with a combined whopping US$130 billion research and development budget, the third largest in the world. In the 2006 Human Development Index (HDI) is-sued by the UNDP, Japan ranked ninth (Israel ranked 23rd). 40 years after the Six Day War on the other hand, the Arab defeat—or what the Arabs, in usual fashion, have come to dismissively call Al Naksa (the Setback)—has spawned nothing but further setbacks from Camp David to the ill-fated Oslo Accords. Across the board, the Arab World holds some of the worst records of all recorded standards—I will spare the reader the agony of figures, for the gap is, indeed, appalling—from education to democracy to human rights to economic performance. Not one Arab country, not even the rich oil sheikhdoms has ranked in the top-30 countries on the HDI. As an Arab, I cannot escape the feeling of being robbed of my chance for redemption after 1967. Every fiber of being rejects the notion that while Japan can rise phoenix-like from the ashes of her total destruction; the Arab World cannot recover from a single military and political defeat—no matter how significant. Let us learn our lesson from Japan, and try to emulate her triumph in rising from the ashes. Or let us have our Hiroshima.