Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility after Hiroshima

3. Beyond Good and Evil: Kōji Shigenobu and the True Pure Land Understanding of the Atomic Bombing

3 Beyond Good and Evil kōji shigenobu and the true pure land understanding of the atomic bombing On what condition does goodness exist beyond all calculation? On the condition that goodness forget itself, that the movement be a movement of the gift that renounces itself, hence a movement of infinite love. —jacques derrida, The Gift of Death Religion and the Atomic Bombing Ian Buruma has written that ‘‘religion was linked to the nuclear bombs from the beginning.’’1 Unprecedented in the scope of their devastation, and so excessive in their horror as to be beyond the purview of everyday language, the explosions of the atomic bombs have often been described and interpreted in religious language. Journalist William Leonard Laurence , covering the Manhattan Project in 1945, was near the detonation site of the first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Just ‘‘twenty miles away on Compania Hill,’’2 he described the moment of the blast: ‘‘It was as though the earth had opened and the skies had split. One felt as though one were present at the moment of creation when God said: ‘Let there be light.’’’3 Laurence’s book about the experience, Dawn Over Zero, opens with a chapter entitled ‘‘Genesis ’’ and concludes with ‘‘Armageddon.’’ J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the chief scientists leading the Manhattan Project, also resorted to religious language in describing the Alamogordo test, citing Bhagavad-Gita. ‘‘If the radiance of a thousand suns/Were to burst into the sky/That would be like/The splendor of the Mighty One.’’ When the ‘‘full enormity of the explosion dawned on Oppenheimer,’’ he again returned to this sacred text: ‘‘I am become 82 r e l i g i o u s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s Death, the shatterer of worlds.’’4 This name of this first test further bore out its religious quality: ‘‘The Trinity.’’ We have seen that the ethics of the hibakusha is grounded in their impulse for self-reflection and that commemoration as practiced at Hiroshima ’s Peace Memorial Museum—a secular institution—exhibits a religious aspect, for it promotes transethical relations in the form of dialogue with the dead.5 Now, through examination of explicitly religious interpretations of the atomic bombings in this and the following chapter, we may discern the manner in which religious interpretations, particularly those of hibakushas, contribute to the construction of an inclusive community of memory through this emphasis on selfre flection. We have already seen how nation and religion are often intertwined . But, of course, religion is not always congruent with nation, and neither are religious sentiments and ideas always in the service of nationalism. Discerning the religious resources for self-reflection will reveal at least one way in which religious traditions offer resources for approaching the bombing beyond the nation-state framework. Buruma finds religious interpretations of the atomic bombing problematic . ‘‘The trouble with focusing on God, sin, transgression and other moral or religious aspects of this [religious] strategy is that it makes it very hard to discuss the politics and the historical circumstances dispassionately. This is especially true when politicians, newspaper columnists, peace activists and veterans enter the debate. Too often emotional moralism sets the tone.’’6 To bolster his point, Buruma offers examples in which ‘‘God language’’ is used in support of arguments both to condemn and to condone the decision to drop the bombs. For instance, some condemn the nuclear attacks as a ‘‘sin against God and [hu]man,’’ in conjunction with the argument that the attacks were ‘‘unnecessary and politically reprehensible.’’ On the other hand, those believing that political exigencies were not sufficient to justify the bombing tend to take God on their side: ‘‘The bombs must show that God was on our side, that only the purest of motives prevailed.’’7 Buruma is right to suggest that religious language can serve to inject emotional heat into a debate in which dispassion and ‘‘objectivity’’ are called for. And it is true that appeals to religion can be used in support of most any political position. Together, these problems may indicate why religious interpretations of the bombings have to date been left so underexamined. Beyond Good and Evil 83 These genuine critiques of religious language notwithstanding, Buruma ’s otherwise subtle commentary on the bombings fails to appreciate the resources for critical self...