22nd September 2021

SGI’s Nuclear Disarmament Efforts in Mexico

Photo Credit: Online version of the exhibition “Everything You Treasure—For a World Free From Nuclear Weapons” © Seikyo Shimbun

  • Disarmament
  • Nuclear Abolition
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Online version of the exhibition “Everything You Treasure—For a World Free From Nuclear Weapons”

In August 2017, the SGI, OPANAL, Soka Gakkai of Mexico (SGMex) and the Foreign Ministry of Mexico cohosted the exhibition “Everything You Treasure—For a World Free From Nuclear Weapons” in a historical building located in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Plaza of the Three Cultures) in the Tlatelolco neighborhood of Mexico City. A monument was unveiled there to commemorate both the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the 60th anniversary of second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda’s declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

On 17 August 2021, SGMex launched an online version of “Everything You Treasure—For a World Free From Nuclear Weapons,” created by SGI and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). During the opening ceremony, Professor Eduardo Torres Maldonado of the Metropolitan Autonomous University delivered a lecture calling for a philosophy suitable to this time of crisis. The online exhibition is published as a video in which curators provide explanations and highlights of each panel.

Online forum on nuclear disarmament hosted by the youth of SGMex © Seikyo Shimbun

On 8 September 2021, the youth of SGMex hosted an online forum on nuclear disarmament, which began with the showing of an earlier exhibition on nuclear disarmament from February 2002 that was cohosted by the SGI, the OPANAL and the Foreign Ministry of Mexico. Participants also watched a testimony by Ms. Sueko Takada, who experienced the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Youth members then gave a presentation introducing second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda’s 1957 declaration, which called for the abolition of nuclear weapons and stressed the importance of the Treaty of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW entered into force on January 22, 2021. Participants were also shown a video of SGMex’s activities for nuclear disarmament, introducing the decades-long collaboration between SGMex and the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), the agency responsible for the Treaty of Tlatelolco.